Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN LINCOLNSHIRE — CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY

In dealing with a county which measures seventy-five miles by forty-five, it will be best to assume that the tourist has either some form of “cycle” or, better still, a motor car. The railway helps one less in this than in most counties, as it naturally runs on the flat and unpicturesque portions, and also skirts the boundaries, and seldom attempts to pierce into the heart of the Wolds. Probably it would not be much good to the tourist if it did, as he would have to spend much of his time in tunnels which always come where there should be most to see, as on the Louth and Lincoln line between Withcal and South Willingham. As it is, the only bit of railway by which a person could gather that Lincolnshire was anything but an ugly county is that between Lincoln and Grantham.

But that it is a county with a great deal of beauty will be, I am sure, admitted by those who follow up the routes described in the following pages. They will find that it is a county famous for wide views, for wonderful sunsets, for hills and picturesque hollows; and full, too, of the human interest which clings round old buildings, and the uplifting pleasure which its many splendid specimens of architecture have power to bestow.

At the outset the reader must identify himself so far with the people of Lincolnshire as to make himself at home in the universally accepted meanings of certain words and expressions which he will hear constantly recurring. He will soon come to know that ‘siver’ means however, that ‘slaäpe’ means slippery, that ‘unheppen,’ a fine old word (—unhelpen), means awkward, that ‘owry’ or ‘howry’ means dirty; but, having learnt this, he must not conclude that the word ‘strange’ in ‘straänge an’ owry weather’ means anything unfamiliar. ‘Straänge’—perhaps the commonest adverbial epithet in general use in Lincolnshire—e.g. “you’ve bin a straänge long while coming” only means very. But besides common conversational expressions he will have to note that the well-known substantives ‘Marsh’ and ‘Fen’ bear in Lincolnshire a special meaning, neither of them now denoting bog or wet impassable places. The Fens are the rich flat corn lands, once perpetually flooded, but now drained and tilled; the divisions between field and field being mostly ditches, small or big, and all full of water; the soil is deep vegetable mould, fine, and free from stones, hardly to be excelled for both corn and roots; while the Marsh is nearly all pasture land, stiffer in nature, and producing such rich grass that the beasts can grow fat upon it without other food. Here, too, the fields are divided by ditches or “dykes” and the sea wind blows over them with untiring energy, for the Marsh is all next the coast, being a belt averaging seven or eight miles in width, and reaching from the Wash to the Humber.

From this belt the Romans, by means of a long embankment, excluded the waters of the sea; and Nature’s sand-dunes, aided by the works of man in places, keep up the Roman tradition. Even before the Roman bank was made, the Marsh differed from the Fen, in that the waters which used to cover the fens were fed by the river floods and the waters from the hills, and it was not, except occasionally and along the course of a tidal river, liable to inundation from the sea; whereas the Marsh was its natural prey. Of course both Marsh and Fen are all level. But the third portion of the county is of quite a different character, and immediately you get into it all the usual ideas about Lincolnshire being a flat, ugly county vanish, and as this upland country extends over most of the northern half of the county, viz., from Spilsby to the Humber on the eastern side and from Grantham to the Humber on the western, it is obvious that no one can claim to know Lincolnshire who does not know the long lines of the Wolds, which are two long spines of upland running north and south, with flat land on either side of them.

These, back-bones of the county, though seldom reaching 500 feet, come to their highest point of 530 between Walesby and Stainton-le-Vale, a valley set upon a hill over which a line would pass drawn from Grimsby to Market Rasen. The hilly Wold region is about the same width as the level Marsh belt, averaging eight miles, but north of Caistor this narrows. There are no great streams from these Wolds, the most notable being the long brook whose parent branches run from Stainton-in-the-Vale and “Roman hole” near Thoresway, and uniting at Hatcliffe go out to the sea with the Louth River “Lud,” the two streams joining at Tetney lock.

North of Caistor the Wolds not only narrow, but drop by Barnetby-le-Wold to 150 feet, and allow the railway lines from Barton-on-Humber, New Holland and Grimsby to pass through to Brigg. This, however, is only a ‘pass,’ as the chalk ridge rises again near Elsham, and at Saxby attains a height of 330 feet, whence it maintains itself at never less than 200 feet, right up to Ferriby-on-the-Humber. These Elsham and Saxby Wolds are but two miles across.

Naturally this Wold region with the villages situated in its folds or on its fringes is the pretty part of the county, though the Marsh with its extended views, its magnificent sunsets and cloud effects,

its splendid cattle and its interesting flora, its long sand-dunes covered with stout-growing grasses, sea holly and orange-berried buckthorn, and finally its magnificent sands, is full of a peculiar charm; and then there are its splendid churches; not so grand as the fen churches it is true, but so nobly planned and so unexpectedly full of beautiful old carved woodwork.

West of these Wolds is a belt of Fen-land lying between them and the ridge or ‘cliff’ on which the great Roman Ermine Street runs north from Lincoln in a bee line for over thirty miles to the Humber near Winteringham, only four miles west of the end of the Wolds already mentioned at South Ferriby.

The high ridge of the Lincoln Wold is very narrow, a regular ‘Hogs back’ and broken down into a lower altitude between Blyborough and Kirton-in-Lindsey, and lower again a little further north near Scawby and still more a few miles further on where the railway goes through the pass between Appleby Station and Scunthorpe.

From here a second ridge is developed parallel with the Lincoln Wold, and between the Wold and the Trent, the ground rising from Bottesford to Scunthorpe, reaching a height of 220 feet on the east bank of the Trent near Burton-on-Stather and thence descending by Alkborough to the Humber at Whitton. The Trent which, roughly speaking, from Newark, and actually from North Clifton to the Humber, bounds the county on the west, runs through a low country of but little interest, overlooked for miles from the height which is crowned by Lincoln Minster. Only the Isle of Axholme lies outside of the river westwards.

The towns of Gainsborough towards the north, and Stamford at the extreme south guard this western boundary. Beyond the Minster the Lincoln Wold continues south through the Sleaford division of Kesteven to Grantham, but in a modified form, rising into stiff hills only to the north-east and south-west of Grantham, and thence passing out of the county into Leicestershire. A glance at a good map will show that the ridge along which the Ermine Street and the highway from Lincoln to Grantham run for seventeen miles, as far, that is, as Ancaster, is not a wide one; but drops to the flats more gently east of the Ermine Street than it does to the west of the Grantham road. From Sleaford, where five railway lines converge, that which goes west passes through a natural break in the ridge by Ancaster, the place from which, next after the “Barnack rag,” all the best stone of the churches of Lincolnshire has always been quarried. South of Ancaster the area of high ground is much wider, extending east and west from the western boundary of the county to the road which runs from Sleaford to Bourne and Stamford.

Such being the main features of the county, it will be as well to lay down a sort of itinerary showing the direction in which we will proceed and the towns which we propose to visit as we go.

Entering the county from the south, at Stamford, we will make for Sleaford. These are the two towns which give their names to the divisions of South and North Kesteven. Grantham lies off to the west, about midway between the two. As this is the most important town in the division of Kesteven, after taking some of the various roads which radiate from Sleaford we will make Grantham our centre, then leave South Kesteven for Sleaford again, and thence going on north we shall reach Lincoln just over the North Kesteven boundary, and so continue to Gainsborough and Brigg, from which the west and north divisions of Lindsey are named. From each of the towns we have mentioned we shall trace the roads which lead from them in all directions; and then, after entering the Isle of Axholme and touching the Humber at Barton and the North Sea at Cleethorpes and Grimsby, we shall turn south to the Louth and Horncastle (in other words the east and south) divisions of Lindsey, and, so going down the east coast, we shall, after visiting Alford and Spilsby, both in South Lindsey, arrive at Boston and then at Spalding, both in the “parts of Holland,” and finally pass out of the county near the ancient abbey of Croyland.

By this itinerary we shall journey all round the huge county, going up, roughly speaking, on the west and returning by the east; and shall see, not only how it is divided into the political “parts” of Kesteven, Lindsey and Holland, but also note as we go the characteristics of the land and its three component elements of Fen, Wold and Marsh.

We have seen that the Wolds, starting from the Humber, run in two parallel ridges; that on the west side of the county reaching the whole way from north to south, but that on the east only going half the way and ending abruptly at West Keal, near Spilsby.

All that lies east of the road running from Lincoln by Sleaford and Bourne to Stamford, and south of a line drawn from Lincoln to Wainfleet is “Fen,” and includes the southern portion of South Lindsey, the eastern half of Kesteven, and the whole of Holland.

In this Fen country great houses are scarce. But the great monasteries clung to the Fens and they were mainly responsible for the creation of the truly magnificent Fen churches which are most notably grouped in the neighbourhood of Boston, Sleaford and Spalding. In writing of the Fens, therefore, the churches are the chief things to be noticed, and this is largely, though not so entirely, the case in the Marsh district also. Hence I have ventured to describe these Lincolnshire churches of the Marsh and Fen at greater length than might at first sight seem warrantable.

It would make it easier to follow these descriptions if the reader were first to master the dates and main characteristics of the different periods of architecture and their order of sequence. Thus, roughly speaking, we may assign each style to one century, though of course the style and the century were not in any case exactly coterminous.

CHAPTER II STAMFORD

The Great Northern line, after leaving Peterborough, enters the county at Tallington, five miles east of Stamford. Stamford is eighty-nine miles north of London, and forty miles south of Lincoln. Few towns in England are more interesting, none more picturesque. The Romans with their important station of Durobrivæ at Castor, and another still nearer at Great Casterton, had no need to occupy Stamford in force, though they doubtless guarded the ford where the Ermine Street crossed the Welland, and possibly paved the water-way, whence arose the name Stane-ford. The river here divides the counties of Lincoln and Northamptonshire, and on the north-west of the town a little bit of Rutland runs up, but over three-quarters of the town is in our county. The Saxons always considered it an important town, and as early as 664 mention is made in a charter of Wulfhere, King of Mercia, of “that part of Staunforde beyond the bridge,” so the town was already on both sides of the river. Later again, in Domesday Book, the King’s borough of Stamford is noticed as paying tax for the army, navy and Danegelt, also it is described as “having six wards, five in Lincolnshire and one in Hamptonshire, but all pay customs and dues alike, except the last in which the Abbot of Burgh (Peterborough) had and hath Gabell and toll.”

This early bridge was no doubt a pack-horse bridge, and an arch on the west side of St. Mary’s Hill still bears the name of Packhorse Arch.

St. Leonard’s Priory, Stamford.

St. Leonard’s Priory is the oldest building in the neighbourhood. After Oswy, King of Northumbria, had defeated Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, he gave the government of this part of the conquered province to Penda’s son Pæda, and gave land in Stamford to his son’s tutor, Wilfrid, and here, in 658, Wilfrid built the priory of St. Leonard which he bestowed on his monastery at Lindisfarne, and when the monks removed thence to Durham it became a cell of the priory of Durham. Doubtless the building was destroyed by the Danes, but it was refounded in 1082 by the Conqueror and William of Carilef, the then Bishop of Durham.

The Danish marauders ravaged the country, but were met at Stamford by a stout resistance from Saxons and Britons combined; but in the end they beat the Saxons and nearly destroyed Stamford in 870. A few years later, when, after the peace of Wedmore, Alfred the Great gave terms to Guthrum on condition that he kept away to the north of the Watling Street, the five towns of Stamford, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Lincoln were left to the Danes for strongholds; of these Lincoln then, as now, was the chief.

The early importance of Stamford may be gauged by the facts that Parliament was convened there more than once in the fourteenth century, and several Councils of War and of State held there. One of these was called by Pope Boniface IX. to suppress the doctrines of Wyclif. There, too, a large number of nobles met to devise some check on King John, who was often in the neighbourhood either at Kingscliffe, in Rockingham Forest, or at Stamford itself—and from thence they marched to Runnymede.

The town was on the Great North Road, so that kings, when moving up and down their realm, naturally stopped there. A good road also went east and west, hence, just outside the town gate on the road leading west towards Geddington and Northampton, a cross (the third) was set up in memory of the halting of Queen Eleanor’s funeral procession in 1293 on its way from Harby near Lincoln to Westminster.

St. George’s Square, Stamford.

There was a castle near the ford in the tenth century, and Danes and Saxons alternately held it until the Norman Conquest. The city, like the ancient Thebes, had a wall with seven gates besides posterns, one of which still exists in the garden of 9, Barn Hill, the house in which Alderman Wolph hid Charles I. on his last visit to Stamford in 1646. Most of the buildings which once made Stamford so very remarkable were the work of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and as they comprised fifteen churches, six priories, with hospitals, schools and almshouses in corresponding numbers, the town must have presented a beautiful appearance, more especially so because the stone used in all these buildings, public and private, is of such exceptionally good character, being from the neighbouring quarries of Barnack, Ketton and Clipsham. But much of this glory of stone building and Gothic architecture was destroyed in the year 1461; and for this reason. It happened that, just as Henry III. had given it to his son Edward I. on his marriage with Eleanor of Castile in 1254, so, in 1363, Edward III. gave the castle and manor of Stamford to his son Edmund of Langley, Duke of York; this, by attaching the town to the Yorkist cause, when Lincolnshire was mostly Lancastrian, brought about its destruction, for after the battle of St. Alban’s in 1461, the Lancastrians under Sir Andrew Trollope utterly devastated the town, destroying everything, and, though some of the churches were rebuilt, the town never recovered its former magnificence. It still looks beautiful with its six churches, its many fragments of arch or wall and several fine old almshouses which were built subsequently, but it lost either then or at the dissolution more than double of what it has managed to retain. Ten years later the courage shown by the men of Stamford at the battle of Empingham or “Bloody Oaks” close by, on the North Road, where the Lancastrians were defeated, caused Edward IV. to grant permission for the royal lions to be placed on the civic shield of Stamford, side by side with the arms of Earl Warren. He had had the manorial rights of Stamford given to him by King John in 1206, and he is said to have given the butchers a field in which to keep a bull to be baited annually on November 13, and the barbarous practice of “bull running” in the streets was actually kept up till 1839, and then only abolished with difficulty.

St. Mary’s Street, Stamford.

St. Paul’s Street, Stamford.

Of the six churches, St. Mary’s and All Saints have spires. St. Mary’s, on a hill which slopes to the river, is a fine arcaded Early English tower with a broach spire of later date, but full of beautiful work in statue and canopy, very much resembling that at Ketton in Rutland. There are three curious round panels with interlaced work over the porch, and a rich altar tomb with very lofty canopy that commemorates Sir David Phillips and his wife. They had served Margaret Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., who resided at Collyweston close by. The body of the church is rather crowded together and not easy to view. In this respect All Saints, with its turrets, pinnacles and graceful spire, and its double belfry lights under one hood moulding as at Grantham, has the advantage. Moreover the North Road goes up past it, and the market place gives plenty of space all round it. Inside, the arcade columns are cylindrical and plain on the north, but clustered on the south side, with foliated capitals. This church is rich in brasses, chiefly of the great wool-merchant family of Browne, one of whom, William, founded a magnificent hospital and enlarged the church, and in all probability built the handsome spire; he was buried in 1489. The other churches all have square towers, that of St. John’s Church is over the last bay of the north aisle, and at the last bay of the south aisle is a porch. The whole construction is excellent, pillars tall, roof rich and windows graceful, and it once was filled with exceptionally fine stained glass. St. George’s Church, being rebuilt with fragments of other destroyed churches, shows a curious mixture of octagonal and cylindrical work in the same pillars. St. Michael’s and St. Martin’s are the other two, of which the latter is across the water in what is called Stamford Baron, it is the burial place of the Cecils and it is not far from the imposing gateway into Burghley Park. This church and park, with the splendid house designed by John Thorpe for the great William Cecil in 1565, are all in the diocese of Peterborough, and the county of Northampton. We shall have to recall the church when we speak of the beautiful windows which Lord Exeter was allowed by the Fortescue family to take from the Collegiate Church of Tattershall, and which are now in St. Martin’s, where they are extremely badly set with bands of modern glass interrupting the old. Another remnant of a church stands on the north-west of the town, St. Paul’s. This ruin was made over as early as the sixteenth century for use as a schoolroom for Radcliffe’s Grammar School. Schools, hospitals or almshouses once abounded in Stamford, where the latter are often called Callises, being the benefactions of the great wool merchants of the Staple of Calais. The chief of all these, and one which is still in use, is Browne’s Hospital, founded in 1480 by a Stamford merchant who had been six times Mayor, for a Warden, a Confrater, ten poor men, and two poor women. It had a long dormitory hall, with central passage from which the brethren’s rooms opened on either side, and, at one end, beyond a carved screen, is the chapel with tall windows, stalls and carved bench-ends, and a granite alms box. An audit room is above the hall or dormitory, with good glass, and Browne’s own house, with large gateway to admit the wool-wagons, adjoined the chapel. It was partly rebuilt with new accommodation in 1870; the cloister and hall and chapel remain as they were. One more thing must be noted. In the north-west and near the old St. Paul’s Church schoolroom is a beautiful Early English gateway, which is all that remains of Brasenose College. The history is a curious one. Violent town and gown quarrels resulting even in murders, at Oxford in 1260, had caused several students to migrate to Northampton, where Henry III. directed the mayor to give them every accommodation; but in 1266, probably for reasons connected with civil strife, the license was revoked, and, whilst many returned to Oxford, many preferred to go further, and so came to Stamford, a place known to be well supplied with halls and requisites for learning. Here they were joined in 1333 by a further body of Oxford men who were involved in a dispute between the northern and southern scholars, the former complaining that they were unjustly excluded from Merton College Fellowships. The Durham Monastery took their side and doubtless offered them shelter at their priory of St. Leonard’s, Stamford. Then, as other bodies of University seceders kept joining them, they thought seriously of setting up a University, and petitioned King Edward III. to be allowed to remain under his protection at Stamford. But the Universities petitioned against them, and the King ordered the Sheriff of Lincolnshire to turn them out, promising them redress when they were back in Oxford. Those who refused were punished by confiscation of goods and fines, and the two Universities passed Statutes imposing an oath on all freshmen that they would not read or attend lectures at Stamford. In 1292 Robert Luttrell of Irnham gave a manor and the parish church of St. Peter, near Stamford, to the priory at Sempringham, being “desirous to increase the numbers of the convent and that it might ever have scholars at Stamford studying divinity and philosophy.” This refers to Sempringham Hall, one of the earliest buildings of Stamford University.

St. Peter’s Hill, Stamford.

A glance at a plan of the town would show that it is exactly like a maze, no street runs on right through it in any direction, and, for a stranger, it is incredibly difficult to find a way out. To the south-west, and all along the eastern edge on the river-meadows outside the walls, were large enclosures belonging to the different Friaries, on either side of the road to St. Leonard’s Priory. No town has lost more by the constant depredations of successive attacking forces; first the Danes, then the Wars of the Roses, then the dissolution of the religious houses, then the Civil War, ending with a visit from Cromwell in his most truculent mood, fresh from the mischief done by his soldiers in and around Croyland and Peterborough. But, even now, its grey stone buildings, its well-chosen site, its river, its neighbouring hills and wooded park, make it a town more than ordinarily attractive. Of distinguished natives, we need only mention the great Lord Burleigh, who served with distinction through four reigns, and Archdeacon Johnson, the founder of the Oakham and Uppingham Schools and hospitals in 1584, though Uppingham as it now is, was the creation of a far greater man, the famous Edward Thring, a pioneer of modern educational methods, in the last half of the nineteenth century. Archbishop Laud, who is so persistently mentioned as having been once Vicar of St. Martin’s, Stamford, was never there; his vicarage was Stanford-on-Avon. But undoubtedly Stamford’s greatest man in one sense was Daniel Lambert, whose monument, in St. Martin’s churchyard, date 1809, speaks of his “personal greatness” and tells us that he weighed 52 stone 11 lbs., adding “N.B. the stone of 14 lb.” The writer once, when a schoolboy, went with another to see his clothes, which were shown at the Daniel Lambert Inn; and, when the two stood back to back, the armhole of his spacious waistcoat was slipped over their heads and fell loosely round them to the ground.

This enormous personage must not be confounded with another Daniel Lambert, who was Lord Mayor and Member for the City of London in Walpole’s time, about 1740.

It is quite a matter of regret that “Burleigh House near Stamford town” is outside the county boundary. Of all the great houses in England, it always strikes me as being the most satisfying and altogether the finest, and a fitting memorial of the great Lincolnshire man William Cecil, who, after serving in the two previous reigns, was Elizabeth’s chief Minister for forty years. “The Lord of Burleigh” of Tennyson’s poem lived two centuries later, but he, too, with “the peasant Countess” lived eventually in the great house. Lady Dorothy Nevill, in My Own Times published in 1912, gives a clear account of the facts commemorated in the poem. She tells us that Henry Cecil, tenth Earl of Exeter, before he came into the title was divorced from his wife in 1791, owing to her misconduct; being almost broken-hearted he retired to a village in Shropshire, called Bolas Magna, where he worked as a farm servant to one Hoggins who had a mill. Tennyson makes him more picturesquely “a landscape painter.” He often looked in at the vicarage and had a mug of ale with the servants, who called him “Gentleman Harry.” The clergyman, Mr. Dickenson, became interested in him, and often talked with him, and used to invite him to smoke an evening pipe with him in the study. Mr. Hoggins had a daughter Sarah, the beauty of Bolas, and they became lovers. With the clergyman’s aid Cecil, not without difficulty, persuaded Hoggins to allow the marriage, which took place at St. Mildred’s, Bread Street, October 30th, 1791, his broken heart having mended fairly quickly. He was now forty years of age, and before the marriage he had told Dickenson who he was. For two years they lived in a small farm, when, from a Shrewsbury paper, “Mr. Cecil” learnt that he had succeeded his uncle in the title and the possession of Burleigh House and estate. Thither in due course he took his bride. Her picture is on the wall, but she did not live long.

Stamford from Freeman’s Close.

CHAPTER III STAMFORD TO BOURNE

Of the eight roads which run to Stamford, the Great North Road which here coincides with the Roman Ermine Street is the chief; and this enters from the south through Northamptonshire and goes out by the street called “Scotgate” in a north-westerly direction through Rutland. It leaves Lincolnshire at Great or Bridge Casterton on the river Gwash; one mile further it passes the celebrated church of Tickencote nestling in a hollow to the left, where the wonderful Norman chancel arch of five orders outdoes even the work at Iffley near Oxford, and the wooden effigy of a knight reminds one of that of Robert Duke of Normandy at Gloucester. Tickencote is the home of the Wingfields, and the villagers in 1471 were near enough to hear “the Shouts of war” when the Lincolnshire Lancastrians fled from the fight on Loosecoat Field after a slaughter which is commemorated on the map by the name “Bloody Oaks.” Further on, the road passes Stretton, ‘the village on the street,’ whence a lane to the right takes you to the famed Clipsham quarries just on the Rutland side of the boundary, and over it to the beautiful residence of Colonel Birch Reynardson at Holywell. Very soon now the Ermine Street, after doing its ten miles in Rutland, passes by “Morkery Wood” back into Lincolnshire.

The only Stamford Road which is all the time in our county is the eastern road through Market Deeping to Spalding, this soon after leaving Stamford passes near Uffington Hall, built in 1688 by Robert Bertie, son of Montague, second Earl of Lindsey, he whose father fell at Edgehill. On the northern outskirt of the parish Lord Kesteven has a fine Elizabethan house called Casewick Hall. Round each house is a well-timbered park, and at Uffington Hall the approach is by a fine avenue of limes. At Tallington, where the road crosses the Great Northern line, the church, like several in the neighbourhood, has some Saxon as well as Norman work, and the original Sanctus bell still hangs in a cot surmounting the east end of the nave. It is dedicated to St. Lawrence.

South Lincolnshire seems to have been rather rich in Saxon churches, and two of the best existing towers of that period at Barnack and Wittering in Northamptonshire are within three miles of Stamford, one on either side of the Great North Road.

Barholm Church, near Tallington, has some extremely massive Norman arches and a fine door with diapered tympanum. The tower was restored in the last year of Charles I., and no one seems to have been more surprised than the churchwarden or parson or mason of the time, for we find carved on it these lines:—

An old Hall adds to the interest of the place, and another charming old building is Mr. Peacock’s Elizabethan house in the next parish of Greatford, or, as it should be spelt, Gretford or Gritford, the grit or gravel ford of the river Glen, just as Stamford should be Stanford or Staneford, the stone-paved ford of the Welland. Gretford Church is remarkable if only for the unusual position of the tower as a south transept, a similar thing being seen at Witham-on-the-Hill, four miles off, in Rutland. Five of the bells there are re-casts of some which once hung in Peterborough Cathedral, and the fifth has the date 1831 and a curious inscription. General Johnson I used to see when I was a boy at Uppingham; he was the patron of the school, and the one man among the governors of the school who was always a friend to her famous headmaster, Edward Thring. But why he wrote the last line of this inscription I can’t conceive:—

To return to Gretford. In the north transept is a square opening, in the sill of which is a curious hollow all carved with foliage, resembling one in the chancel at East Kirkby, near Spilsby, where it is supposed to have been a sort of alms dish for votive offerings. Here, too, is a bust by Nollekens of a man who had a considerable reputation in his time, and who occupied more than one house in this neighbourhood and built a private asylum at Shillingthorpe near Braceborough for his patients, a distinguished clientèle who used to drive their teams all about the neighbourhood; this was Dr. F. Willis, the mad-doctor who attended George III. But these are all ‘side shows,’ and we must get back to Tallington. The road from here goes through West Deeping, which, like the manor of Market Deeping, belonged to the Wakes. Here we find a good font with eight shields of arms, that of the Wakes being one, and an almost unique old low chancel screen of stone, the surmounting woodwork has gone and the west face is filled in with poor modern mosaic. Within three miles the Bourne-and-Peterborough road crosses the Stamford-and-Spalding road at Market Deeping, where there is a large church, once attached to Croyland, and a most interesting old house used as the rectory. This was the refectory of a priory, and has fine roof timbers. The manor passed through Joan, daughter of Margaret Wake, to the Black Prince. Two miles further, the grand old priory church of Deeping-St.-James lies a mile to the left. This was attached as a cell to Thorney Abbey in 1139, by the same Baldwin FitzGilbert who had founded Bourne Abbey. A diversion of a couple of miles northwards would bring us to a fine tower and spire at Langtoft, once a dependency of Medehamstead[1] Abbey at Peterborough, together with which it was ruthlessly destroyed by Swegen in 1013. On the roof timbers are some beautifully carved figures of angels, and carved heads project from the nave pillars. The south chantry is a large one, with three arches opening into the chancel, and has several interesting features. Amongst these is a handsome aumbry, which may have been used as an Easter sepulchre. The south chantry opens from the chancel with three arches, and has some good carving and a piscina with a finely constructed canopy. There is a monument to Elizabeth Moulesworth, 1648, and a brass plate on the tomb of Sarah, wife of Bernard Walcot, has this pretty inscription:—

At Scamblesby, between Louth and Horncastle, is another pathetic inscription on a wife’s tomb:—

The old manor house of the Hyde family is at the north end of the village. The road for the next ten miles over Deeping Fen is uninteresting as a road can be. But this will be amply made up for in another chapter when we shape our eastward course from Spalding to Holbeach and Gedney.

In Deeping Fen between Bourne, Spalding, Crowland and Market Deeping there is about fifty square miles of fine fat land, and Marrat tells us that as early as the reign of Edward the Confessor, Egelric, the Bishop of Durham, who, having been once a monk at Peterborough, knew the value of the land, in order to develop the district, made a cord road of timber and gravel all the way from Deeping to Spalding. The province then belonged to the Lords of Brunne or Bourne. In Norman times Richard De Rulos, Chamberlain of the Conqueror, married the daughter of Hugh de Evermue, Lord of Deeping. Their only daughter married Baldwin FitzGilbert, and his daughter and heiress married Hugh de Wake, who managed the forest of Kesteven for Henry III., which forest reached to the bridge at Market Deeping. Richard De Rulos, who was the father of all Lincolnshire farmers, aided by Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, set himself to enclose and drain the fen land, to till the soil or convert it into pasture and to breed cattle. He banked out the Welland which used to flood the fen every year, whence it got its name of Deeping or the deep meadows, and on the bank he set up tenements with gardens attached, which were the beginnings of Market Deeping. He further enlarged St. Guthlac’s chapel into a church, and then planted another little colony at Deeping-St.-James, where his son-in-law, who carried on his activities, built the priory. De Rulos was in fact a model landlord, and the result was that the men of Deeping, like Jeshuron, “waxed fat and kicked,” and the abbots of Croyland had endless contests with them for the next 300 years for constant trespass and damage. Probably this was the reason why the Wakes set up a castle close by Deeping, but on the Northampton side of the Welland at Maxey, which was inhabited later by Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., who, in addition to all her educational benefactions, was also a capital farmer and an active member of the Commissioners of Sewers.

We must now get back to Stamford. Even the road which goes due north to Bourne soon finds itself outside the county; for Stamford is placed on a mere tongue or long pointed nose of land belonging to Lincolnshire, in what is aptly termed the Wapentake of ‘Ness.’ However, after four miles in Rutland, it passes the four cross railroads at Essendine Junction, and soon after re-crosses the boundary near Carlby. Essendine Church consists simply of a Norman nave and chancel. Here, a little to the right lies Braceborough Spa, where water gushes from the limestone at the rate of a million and a half gallons daily. This is a great district for curative springs. There is one five miles to the west at Holywell which, with its stream and lake and finely timbered grounds, is one of the beauty spots of Lincolnshire, and at the same distance to the north are the strong springs of Bourne. We hear of a chalybeate spring “continually boiling” or gushing up, for it was not hot, near the church at Billingborough, and another at Stoke Rochford, each place a good ten miles from Bourne and in opposite directions. Great Ponton too, near Stoke Rochford, is said to “abound in Springs of pure water rising out of the rock and running into the river Witham.” The church at Braceborough had a fine brass once to Thomas De Wasteneys, who died of the Black Death in 1349. After Carlby there is little of interest on the road itself till it tops the hill beyond Toft whence, on an autumn day, a grand view opens out across the fens to the Wash and to Boston on the north-east, and the panorama sweeps southward past Spalding to the time-honoured abbey of Croyland, and on again to the long grey pile of Peterborough Minster, once islands in a trackless fen (the impenetrable refuge of the warlike and unconquered Gervii or fenmen), but now a level plain of cornland covered, as far as eye can see, with the richest crops imaginable. A little further north we reach the Colsterworth road, and turning east, enter the old town of Bourne, now only notable as the junction of the Great Northern and Midland Railways. Since 1893 the inhabitants have used an “e” at the end of the name to distinguish it from Bourn in Cambridgeshire. Near the castle hill is a strong spring called “Peter’s Pool,” or Bournwell-head, the water of which runs through the town and is copious enough to furnish a water supply for Spalding. This castle, mentioned by Ingulphus in his history of Croyland Abbey, existed in the eleventh century; possibly the Romans had a fort here to guard both the ‘Carr Dyke’ which passes by the east side of the town, and also the King’s Street, a Roman road which, splitting off from the Ermine Street at Castor, runs through Bourne due north to Sleaford. There was an outer moat enclosing eight acres, and an inner moat of one acre, inside which “on a mount of earth cast up with mene’s hands” stood the castle, once the stronghold of the Wakes. To-day a maze of grassy mounds alone attests the site, amongst which the “Bourn or Brunne gushes out in a strong clear stream.” Marrat in his “History of Lincolnshire” tells us that as early as 870 Morchar, Lord of Brun, fell fighting at the battle of Threekingham. Two hundred years later we have “Hereward the Wake” living at Bourn, and in the twelfth century “Hugh De Wac” married Emma, daughter and heir of Baldwin FitzGilbert, who led some of King Stephen’s forces in the battle of Lincoln and refused to desert his king. Hugh founded the abbey of Bourn in 1138 on the site of an older building of the eighth or ninth century.

Bourne Abbey Church.

Six generations later, Margaret de Wake married Edmund Plantagenet of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, the sixth son of Edward I., and their daughter, born 1328, was Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, who was finally married to Edward the Black Prince. Their son was the unfortunate Richard II., and through them the manor of Bourn, which is said to have been bestowed on Baldwin, Count of Brienne, by William Rufus, passed back to the Crown. Hereward is supposed to have been buried in the abbey in which only a little of the early building remains. Certainly he was one of Bourn’s famous natives, Cecil Lord Burleigh, the great Lord Treasurer, being another, of whom it was said that “his very enemies sorrowed for his death.” Job Hartop, born 1550, who sailed with Sir John Hawkins and spent ten years in the galleys, and thirteen more in a Spanish prison, but came at last safe home to Bourn, deserves honourable mention, and Worth, the Parisian costumier, was also a native who has made himself a name; but one of the most noteworthy of all Bourn’s residents was Robert Manning, born at Malton, and canon of the Gilbertine Priory of Six Hills. He is best known as Robert de Brunne, from his long residence in Bourn, where he wrote his “Chronicle of the History of England.” This is a Saxon or English metrical version of Wace’s Norman-French translation of the “Chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth,” and of Peter Langtoft’s “History of England,” which was also written in French. This work he finished in 1338, on the 200th anniversary of the founding of the abbey; and in 1303, when he was appointed “Magister” in Bourn Abbey, he wrote his “Handlynge of Sin,” also a translation from the French, in the preface to which he has the following lines:—

Robert was a translator and no original composer, but he was the first after Layamon, the Worcestershire monk who lived just before him, to write English in its present form. Chaucer followed him, then Spenser, after which all was easy. But he was, according to Freeman, the pioneer who created standard English by giving the language of the natives a literary expression.

The Station House, Bourne.

It is difficult to see the abbey church, it is so hemmed in by buildings, and it never seems to have been completed. At the west end is some very massive work. In the churchyard there is a curious epitaph on Thomas Tye, a blacksmith, the first six lines of which are also found on a gravestone in Haltham churchyard near Horncastle:—

There is a charming old grey stone grammar school, possibly the very building in which Robert De Brunne taught when “Magister” at the abbey at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The station-master’s house, called “Red Hall,” is a picturesque Elizabethan brick building once the home of the Roman Catholic leader, Sir John Thimbleby, and afterwards of the Digbys. Sir Everard Digby, whose fine monument is in Stoke Dry Church near Uppingham, was born here. Another house is called “Cavalry House” because Thomas Rawnsley, great grandfather of the writer, was living there when he raised at his own expense and drilled a troop of “Light Horse Rangers” at the time when Buonaparte threatened to invade England. Lady Heathcote, whose husband commanded them, gave him a handsome silver goblet in 1808, in recognition of his services. He died in 1826, and in the spandrils of the north arcade in Bourne Abbey Church are memorial tablets to him and to his wife Deborah (Hardwicke) “and six of their children who died infants.”

CHAPTER IV ROADS FROM BOURNE

Bourne itself is in the fen, just off the Lincolnshire limestone. From it the railways run to all the four points of the compass, but it is only on the west, towards Nottingham, that any cutting was needed. Due north and south runs the old Roman road, keeping just along the eastern edge of the Wold; parallel with it, and never far off, the railway line keeps on the level fen by Billingborough and Sleaford to Lincoln, a distance of five-and-thirty miles, and all the way the whole of the land to the east right up to the coast is one huge tract of flat fenland scored with dykes, with only few roads, but with railways fairly frequent, running in absolute straight lines for miles, and with constant level crossings.

One road which goes south from Bourne is interesting because it goes along by the ‘Carr Dyke,’ that great engineering work of the Romans, which served to catch the water from the hills and drain it off so as to prevent the flooding of the fens. Rennie greatly admired it, and adopted the same principle in laying out his great “Catchwater” drain, affectionately spoken of by the men in the fens as ‘the owd Catch.’ The Carr Dyke was a canal fifty-six miles long and fifty feet wide, with broad, flat banks, and connected the Nene at Peterborough with the Witham at Washingborough near Lincoln. From Washingborough southwards to Martin it is difficult to trace, but it is visible at Walcot, thence it passed by Billinghay and north Kyme through Heckington Fen, east of Horbling and Billingborough and the Great Northern Railway line to Bourne. Two miles south of this we come to the best preserved bit of it in the parish of Thurlby, or Thoroldby, once a Northman now a Lincolnshire name. The “Bourne Eau” now crosses it and empties into the River Glen, which itself joins the Welland at Stamford.

Thurlby Church stands only a few yards from the ‘Carr Dyke,’ it is full of interesting work, and is curiously dedicated to St. Firmin, a bishop of Amiens, of Spanish birth. He was sent as a missionary to Gaul, where he converted the Roman prefect, Faustinian. He was martyred, when bishop, in 303, by order of Diocletian. The son of Faustinian was his godson, and was baptized with his name of Firmin, and he, too, eventually became Bishop of Amiens. Part of the church is pre-Norman and even exhibits “long and short” work. The Norman arcades have massive piers and cushion capitals. In the transepts are Early English arcades and squints, and there is a canopied piscina and a font of very unusual design. There is also an old ladder with handrail as in some of the Marsh churches, leading to the belfry. Three miles south is Baston, where there is a Saxon churchyard in a field. Hence the road continues to Market Deeping on the Welland, which is here the southern boundary of the county, and thence to Deeping-St.-James and Peterborough. Deeping-St.-James has a grand priory church, which was founded by Baldwin Fitz-Gilbert as a cell to Thorney Abbey in 1136, the year after he had founded Bourne Abbey. It contains effigies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Shameful to say a fountain near the church was erected in 1819 by mutilating and using the material of a fine village cross. Peakirk, with its little chapel of St. Pega, and Northborough and Woodcroft, both with remarkable houses built of the good gray stone of the neighbourhood, Woodcroft being a perfect specimen of a fortified dwelling-house, though near, are in the county of Northants.

The Corby-Colsterworth-and-Grantham Road leaves Bourne on the west and, passing through Bourne Wood at about four miles’ distance, reaches Edenham. On the west front of the church tower, at a height of forty feet, is the brass of an archbishop. Inside the church are two stones, one being the figure of a lady and the other being part of an ancient cross, both carved with very early interlaced work. The chancel is a museum of monuments of the Bertie family, the Dukes of Ancaster, continued from the earliest series at Spilsby of the Willoughby D’Eresbys, and beginning with Robert Bertie,[2] eleventh Lord Willoughby and first Earl of Lindsey, who fell at Edgehill while leading the Lincolnshire regiment, 1642. The present Earls of Lindsey and Uffington are descended from Lord Albemarle Bertie, fifth son of Robert, third Earl of Lindsey, who has a huge monument here, dated 1738, adorned with no less than seven marble busts.

Two fine altar tombs of the fourteenth century, with effigies of knight and lady, seem to be treated somewhat negligently, being thrust away together at the entrance. The nave pillars are very lofty, but the whole church has a bare and disappointing appearance from the plainness of the architecture, and the ugly coat of yellow wash, both on walls and pillars, and the badness of the stained glass.

On the north wall of the chancel and reaching to the roof there is a very lofty monument, with life-size effigy to the first Duke of Ancaster, 1723. East of this, one to the second duke with a marble cupid holding a big medallion of his duchess, Jane Brownlow, 1741, and on the south wall are equally huge memorials. In the family pew we hailed with relief a very good alabaster tablet with white marble medallion of the late Lady Willoughby “Clementina Elizabeth wife of the first Baron Aveland, Baroness Willoughby d’Eresby in her own right, joint hereditary Lord Chamberlain of England,” 1888.

The font is transition Norman, the cylindrical bowl surrounded by eight columns not detached, and a circle of arcading consisting of two Norman arches between each column springing from the capitals of the pillars.

The magnificent set of gold Communion plate was presented by the Willoughby family. It is of French, Spanish, and Italian workmanship. Humby church has also a fine gold service, presented by Lady Brownlow in 1682. It gives one pleasure to find good cedar trees and yews growing in the churchyard.

Grimsthorpe Castle is a mile beyond Edenham. The park, the finest in the county, in which are herds of both fallow and red deer, is very large, and full of old oaks and hawthorns; the latter in winter are quite green with the amount of mistletoe which grows on them. The lake covers one hundred acres. The house is a vast building and contains a magnificent hall 110 feet long, with a double staircase at either end, and rising to the full height of the roof. In the state dining-room is the Gobelin tapestry which came to the Duke of Suffolk by his marriage with Mary, the widow of Louis XII. of France. Here, too, are several Coronation chairs, the perquisites of the Hereditary Grand Chamberlain. The Willoughby d’Eresby family have discharged this office ever since 1630 in virtue of descent from Alberic De Vere, Earl of Oxford, Grand Chamberlain to Henry I., but in 1779, on the death of the fourth Duke of Ancaster, the office was adjudged to be the right of both his sisters, from which time the Willoughby family have held it conjointly with the Earl of Carrington and the Marquis of Cholmondeley. Among the pictures are several Holbeins. The manor of Grimsthorpe was granted to William, the ninth Lord Willoughby, by Henry VIII. on his marriage with Mary de Salinas, a Spanish lady in attendance on Katharine of Aragon, and it was their daughter Katherine who became Duchess of Suffolk and afterwards married Richard Bertie.

Just outside Grimsthorpe Park is the village of Swinstead, in whose church is a large monument to the last Duke of Ancaster, 1809, and an effigy of one of the numerous thirteenth century crusaders. Somehow one never looks on the four crusades of that century as at all up to the mark in interest and importance of the first and third under Godfrey de Bouillon and Cœur de Lion in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; as for the second (St. Bernard’s) that was nothing but a wretched muddle all through.

Two miles further on is Corby, where the market cross remains, but not the market. The station on the Great Northern main line is about five miles east of Woolsthorpe, Sir Isaac Newton’s birthplace and early home.

I think the most remarkable of the Bourne roads is the Roman “Kings Street,” which starts for the north and, after passing on the right the fine cruciform church of Morton and then the graceful spire of Hacconby, a name of unmistakable Danish origin, sends first an offshoot to the right to pass through the fens to Heckington, and three or four miles further on another to the left to run on the higher ground to Folkingham, whilst it keeps on its own rigidly straight course to the Roman station on the ford of the river Slea, passing through no villages all the way, and only one other Roman station which guarded a smaller ford at Threckingham.

This place is popularly supposed to be named from the three Danish kings who fell in the battle at Stow Green, between Threckingham and Billingborough, in 870; but the fine recumbent figures of Judge Lambert de Treckingham, 1300, and a lady of the same family, and the fact that the Threckingham family lived here in the fourteenth century points to a less romantic origin of the name. The names of the Victors, Earl Algar and Morcar, or Morkere, Lord of Bourne, survive in ‘Algarkirk’ and ‘Morkery Wood’ in South Wytham.

Stow Green had one of the earliest chartered fairs in the kingdom. It was held in the open, away from any habitation. Like Tan Hill near Avebury, and St. Anne de Palue in Brittany, and Stonehenge, all originally were probably assembling-places for fire-worship, for tan = fire.

But as we go to-day from Bourne to Sleaford, we shall not use the Roman road for more than the first six miles, but take then the off-shoot to the left, and passing Aslackby, where, in the twelfth century, as at Temple-Bruer, the Templars had one of their round churches, afterwards given to the Hospitallers, come to the little town of Folkingham, which had been granted by the Conqueror to Gilbert de Gaunt or Ghent, Earl of Lincoln.

He was the nephew of Queen Matilda, and on none of his followers, except Odo Bishop of Bayeux, did the Conqueror bestow his favours with a more liberal hand; for we read that he gave him 172 Lordships of which 113 were in Lincolnshire. He made his seat at Folkingham, but, having lands in Yorkshire, he was a benefactor to St. Mary’s Abbey, York, at the same time that he restored and endowed Bardney Abbey after its destruction by the Danes under Inguar and Hubba.

The wide street seems to have been laid out for more people than now frequent it. The church is spacious and lofty, with a fine roof and singularly rich oak screen and pulpit, into which the rood screen doorway opens. It was well restored about eighty years ago, by the rector, the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley, who was far ahead of his time in the reverend spirit with which he handled old architecture. The neighbouring church of Walcot has a fine fourteenth century oak chest, similar to one at Hacconby. Three and a half miles further on we come to Osbournby, with a quite remarkable number of old carved bench-ends and some beautiful canopied Sedilia. Another Danish village, Aswardby—originally, I suppose, Asgarby, one can fancy a hero called ‘Asgard the Dane’ but hardly Asward—has a fine house and park, sold by one of the Sleaford Carr family to Sir Francis Whichcote in 1723.

Four miles west of Aswardby is the village of Haydor (Norse, heide = heath). Here, in the north aisle of the church, which has a tall tower and spire, is some very good stained glass. It was given by Geoffrey le Scrope, who was Prebend of Haydor 1325 to 1380, and much resembles the fine glass in York Minster, which was put in in 1338. In this parish is the old manor of Culverthorpe, belonging to the Houblon family. It has a very fine drawing-room and staircase and a painted ceiling.

We must now come back to the Sleaford road which, a couple of miles beyond Aswardby Park, turns sharp to the right for Silk-Willoughby, or Silkby cum Willoughby. Here we have a really beautiful church, with finely proportioned tower and spire of the Decorated period. The Norman font is interesting and the old carved bench-ends, and so is the large base of a wayside cross in the village, with bold representations of the four Evangelists, each occupying the whole of one side. Three miles further we reach Sleaford.

One of the features of the county is the number of roads it has running north and south in the same direction as the Wolds. The Roman road generally goes straightest, though at times the railway line, as for instance between Bourne and Spalding, or between Boston and Burgh, takes an absolute bee line which outdoes even the Romans.

We saw that the two roads going north from Bourne sloped off right and left of the “Kings Street.” That on the left or western side keeps a parallel course to Sleaford, but that on the right, after reaching Horbling, diverges still further to the east and makes for Heckington. These two places are situated about six miles apart, and it is through the Horbling and Heckington fens that the only two roads which run east and west in all South Lincolnshire make their way. They both start from the Grantham and Lincoln Road at Grantham and at Honington, the former crossing the “Kings Street” at Threckingham, and thence to Horbling fen, the latter passing by Sleaford and Heckington. Both of these roads curve towards one another when they have passed the fens, and, uniting near Swineshead, make for Boston and the Wash. The whole of the land in South Lincolnshire slopes from west to east, falling between Grantham and Boston about 440 feet, but really this fall takes place almost entirely in the first third of the way on the western side of “The Roman Street” which was cleverly laid out on the Fen-side fringe of the higher ground. The road from Bourne to Heckington East of the “Street” is absolutely on the fen level and the railway goes parallel to it, between the road and the Roman ‘Carr Dyke.’ Thus we have a Roman road, a Roman canal, two modern roads and a railway, all running side by side to the north.

The Heckington road, after leaving the “Street,” passes through Dunsby and Dowsby, where there is an old Elizabethan house once inhabited by the Burrell family. Rippingale lies off to the left between the two and has in its church a rood screen canopy but no screen, which is very rare, and a large number of old monuments from the thirteenth century onwards, the oldest being two thirteenth century knights in chain mail of the family of Gobaud, who lived at the Hall, now the merest ruin, where they were succeeded by the Bowet, Marmion, Haslewood and Brownlow families. An effigy of a deacon with the open book of the Gospels has this unusual inscription, “Ici git Hwe Geboed le palmer le fils Jhoan Geboed. Millᵒ 446 Prees pur le alme.” It is interesting to find here a fifteenth century monument to a Roger de Quincey. Was he, I wonder, an ancestor of the famous opium eater? There is in the pavement a Marmion slab of 1505. The register records the death in July, 1815, of “the Lincolnshire Giantess” Anne Hardy, aged 16, height 7 ft. 2 in. The Brownlow family emigrated hence to Belton near Grantham. They had another Manor House at Great Humby, which is just half-way between Rippingale and Belton, of which the little brick-built domestic chapel now serves as a church. As we go on we notice that the whole of the land eastwards is a desolate and dreary fen, which extends from the Welland in the south to the Witham near Lincoln. Of this Fenland, the Witham, when it turns southwards, forms the eastern boundary, and alongside of it goes the Lincoln and Boston railway, while the line from Bourne viâ Sleaford and on to Lincoln forms the western boundary. I use the term ‘fen’ in the Lincolnshire sense for an endless flat stretch of black corn-land without tree or hedge, and intersected by straight-cut dykes or drains in long parallels. This is the winter aspect; in autumn, when the wind blows over the miles of ripened corn, the picture is a very different one.

It is curious that on the Roman road line all the way from the Welland to the Humber so few villages are found, whilst on the roads which skirt the very edge of the fen from Bourne to Heckington and then north again from Sleaford to Lincoln, villages abound.

Sempringham.

I once walked with an Undergraduate friend on a winter’s day from Uppingham to Boston, about 57 miles, the road led pleasantly at first through Normanton, Exton and Grimsthorpe Parks, in the last of which the mistletoe was at its best; but when we got off the high ground and came to Dunsby and Dowsby the only pleasure was the walking, and as we reached Billingborough and Horbling, about 30 miles on our way, and had still more than twenty to trudge and in a very uninviting country, snow began to fall, and then the pleasure went out of the walking. By the time we reached Boston it was four inches deep. It had been very heavy going for the last fourteen miles, and never were people more glad to come to the end of their journey. Neither of us ever felt any great desire to visit that bit of Lincolnshire again; and yet, under less untoward circumstances, there would have been something to stop for at Billingborough with its lofty spire, its fine gable-crosses, and great west window, and at the still older small cruciform church at Horbling, exhibiting work of every period but Saxon, but most of which, owing to bad foundations, has had to be at different times taken down and rebuilt. It contains a fine fourteenth century monument to the De la Maine family. Even more interesting would it have been to see the remains of the famous priory church at Sempringham, a mile and a half south of Billingborough, for Sempringham was the birthplace of a remarkable Englishman. Gilbert, eldest son of a Norman knight and heir to a large estate, was born in 1083; he was deformed, but possessing both wit and courage he travelled on the Continent. Later in life he was Chaplain to Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, who built Sleaford Castle in 1137, and Rector of Sempringham, and Torrington, near Wragby. Being both wealthy and devoted to the church, he, with the Bishop’s approval, applied in the year 1148 to Pope Eugenius III. for a licence to found a religious house to receive both men and women; this was granted him, and so he became the founder of the only pure English order of monks and nuns, called after him, the Gilbertines. Eugenius III. suffered a good deal at the hands of the Italians, who at that time were led by Arnold of Brescia, the patriotic disciple of Abelard, insomuch that he was constrained to live at Viterbo, Rome not being a safe place for him; but he seems to have thought rather well of the English, for he it was who picked out the monk, Nicolas Breakspeare, from St. Alban’s Abbey and promoted him to be Papal legate at the Court of Denmark, which led eventually to his becoming Pope Adrian IV., the only Englishman who ever reached that dignity. The elevation does not seem to have improved his character, as his abominable cruelty to the above-mentioned Arnold of Brescia indicates. Eugenius, however, is not responsible for this, and at Gilbert’s request he instituted a new order in which monks following the rules of St. Augustine were to live under the same roof with nuns following the rules of St. Benedict. Their distinctive dress was a black cassock with a white hood, and the canons wore beards. What possible good Gilbert thought could come of this new departure it is difficult to guess. Nowadays we have some duplicate public schools where boys and girls are taught together and eat and play together, and it is not unlikely that the girls gain something of stability from this, and that their presence has a useful and far-reaching effect upon the boys, besides that obvious one which is conveyed in the old line

but these monks and nuns never saw one another except at some very occasional service in chapel; even at Mass, though they might hear each other’s voices in the canticles, they were parted by a wall and invisible to each other, and as they thus had no communication with one another they might, one would think, have just as well been in separate buildings. Gilbert thought otherwise. He was a great educator, and especially had given much thought to the education of women, at all events he believed that the plan worked well, for he increased his houses to the number of thirteen, which held 1,500 nuns and 700 canons. Most of these were in Lincolnshire, and all were dissolved by Henry VIII. Gilbert was certainly both pious and wise, and being a clever man, when Bishop Alexander moved his Cistercians from Haverholme Priory to Louth Park Abbey, because they suffered so much at Haverholme from rheumatism, and handed over the priory, a chilly gift, to the Gilbertines, their founder managed to keep his Order there in excellent health. He harboured, as we know, Thomas à Becket there in 1164, and got into trouble with Henry II. for doing so. He was over 80 then, but he survived it and lived on for another five and twenty years, visiting occasionally his other homes at Lincoln, Alvingham, Bolington, Sixhills, North Ormsby, Catley, Tunstal and Newstead, and died in 1189 at the age of 106. Thirteen years later he was canonised by Pope Innocent III., and his remains transferred to Lincoln Minster, where he became known as St. Gilbert of Sempringham. Part of the nave of his priory at Sempringham is now the Parish Church; it stands on a hill three-quarters of a mile from Pointon, where is the vicarage and the few houses which form the village. Much of the old Norman work was unhappily pulled down in 1788, but a doorway richly carved and an old door with good iron scroll-work is still there. At the time of the dissolution the priory, which was a valuable one, being worth £359 12s. 6d., equal to £3,000 nowadays, was given to Lord Clinton. Campden, 300 years ago, spoke of “Sempringham now famous for the beautiful house built by Edward Baron Clinton, afterwards Earl of Lincoln,” the same man to whom Edward VI. granted Tattershall. Of this nothing is left but the garden wall, and Marrat, writing in 1815, says: “At this time the church stands alone, and there are but five houses in the parish, which are two miles from the church and in the fen.”

CHAPTER V SOUTH-WEST LINCOLNSHIRE AND ITS RIVERS

I have said that the whole of the county south of Lincoln slopes from west to east, the slope for the first few miles being pretty sharp. The only exception to the rule is in the tract on the west of the county, which lies north of the Grantham and Nottingham road, between the Grantham to Lincoln ridge and the western boundary of the county. This tract is simply the flat wide-spread valley of the Rivers Brant and Witham, which all slopes gently to the north. North Lincolnshire rivers run to the Humber; these are the Ancholme and the Trent; but there is a peculiarity about the rivers in South Lincolnshire; for though the Welland runs a consistent course eastward to the Wash, and is joined not far from its mouth by the River Glen, that river and the Witham each run very devious courses before they find the Eastern Sea. The Glen flowing first to the south then to the north and north-east, the Witham flowing first to the north and then to the south with an easterly trend to Boston Haven.

Both these streams are of considerable length, the course of the Glen measured without its windings being five and thirty miles, and that of the Witham as much again.

All the other streams which go from the ridge drain eastwards into the fens, and they effectually kept the fens under water until the Romans cut the Carr Dyke, intercepting the water from the hills and taking it into the river.

To follow the “Glen” from its source in the high ground between Somerby and Boothby Pagnell to its most southerly point two miles below Braceborough, will take us through a very pleasant country. A tributary, the first of many, runs in from Bassingthorpe, whose church, like that of Burton Coggles, three miles to the south, is dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. A beautiful little house, built here by the Grantham wool merchant, Thomas Coney, in 1568, has a counterpart at Ponton in the immediate neighbourhood, where Antony Ellys, also a merchant of the staple at Calais, built himself a charming little Tudor house about the same time. Augmented by the Bassingthorpe brook, the Glen goes on past Bitchfield, Burton-Coggles and Corby, and on between Swayfield and Swinstead to Creeton, where are to be seen many stone coffins, probably of the monks of Vaudey Abbey in Grimsthorpe Park, a corruption of Valdei (Vallis dei or God’s Vale). It then winds along by Little Bytham, and, passing Careby and Carlby, gets into a plain country, and turns north near Shillingthorpe Hall. The last place it sees before entering the region of the Bedford Levels is Gretford. But near the church of Wilsthorpe—in which is the effigy of a thirteenth century knight with the arms of the Wake family, who claim descent from the famous Hereward the Wake—we find another stream joining the Glen to help it on its straight-cut course through Deeping fen. We may well spend an afternoon in tracing this stream from its source some sixteen miles away. It flows all the way through a valley of no great width, and, with the exception of Edenham, undistinguished by any villages. A purely rustic stream, it is known as the Eden, though it has no name on the maps, and its only distinction since it left its source near Humby is that it divides the villages of Lenton or Lavington, where the author of “Verdant Green,” Rev. E. Bradley, best known as “Cuthbert Bede,” was once rector, and Ingoldsby, the village of Ingold or Ingulph, the Dane, which, however, has nothing to do with the well-known “Ingoldsby Legends.” A little to the south of Ingoldsby are the prettily named villages Irnham, Kirkby-Underwood, and Rippingale; of these Irnham has a picturesque Tudor hall in a fine park. This was built in 1510 by Richard Thimelby in the form of the letter L; the north wing was mostly destroyed by fire in 1887, but the great hall remains, and there is a priest’s hiding-place entered by a hinged step in the stairs in which was found a straw pallet and a book of hours.

The manor was granted by the Conqueror to Ralph Paganel along with others, e.g., Boothby Bagnell and Newport Pagnell, and there was even then, in the eleventh century, a church here. This manor passed by marriage in 1220 to Sir Andrew Luttrell, Baron of Irnham, whence, through an heiress, it passed to the Thimelbys. In the church is a fine brass to “Andrew Luttrell Miles Dominus de Irnham,” 1390. He is in plate armour with helmet, and has his feet on a lion. In the north aisle, which is sometimes called the Luttrell Chapel, is a beautifully carved Easter sepulchre, the design and work being much like that of the rood screen in Southwell Cathedral. This was really a founder’s tomb of the Luttrell family, and stood east and west under the easternmost arch on the north side of the nave, whence it was most improperly moved in 1858 and should certainly be put back again. Doubtless it was used as an Easter sepulchre, and it is of about the same date, 1370, as those at Heckington, Navenby, and Lincoln. In the pavement of the north aisle is an altar slab, with the five consecration crosses well preserved.

Since the Thimelbys, who followed the Hiltons, the house has been in possession of the Conquest, Arundel, and Clifford families. Not more than two miles to the east is a fine avenue leading to an Elizabethan house in the form of an E, called Bulby Hall. Later the stream goes through its one village of Edenham, passes near Bowthorpe Park with its great oak, fifty feet in girth, and so joins the river Glen at Kotes Bridge, near Wilsthorpe. Though the stream, Edenham excepted, has nothing particular on its banks, near its source are several interesting churches. Sapperton, which still exhibits the pulpit hour-glass-stand for the use of the preacher to insure that the congregation got their full hour; Pickworth, with chantry chapels at each end of the south aisle, a rood screen and a fine old south door; and Walcot, with its curious double “squint” from the south chantry and its beautiful little priest’s door, evidently once a low-side window, for its sill is two feet from the ground and is grooved for glazing. Here the economy of the Early English builders is shown by their use of the caps of an earlier Norman arcade to form the bases of their new pillars. Hard by is Newton with its lofty tower, Haceby, where once the Romans had a small settlement, and Braceby, which, with Ropsley and Somerby, complete an octave of Early English churches all near together.

Somerby is within four miles of Grantham. The church contains a singular effigy, date 1300, of a knight with a saddled horse at his feet, and a groom wearing the hooded short cloak of the period, holding the horse’s head. Among the Brownlow monuments is the following inscription to Jane Brownlow, daughter of Sir Richard Brownlow of Humby, 1670,

It is curious to find notes on stature and complexion in an epitaph, but it was only lately that I saw a tomb slab in the church of Dorchester-on-Thames, where, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, some of our Lindsey bishops had their Bishop-stool (see Cap. XII.), on which it was thought worth while to record, inter alia, that Rebekah Granger who died in 1753 was “respectful to her friends, and chearful and innocent in her deportment”; whilst close by is a somewhat minute description of the nervous idiosyncrasy of Mrs. S. Fletcher, who died in 1799 at the age of 29, ending with “She sank and died a martyr to excessive sensibility.”

The feature of the church is the Norman chancel arch with double moulding. It is especially interesting as showing that the carving of the stones which form the arch was done not by plan but by eye; though the same pattern goes throughout, no two stones are exactly similar, and the pattern is larger or smaller as the mason cut it by guess, and has two zigzags or two and a half accordingly, and therefore the pattern in some places does not properly meet, but the whole effect is all right. The manor was held by the Threckingham family in the fourteenth century, and their arms are in one of the windows. In the feet of fines, Lincoln file 86, we have an agreement between Lambert de Trikingham and Robert, son of Walter le Clerk, of Trikingham, and Hawysia his wife, made at Westminster in the second year of Edward II. (1319). The lady with this charming name seeming to have afterwards married Sir Henry de Wellington, for in the thirty-second year of Edward III. (1359) another settlement is recorded of a dispute about Somerby Manor between Enericus de Welyngton Miles and Hawysia his wife on one side, and John Bluet and Alan Rynsley (one of the sixteen various spellings of Rawnsley) and his wife Margaret on the other, by which Alan and Margaret, for conceding their claims, receive 100 marks of silver. This and much other interesting information is to be found in a paper on The Manor of Somerby, by Gilbert George Walker, rector of the parish.

In the fifteenth century John Bluet held the living, one of whose ancestors was probably the civilian with his feet on a fleece, whose fine recumbent effigy is in Harlaxton church. His daughter married Robert Bawde, whose brass is in the church, and their family were in possession till 1720. A large monument on the north wall commemorates Elizabeth Lady Brownlow, née Freke, whose son John built Belton House. She died in 1684. There is also a brass to Peregrine Bradshaw and his wife, who died in 1669 and 1673.

Dr. William Stukeley, the famous antiquary, who was a Lincolnshire man, born at Holbeach in 1687, was, at one time, rector of Somerby.

Ropsley, two and a half miles to the east, shows some ‘Long and Short’ Saxon work at the north-east angle of the nave. The tower has a Decorated broach spire. At the south porch is the couplet,

The church has also a very notable little stained glass window with an armed figure of Johannes de Welby. In the church a curious broad projection from the east window of the north aisle forms a bridge to the rood loft. In the eyes of a Corpus man, like the writer, Ropsley is sacred as being the birthplace of Bishop Fox, who held successively the sees of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Durham and Winchester, and founded, or helped to found, the Grantham Grammar School near his old home in 1528, and also, in 1516, the College of Corpus Christi, Oxford.

The Eden, whose course we have been tracing, having joined the Glen, crosses the Carr Dyke a mile beyond Wilsthorpe, after which the Glen becomes for a time simply a fen drain. The “Bourne Eau” goes into it and they proceed together with many duck decoys marked in the 1828 map on each side of them till they come to the beginning of the great “Forty foot drain.” The Glen then turning east resumes more or less its river character, joins the Welland and goes seawards to the Wash, while the Forty foot going northwards parallel to and with the same purpose as the “Carr Dyke” but a few miles to the east of that famous work, receives the water from the many “Droves” which are all cut east and west and conveys them to the outfall in Boston Haven.

We will now, without having to go outside the parallelogram of pleasant upland country which lies between the four towns of Stamford, Bourne, Sleaford and Grantham, find the sources of the river Witham and follow them through Grantham as far as Barkston and Marston, and thence through a totally different country to Lincoln. To begin at the beginning of things. Just at the junction of the three counties of Lincoln, Leicester, and Rutland, is a place near ‘Crown point’ called Cribbs Lodge. This commemorates the great boxing match between Molyneux, the black, and Tom Cribb, when, as the Stamford Mercury has it, “after a severe fight Molyneux was beat, and a reel was danced by Gully and Cribb amidst shouts of applause. There were 15,000 people present.” Gully afterwards became an M.P.

Close to this spot, but in the county of Leicestershire, is the source of our river Witham, which takes its name from the little village of South Witham close by.

The infant stream skirts the western side of Witham Common, which is something like 400 feet above sea level; nearly all its feeders come from still higher ground just outside the western edge of the county. A glance at the map will show with what remarkable unanimity all the streams which feed the South Lincolnshire rivers flow eastwards. Thus from Witham Common a brook goes through Castle Bytham to join the Glen at Little Bytham. The castle, of which only huge mounds now remain, was perched on a hill and divided by the brook from the village which covers the slope of the valley and is crowned by its very early Norman church, making altogether a very pretty picture. The church contains a fine canopied tomb of the Colville family, who owned the castle in the thirteenth century, and also in the tower is a ladder eloquent of the Restoration, with the inscription “This ware the May Poul, 1660.” Middleton, first Bishop of Calcutta, once held this living.

The Witham, Boston.

The castle is of considerable interest. At the time of the Conquest the land belonged to Morcar, Earl of Northumbria, whose name survives in “Mockery or Morkery Wood” near South Witham, and was given by William the First to his brother-in-law Drogo, who began the castle, and afterwards to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, William’s half-brother, the same who gave his name to “Bayons Manor.” When Odo began to show signs of contumacy Henry III. in person fought against and took the castle, and when dismantled gave it to the Colvilles, but it was not completely destroyed until the Wars of the Roses.

Little Bytham, two miles to the east, is the station for Grimsthorpe, which is approached by a drive of three miles through the park. The church is dedicated to St. Medard, Bishop of Noyon, A.D. 531, a name familiar to us from the “Ingoldsby Legends.” It shows some Saxon “Long and Short” work and a good deal of Norman, notably a doorway with a curious tympanum ornamented with birds in circles. There is a small lowside window of two lights on the west and a little Norman window high up on the east of this doorway, which is at the south-east angle of the nave. The Norman tower is surmounted by a transition upper story and spire. The south porch and chancel arch are Early English and all round the chancel runs a most interesting stone seat, broken only by a fine canopied recess for a tomb. A good agricultural motto is cut on the stone base of the pulpit, “Orate et arate,” “pray and plough.” The motto is not inapt, for the land about here is mostly plough land, and one wonders it should be as good as it is, for the limestone is very near the surface, indeed the Great Northern line has stone in situ on each side of it about five feet high, which seems to have very few inches of soil above it, and this runs the whole way from Little Bytham to Corby, and again at Ponton the lines pass through it in a deeper cutting.

But to return to our Witham river. This keeps due north by North-Witham, Colsterworth, Easton, Stoke Rockford, Great and Little Ponton to Grantham, a distance of ten miles. The church at North Wytham has a long nave, a narrow massive Norman chancel arch, and the floor descending to the east. In the 1887 restoration by Withers, a choir was formed out of the east end of the nave, and the chancel has been left as a monumental chapel for the Sherard family monuments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a decidedly clever arrangement. Robert Sherard seems to have been a scholar, for he occupied his thoughts when on his deathbed in writing twenty-six Latin elegiacs now on his brass and dated 1592.

From Colsterworth a road runs east past Twyford Forest, twelve miles to Bourne. In the church, which is both Norman, Decorated, and Perpendicular, there is the Newton chapel, with tombs of Sir Isaac’s parents and grandparents. This is modern, but is on the site of the old Woolsthorpe Manor chapel. It contains a sundial with an inscription, which says that it was cut by Newton when a boy of nine. His baptism appears in the Register thus:—“Isaac son of Isaac and Hanna Newton Janʳʸ 1, 1643.” She was an Ayscough, and married for her second husband the Rev. Barnabas Smith of North Wytham. On the left bank of the Witham, at a distance of half a mile, is the hamlet of Woolsthorpe, which must not be confused with the Woolsthorpe near Belvoir. The name was probably Wolph’s or Ulfsthorpe, and nothing to do with Wool. In Domesday Book it is Ulstanthorp. In Woolsthorpe Manor House Newton was born on Christmas Day, 1641. The window is shown from which he saw the apple fall and the Newton Arms—two cross-bones—are sculptured over the door. In the days of the Commonwealth he was at Bishop Fox’s school at Grantham, 1651-1656. His mother thought to make a farmer of him, but kindly fate took him to Cambridge when he was eighteen, and he spent more than four years there, taking his degree in 1665. The incident of the apple dates from 1666, the year of the great Plague and the Fire of London. Starting from this he deduced the reasons for the movement of the planets which Galileo in 1610 and Copernicus in 1540 had noted. He had by this time accumulated much of the material for his great work the “Principia,” and for the next thirty years he worked and wrote unceasingly. He was appointed Master of the Mint in 1695, and President of the Royal Society in 1703, and was knighted in 1705. He died in March, 1727. His own view of his life’s work may be given in his own words: “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” After lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber he was buried in Westminster Abbey, the Lord Chancellor, two dukes, and three earls being pall-bearers; his monument, near the entrance to the choir on the north side, shows a recumbent figure with the right arm on four folios named Divinity, Chronology, Optics, and Phil. Prin. Math. Above is a large globe showing the planets, etc., projecting from a pyramid, and on the globe the figure of Astronomy with a closed book, in a very pensive mood. Below is a bas-relief representing Newton’s various labours and discoveries.

The inscription, written by Pope, is as follows:—

His statue is also in the ante-chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, so eloquently described by Wordsworth as

Newton is represented standing, and faces to the east, and of the other seated figures in the ante-chapel, which all face north or south, the latest addition and the finest work is Thornicroft’s statue of another Lincolnshire celebrity Alfred Lord Tennyson. This is an admirable likeness; the best view of it is from the east side.

West of Woolsthorpe is Buckminster, just over the border, but remarkable for having once had a beacon on the tower. The circular chimney of the Watcher’s shelter still stands in the north-west angle. At Weldon near Kettering is a lantern fifteen feet high with a cupola put up 200 years ago to guide folk through Rockingham Forest. It is lit now on New Year’s Eve.

From Colsterworth and Woolsthorpe we follow the river to Stoke Rockford, which is wedged in between the parks of Stoke and Easton. Both these manors were once held by the Rochfords and each had a separate church. Now one church serves for both and has a chapel for each manor, one on either side and extending the full length of the chancel. The Stoke Chapel has monuments of John de Neville 1320 and of the family of the present owners, the Turners. The Easton Chapel has a very fine one to the Cholmeleys, 1641, whose descendants still live in the old Elizabethan “Hall” with its triple avenue of limes which reach to the Great North Road. On the other side of the road the house at Stoke Park is also Elizabethan in style, but not in date, being by Salvin. It belongs to Christopher Turner, who also owns Panton Hall, near East Barkwith. The park has many fine trees and some very old thorns. In the chancel of Stoke Rochford is a brass to Henry Rochford, 1470, and on a brass plate this inscription to Oliver St. John and his wife Elizabeth Bygod, 1503:—

“Pray for the soil of Master Olyr-Sentjehn Squier, sonne unto ye right excellent hye and mightty pryncess of Som~sete g~ndame unto ou~ sovey~n Lord Kynge Herre the VII. and for the soll of Dame Elizabeth Bygod his wiff, whoo dep~ted from this t~nsitore liffe ye XII daye of June, i~ ye year of ou~ Lord MCCCCC and III.”

Thus Oliver was brother to Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, the mother of the King. She made a great mark on the history of her time, which was the fifteenth century. Daughter of the first Duke of Somerset and wife successively of the Earl of Richmond, who was half-brother to Henry VI., and of Henry Stafford, son to the Duke of Buckingham, and of Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby, and mother, by her first marriage, of Henry VII., she was a magnificent patron of learning, for she endowed Christ’s College and St. John’s College, Cambridge, and founded the “Lady Margaret” professorships of Divinity both at Cambridge and at Oxford. Oliver’s mother had been the wife of Sir John Bigod, who with his father was killed on Towton field, near Leeds, in 1461, when, after a very bloody fight, the throne was secured to Edward IV., 28,000 Lancastrians, it is said, though this is hardly credible, having been left on the field of battle. Oliver, whom Leland describes as a big black fellow, died at Fontarabia, in Spain, but was buried at Stoke Rochford. It shows of how little account the spelling even of proper names was in the fifteenth century when we find here the brass plate on his daughter’s tomb inscribed, “Hic jacet Sibella Seyntjohn quondam filia Oliveri Sentjohn.” Perhaps there is something after all in the remark I heard a farmer make in the train at Boston: “Well, I reckon it is a clear gift, is spelling. My boy John, he’s nobbut eleven, and he can spell owt, but I’m noä hand at it mysen, and I reckon theer’s a stränge many is makes but a poor job on it.” In the museum at Peterborough there is a notebook of The Lord Chief Justice, Oliver St. John, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, dated 1649, who earned for himself the undying gratitude of his own and all future generations by saving Peterborough Cathedral.

Henry VIII., when urged to erect a suitable monument to Queen Katherine of Aragon in the cathedral, had said he would leave her one of the goodliest monuments in Christendom, meaning that he would spare the cathedral for her sake, but at the time of the civil war nearly all in the nature of ornamentation was destroyed, including the organ, the windows, the reredos, and the tombs and escutcheons of Queen Katherine herself, and of Mary Queen of Scots. After a time Oliver St. John, who had married twice over into the Cromwell family, as a reward for political services in Holland obtained a grant of the ruined minster, which was actually “propounded to be sold and demolished,” and gave it to the town for use as a parish church. It still remained in a sad state, but was being gradually put into order all through the nineteenth century, and at last the tower, which rested on four piers, all of which were found to be simply pipes of Ashlar masonry filled with sand, was taken down in 1883 and solidly rebuilt, and the whole fabric put in order, the white-washed walls scraped, new stalls excellently carved by Thompson of Peterborough and a beautiful inlaid marble floor, the gift of Dean Argles, placed in the choir, which was prolonged westwards two bays into the nave, on the old Benedictine lines, till now the interior is fully worthy of the uniquely magnificent west front.

At Easton there was a Roman station, halfway between Casterton and Ancaster. It was important as being the last roadside watering place, the Ermine Street passing through a waterless tract for the next twelve miles.

A mile and a half to the east, the Great Northern line tunnels under Bassingthorpe hill at 370 feet above sea level, and, with the exception of one spot in Berwickshire, this is the highest point the line attains between London and Edinburgh. Immediately after this the line crosses the “Ermine Street,” which from Stamford to Colsterworth is identical with “the Great North Road,” but it splits off to the right a mile south of Easton Park, and keeping always to the right bank of the Witham, takes a straight course to Ancaster, leaving Grantham three miles to the left. After this parting, the North Road crosses to the left bank of the river and runs up to Great Ponton. The tall tower of the late Perpendicular church, built in 1519 by Anthony Ellys, merchant of the staple, of Calais, who lived in a manor house in the middle of the village, has Chaucer’s phrase, “Thynke and thanke God of all,” carved on three sides of it.

Inside is a very early font, possibly Saxon; a large square bowl chamfered on the under side resting on a square stone. The tower is unlike anything in the county, but has counterparts among the churches of Somersetshire. The base moulding is enriched with carving, and the double buttresses have canopied niches excellently worked. The belfry has large double two-light windows under a carved hood-mould, as at Grantham and All Saints, Stamford. The gargoyles are remarkably fine, one shows a face wearing spectacles, and the whole is finished by a fine parapet and eight pinnacles.

Little Ponton is dedicated to St. Guthlac, which implies a connection with Croyland. Four miles east of Great Ponton is the village of Boothby Pagnell, where the Glen rises. Here is a twelfth century manor house, supremely interesting as being one of the very few surviving examples of Norman Domestic architecture. It is in the grounds of the modern hall. The lower story is carried on vaulted arches and the upper rooms were reached by an outside staircase. These are a hall and a chamber with a thick partition wall; each had a two-light window in the east wall, with window seats on either side. On the opposite side is a fine fireplace with a flat arch formed by joggled stones and a projecting hood, and a round chimney-shaft. The lower groined story had also two rooms, possibly the larger was a kitchen, and the other a cellar. The barrel roof of this has its axis at right angles to the larger room, the heavy vault-ribs of which are in two bays, with low buttresses outside to take the thrust of the roof. The building at St. Mary’s Guild, Lincoln, the hall at Oakham, and a somewhat similar building at the north-eastern boundary of Windsor Castle are of corresponding date to this. Robert Sanderson, who was expelled as a Royalist, but on the restoration was made Bishop of Lincoln, and whose saintly life is dwelt on in “Walton’s Lives,” was incumbent here from 1619 to 1660. The whole building has been beautifully restored by Pearson, thanks to the munificence of Mrs. Thorold of the Hall.

The course of the river between Grantham and Lincoln is through a totally different country and may well claim another chapter.

CHAPTER VI GRANTHAM

The usual way of reaching Grantham is by the Great Northern main line—all expresses stop here. It is 105 miles from London, and often the only stop between that and York. After the levels of Huntingdonshire and the brief sight of Peterborough Cathedral, across the river Nene, the line enters Lincolnshire near Tallington, after which it follows up the valley of the river Glen, then climbs the wold and, just beyond Bassingthorpe tunnel, crosses the Ermine Street and runs down the Witham Valley into Grantham. Viewed from the train the town looks a mass of ugly red brick houses with slate roofs, but the magnificent tower and spire soon come into sight, and one feels that this must be indeed a church worth visiting.

Coming, as we prefer to do, by road, the view is better; for there is a background of hill and woodland with the fine park of Belton and the commanding height of Syston Hall beyond to the north-east; and to the left you see the Great North Road climbing up Gonerby Hill to a height of 200 feet above the town.

Grantham has no Roman associations, nor did it grow up round a feudal castle or a great abbey; for, though a castle of some kind must once have stood on the west side near the junction of the Mowbeck and the Witham, the only proof of it is the name Castlegate and a reference in an old deed to “Castle Dyke.” That the town was once walled, the streets called Watergate, Castlegate, Swinegate, Spittalgate sufficiently attest, but no trace of wall now exists. The name Spittalgate points to the existence of a leper hospital, and I see from Miss Rotha Clay’s interesting and exhaustive book, “The Mediæval Hospitals of England,” that there have been two at Grantham—St. Margaret’s, founded in 1328, and St. Leonard’s in 1428.

The flat pastoral valley watered by the Wytham, then called in that neighbourhood the Granta, as the Cam was at Cambridge, seems to have been its own recommendation to an agricultural people; and the fact that the manor was from the time of Edward the Confessor an appanage of the queen, and remained all through the times of the Norman kings and their successors down to William III. a Crown property, used as a dower for the queen consort of the time, was no doubt some benefit to it. Even when the town was bestowed, as, for instance, by King John on the Earl of Warren who also owned Stamford, or by Edward I., who knew Grantham well, on Aylmer Valence Earl of Pembroke, it was looked on as inalienable from the Crown to which it always reverted. In the reign of Edward III., on August 3, 1359, King John of France, captured at Poictiers, slept at Grantham on his way from Hereford to Somerton Castle in custody of Lord d’Eyncourt and a company of forty-four knights and men-at-arms. In 1420 Henry V. allotted it as a dower to Katherine of France. In 1460 Edward IV. headed the procession which brought from Pontefract to Fotheringay for burial the body of his father Richard Duke of York, who was killed at the battle of Wakefield. In 1461 he granted the lordship and the manor to his mother Cicely Duchess of York, and the grant, it is interesting to know, included the inn called “le George.”

In 1503 Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., passed with her attendant cavalcade through Grantham on her way to meet her affianced bridegroom,[3] James IV., King of Scotland. She arrived in state, and was met by a fine civic and ecclesiastical procession which conducted her the last few miles into and out of the town, and she lay all “Sounday the 9ᵗʰ day of the monneth of Jully in the sayde towne of Grauntham.”

In 1642 the town was taken by Colonel Charles Cavendish for Charles I., but his success was wiped out next year by Cromwell. Defoe in his “Memoir of a Cavalier,” writing of this, says “About this time it was that we began to hear of the name of Oliver Cromwell, who, like a little cloud, rose out of the East and spread first into the North, till it shed down a flood that overwhelmed the three Kingdoms.... The first action in which we heard of his exploits and which emblazoned his character was at Grantham.” Cromwell was with the Earl of Manchester, but was in command of his own regiment of horse. Where the battle actually took place is uncertain, but probably on Gonerby Moor. We happen to have Cromwell’s own account of the skirmish—see vol. I., p. 177, of ‘Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,’ by Carlyle. It was written to some official, and is the first letter of Cromwell’s ever published in the newspapers:—

A fortnight later he writes from Lincolnshire to the Mayor and Corporation of Colchester announcing the victory of Fairfax at Wakefield, and asking for immediate supplies both of men and money. He tells them how greatly Lord Newcastle outnumbers Fairfax, infantry two to one, horse more than six to one. And he ends with:—

It was six years after this that Isaac Newton went to school in Grantham. Since the Restoration, but for the pulling down of the market cross by Mr. John Manners in 1779, which he was compelled to put up again the following year, nothing of note happened at Grantham till the Great Northern Railway came and subsequently Hornsby’s great agricultural implement works arose.

Grantham had been incorporated in 1463, and received the elective franchise four years later, in the reign of Edward IV., who more than once visited the town. The two families at Belvoir and Belton usually influenced the elections. But in 1802 their united interests were opposed by Sir William Manners, who had bought most of the houses in the borough. But the Duke of Rutland and Lord Brownlow won. There were then two members, and the historian makes the naïve statement, “previous to this election it had been customary for the voters to receive two guineas from each candidate; at this election the price rose to ten guineas.”

The Angel Inn, Grantham.

The mention of “le George” inn in the grant of 1461 brings to mind the other ancient hostel opposite to it. The Angel stands on the site of an earlier inn which goes back to the twelfth century. King John is said to have held his court in it in 1203. On October 19, 1483, Richard III., having sent to London for the Great Seal, signed the warrant for the execution of Buckingham “in a chamber called the King’s Chamber in the present Angel Inn.” This was a fine room extending the whole length of the front, and now cut up into three rooms. There are two oriel windows in this, and two more in the rooms beneath, which have all curved and vaulted alcoves of stone. The present front dates from 1450, the gateway from about 1350, and shows the heads of Edward III. and Queen Philippa on the hood-mould. Next to it is a very pretty half-timbered house, figured in Allan’s “History of the County of Lincoln,” 1830. This and the Angel stand on land once the property of the Knights Templars of Temple-Bruer.

Among the misdeeds of the eighteenth century are the pulling down of the George Inn and a beautiful stone oratory or guild chapel which stood near it. The Free Grammar school, founded by Bishop Fox 1528, still stands on the north side of the churchyard; but new buildings having been lately erected, the fine old schoolroom has been fitted up as a school chapel.

Fox endowed his school with the revenue of two chantries, which before the dissolution belonged to the church of St. Peter. This church is gone, but doubtless it stood on St. Peter’s Hill on lands which had been granted by Æslwith, before the Conquest, to the abbey of Peterborough. Close by now is a good bronze statue of Sir Isaac Newton, and once there was an Eleanor cross, which, with those at Lincoln and Stamford, were destroyed by the fanatical soldiery in 1645.

We now come to the great feature of the town, its magnificent church dedicated to St. Wulfram, Archbishop of Sens, 680. We might almost call this the third church, for the first has entirely disappeared though its foundations remain beneath the floor of the eastern part of the nave, and the second has been so enlarged and added to, that it is now practically a different building; the tower, built at the end of the thirteenth century, belongs entirely to number three.

The ground plan is singularly simple, one long parallelogram nearly 200 feet long and eighty feet wide, with no transepts, its only projections being the north and south porches and the “Hall” chapel used as a vestry.

The second, or Norman, church, ended two bays east of the present tower, as is plain to see from the second pillar from the tower being, as is the case in Peterborough Cathedral, composed of a broad mass of wall with a respond on either side, the western respond being of much later character than the eastern. If the chancel was originally as it is now, it must have been as long as the nave, but the nave then perhaps included two of the chancel bays. At present the lengthening of the nave westward and the adding of the tower has made the nave twice the length of the chancel. At first the church had just a nave and a chancel, but, about 1180, aisles were added to the nave; to do this the nave walls were taken down and the eastern responds made, which we have just spoken of, and the beautiful clustered columns of the arcades, three on each side, set up. The aisles were narrow and probably covered by a lean-to roof. The arches springing from these columns would be round-headed, the pointed arches we see now being the work of a century later, when much wider north and south aisles were built; that on the north being on a particularly grand and massive scale. The westernmost bay on either side was made nearly twice the width of the others so as to correspond with the breadth of the tower, because one of the features of the church is that the two aisles run out westwards and align with the tower, and as the chapels on either side run out in the same way eastwards, as far as the chancel, we get the parallelogram above mentioned. As you enter the west door you are at once struck by the great size of the tower piers, and next you will notice the beauty of the tower arch, with its mouldings five deep. There is no chancel arch, and the church has one long roof from end to end. The aisles are very wide, and the pillars tall and slender, so that you are able to see over the whole body of the church as if it were one big hall. Curiously, the west window of the south aisle is not in the centre of the wall, and looks very awkward. Below it is a bookcase lined with old books. There are two arched recesses for tombs in the south wall, and there is a monument between two of the south arcade pillars, where a black marble top to an altar tomb is inscribed to Francis Malham de Elslacke, 1660. The east end of the north aisle is used as a morning chapel. A tall gilt reredos much blocks the chancel east window. When I last visited the church the north and south doorways being wide open gave the church plenty of wholesome fresh air, so different from the well-known Sabbath “frowst” which, in the days of high pews, and when a church was only opened on Sunday, never departed from the building.

The north porch is very large, and has a passage-way east and west right through; it was built with the north aisle about 1280, and was extended and a room built over it about 1325, when the head of the north doorway was much mutilated to let the floor in, at the same time a Lady chapel was constructed on the south side of the chancel, and with a double vaulted crypt, entered from outside, and also from the chancel, by a beautiful staircase with richly carved doorway. The rood screen was also built now, on which was an altar served by the chaplain daily at 5 a.m. “after the first stroke of the bell which is called Daybelle.” It is said that this bell is still rung daily from Lady Day to Michaelmas, but whether at 5 o’clock deponent sayeth not. The Lincoln daybell rang at 6. To reach this rood loft there is an octagon turret with a staircase on the south side at the junction of the nave and chancel. The south porch has also a staircase to the upper chamber, and the north porch has two turreted staircases, probably for the ingress and egress of pilgrims to the sacred relics kept there. Besides this there were at least five chantries attached to the church; the latest of these were the fifteenth century Corpus Christi chapel along the north side of the chancel, and the contiguous “Hall” chapel which dates from the fifteenth century. There is a good corbel table all along the aisles outside, and the west front is very fine and striking.

But the great glory of the building is the steeple. We have seen that the nave runs up to the large eastern piers of the tower, and the aisles run on past each side of it as far as the western piers, and so with the tower form a magnificent western façade, examples of which might even then have been seen at Newark, which was begun before Grantham, and at Tickhill near Doncaster.

The tower, one of the finest bits of fourteenth century work in the kingdom, has four stages: first, the west door and window, both richly adorned with ballflower, reminiscent of the then recent work at Salisbury, to which North and South Grantham were attached as prebends. Then comes a stage of two bands of arcading on the western face only, and a band of quatrefoil diaper work all round. In the third stage are twin deep-set double-light windows and then come two very lofty double lights under one crocketed hood mould. Both this stage and the last show a very strong central mullion and the fourth, or belfry stage, has statued niches reaching to the parapet and filling the spandrils on either side of the window head. Inside the parapet at the south-west corner is a curious old stone arch like a sentry-box or bell turret. The magnificent angle buttresses are crowned by pinnacles, from within which rises the spire with three rows of lights and lines of crockets at each angle running up 140 feet above a tower of equal height. It seems at that distance to come to a slender point; but we are told that when it was struck by lightning in 1797 a mill-stone was set on the apex into which the weathercock was mortised. There are ten bells, a larger ring than is possessed by any church in the county but one, viz., Ewerby near Sleaford.

The date 1280 is assigned to the tower and north aisle because the windows of that aisle reproduce in the cusped circles of their head-lights the patterns of windows which had just a few years before been inserted in Salisbury chapter-house, and the west window of the aisle is a reduction to six lights of the great eight-light east window at Lincoln; but neither Lincoln great tower nor Salisbury spire had yet been built, and as they are the only buildings which are admitted to surpass Grantham steeple—the former in richness of detail, the latter in its soaring spire—and as Boston was not built till a hundred years later, nor Louth till 200 years after Boston, it is clear that in 1300 Grantham for height and beauty stood without a rival. Now-a-days, of course, we have both Boston and Louth, and have them in the same county, and though Sir Gilbert Scott puts Grantham as second only to Salisbury among English steeples, and though in the grandeur and interest of its interior as well as in the profuse ornamentation of its exterior Louth cannot compete with it at all, yet there is in the delicate tapering lines of Louth spire and the beautiful way in which it rises from its lofty tower-pinnacles connected with their four pairs of light flying buttresses a satisfying grace and a beauty of proportion which no other church seems to possess; and when we look closely at the somewhat aimless bands of diaper work and arcading in the second stage of Grantham tower and then turn to the harmonious simplicity of the three stages in the Louth tower and the incomparable beauty of the belfry lights with their crocketed hood-mouldings which are carried up in lines ascending like a canopy to the pinnacled parapet, it seems to satisfy the eye and the desire for beauty and symmetry in the fullest possible measure.

The church has not a great number of monuments; that to Richard de Salteby, 1362, is the earliest, and there is, besides the Malham tomb, one of the Harrington family, and a huge erection to Chief Justice Ryder, whose descendants derive their title of Harrowby from a hamlet close by. There are two libraries in the church, one with no less than seventy-four chained books. But a church forms a bad library, and many are gone and some of the best are mutilated, for as Tennyson says in “The Village Wife”:—

Only here it was not the lasses but the mediæval verger.

Grantham Church.

The bowl of the font has most interesting carved panels of the Annunciation, the Magi, the Nativity, Circumcision, Baptism, Blessing of Children, the Sacrifice of Isaac, and one other. The oak chancel screen and the parcloses by Scott, the reredos by Bodley, and the rest of the oak fittings by Blomfield, are all very good. The screen takes the place of the old stone screen which is quite gone. There is some excellent modern glass, and for those who understand heraldry, I might mention that in the east window were once many coats of arms of which Marrat gives a list with notes by Gervase Holles, from which I gather that the armorial glass was very fine, and that the arms of “La Warre” are “G. crusily, botony, fitchy, a lion rampant or.” It is pleasant to know this, even if one does not quite understand it.

The extending of the church westwards encroached upon the open space in which stood the reinstated “Applecross,” at one time replaced by a quite uncalled-for stone obelisk in the market-place, opposite the Angel, with an inscription to say that the Eleanor Cross once stood there, which was not true, as that was set up in the broad street or square called “St. Peter’s Hill,” where now the bronze statue of Newton stands. In Finkin Street the town, until ten years ago, preserved a splendid chestnut tree, and other fine trees near the church add a beauty which towns now-a-days rarely possess.

As at Lincoln, the Grey Friars first brought good drinking water to the town, and their conduit is still a picturesque object in the market square. It is on the south side, close to the Blue Sheep. Blue seems to have been the Grantham colour, for there are at least twelve inns whose sign is some blue thing—Bell, Sheep, Pig, Lion, Dragon, Boy, etc. Blue pill is almost the only thing of that colour not represented.

The connection of Grantham with Salisbury is a very old one, as far back as 1091 the lands and endowments of the church were granted to St. Osmund, and by him given to his new cathedral at Old Sarum, the site of which is now being cleared in much the same manner as has been adopted at Bardney Abbey. The Empress Maud added the gift of the living and the right of presentation, so the prebendaries of North and South Grantham became the rectors; North Grantham comprising Londonthorpe and North Gonerby, and South Grantham South Gonerby and Braceby. Later, about 1225, vicars were appointed, but there was no vicarage, and the work was mainly done by the chaplain and the chantry priests. In 1713 the dual vicars were merged in one, and since 1870 the presentation has been in the hands of the Bishop of Lincoln.

We have spoken often of chantries. A chantry was a chapel endowed with revenues for priests to perform Mass therein for the souls of the donors or others. Hence we have in Shakespeare—

CHAPTER VII ROADS FROM GRANTHAM

The main South Lincolnshire roads run up from Stamford to Boston, to Sleaford and to Grantham; here of the six spokes of the wheel of which Grantham is the hub, three going westwards soon leave the county. That which goes east runs a very uneventful course for twelve miles till, having crossed the Bourne and Sleaford road, it comes to Threckingham, and in another six or seven miles to Donington where it divides and, after passing many most remarkable churches, reaches Boston either by Swineshead or by Gosberton, Algarkirk and Kirton, which will be described in the route from Spalding. The Great Road north and south from Grantham is full of interest, and passes through village after village, and on both the northern and western sides the neighbourhood of Grantham is extremely hilly and well wooded, and contains several fine country seats. Belvoir Castle (Duke of Rutland), Denton (Sir C. G. Welby), Harlaxton (T. S. Pearson Gregory, Esq.), Belton (Earl Brownlow), and Syston (Sir John Thorold).

Syston Hall, Sir John Thorold’s place, looks down upon Barkstone. It is grandly placed, and the house, which was built in the eighteenth century, contains a fine library. The greatest treasure of this, however, the famed Mazarin Bible, was sold in 1884 for £3,200. A mile to the south lies Belton. Here the church is filled with monuments of the Cust and Brownlow families, and the font has eight carved panels with very unusual subjects—a man pulling two bells, a monk reading, a priest with both hands up, a deacon robed, a monster rampant with a double tail, a man with a drawn sword, a naked babe and a rope, a man with a large bird above him, and a tree; also among the monuments is one of Sir John Brownlow, 1754, and one dated 1768 of Sir John Cust, the “Speaker.” In this a singularly graceful female figure is holding the “Journals of the House of Commons.” The monument of his son, the first Baron Brownlow, 1807, is by Westmacott. The family have added a north transept for use as a mortuary chapel. Here, amongst others, are monuments of the first Earl Brownlow, 1853, by Marochetti, and of his two wives with a figure emblematic of Religion, by Canova. The village is always kept in beautiful order; adjoining it is the large park with fine avenues and three lakes in it. The house, built in the shape of the letter H, was finished from Sir Christopher Wren’s designs in 1689, and the park enclosed and planted in the following year by Sir John, the third Baronet Brownlow, who entertained William III. there in 1695. His nephew, Sir John, who was created Viscount Tyrconnel in 1718, formed the library and laid out the gardens. In 1778 James Wyatt was employed to make improvements. He removed Wren’s cupola, made a new entrance on the south side, and raised the height of the drawing-room to twenty-two feet. All the rooms in the house are remarkably high, and the big dining-room is adorned with enormous pictures by Hondekoeter.

Wonderful carvings by Grinling Gibbons are in several rooms, and also in the chapel, which is panelled with cedar wood.

Barkston is near the stream of the Witham, and is thence called Barkston-in-the-Willows; and ten miles off, on the county boundary near Newark, is Barnby-in-the-Willows, also on the Witham, which has arrived there from Barkston by a somewhat circuitous route.

Barkston Church is worth seeing by anyone who wishes to see how a complete rood-loft staircase was arranged, the steep twelve-inch risers showing how the builders got the maximum of utility out of the minimum of space. The last three steps below appear to have been cut off to let the pulpit steps in. There is a similar arrangement at Somerby, where the steps also are very high. A very good modern rood screen and canopy, somewhat on the pattern of the Sleaford one, has been put up by the rector, the Rev. E. Clements. There are two squints, on either side of the chancel arch, one through the rood staircase. The church has a nave and a south aisle, and the plain round transition Norman pillars are exactly like those at Great Hale, but are only about one-half the height. The arches are round ones, with nail head ornament, and from the bases of these pillars it is clear that the floor once sloped upwards continuously from west to east, as at Colsterworth and Horkstow. The chancel arch is made lofty by being set on the stone basement of the rood screen. The transitional tower has a beautiful Early English window in the west front, and the Decorated south aisle has a richly panelled parapet; but the Perpendicular porch is not so well executed, and cuts rudely into two pretty little aisle windows, and a niche over the door. It has over it this rhyming inscription carved in stone.

Withamside Boston.

And under the capital of one of the doorway pillars is the line, rather difficult to construe, but in beautiful lettering:—

The severe three-light east window has good glass by Kempe. The spire, a very good one, is later than the tower, and built of squared stones, different in colour from the small stones of the tower. Two half figures incised in bold relief on fourteenth century slabs, are built into the north wall, opposite the south door.

Keeping along the Lincoln road the next place we reach is Honington. The Early English tower of the church is entered by a very early pointed arch, the nave being of massive Norman work with an unusually large corbel table. There are the remains of a stone screen, and a canopied aumbry in the chancel was perhaps used as an Easter sepulchre. The chantry chapel has monuments of the Hussey family, and one of W. Smith, 1550, in gown and doublet. An early slab, with part of the effigy of a priest on it, has been used over again to commemorate John Hussey and his wife, he being described on it as “A professor of the Ghospell,” 1587. To the south-east of the village is what was once an important British fort with a triple ditch, used later by the Romans whose camp at Causennæ on the “High Dyke” was but four miles to the east. Less than two miles brings us to Carlton Scroop, with a late Norman tower and Early English arcade, also some good old glass and a Jacobean pulpit. The remains of a rood screen and the rood loft steps are still there.

A mile further on is one of the many Normantons, with Early English nave, decorated tower, fine west window, and Perpendicular clerestory.

Two miles on we come to Caythorpe, which is built on a very singular plan, for it has a double nave with a buttress between the two west windows to take the thrust of the arches which are in a line with the ridge of the roof. This forms the remarkable feature of the church interior. There are short transepts, and the tower rises above the four open arches. Over one of these there is a painting of the Last Judgment. There are fine buttresses outside with figures of the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Virgin, and one of our Lord on the porch. The windows are large. The spire is lofty but unpleasing, as it has a marked “entasis” or set in, such as is seen in many Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire spires, which hence are often termed sugar-loafed. Before its re-building, in 1859, after it had been struck by lightning, the entasis was still more marked than it is now. The singularly thin, ugly needle-like spire of Glinton, just over the southern border of the county near Deeping, has a slight set in which does not improve its appearance. A mile to the north the road passes through the very pretty village of Fulbeck. The dip of the road, the charming old houses, grey and red, the handsome church tower with its picturesque pinnacles, and the ancestral beauty of the fine trees, make a really lovely picture. Fine iron gates lead to the Hall, the home of the Fanes, an honoured name in Lincolnshire. Many of the name rest in the churchyard, and their monuments fill the dark church, which has a good Norman font. The tampering with old walls and old buildings is always productive of mischief, and, as at Bath Abbey, when, to add to its appearance, flying buttresses were put up all along the nave, the weight began to crush in the nave walls, and the only remedy was to put on, at great expense, a stone groined roof, which is the real raison d’être of flying buttresses, so here at Fulbeck, when they pulled down the chancel and built it up again with the walls further out, the consequence was that the east wall of the nave, missing its accustomed support, began to lean out eastwards.

Another mile and a half brings us to Leadenham, where the east and west road from Sleaford to Newark crosses the Great North road. The fine tall spire is seen from all the country round, for it stands half way up the cliff. But this and the rest of the road to Lincoln is described in Chapter XIII.

If you go out of Grantham by the south-west, you should stop at a very pretty little village to the south of the Grantham and Melton road, from which a loop descends to an old gateway, all that is left of the old Harlaxton Manor, a pretty Tudor building now pulled down, the stone balustrades in front of it having been removed by Mr. Pearson Gregory to his large house a mile off, built on the ridge of the park by Salvin in 1845. The Flemish family of De Ligne lived in the old Hall in Jacobean times, and their predecessors are probably represented by the fine but mutilated alabaster recumbent effigies now in the northern, or Trinity, chapel of the church. In the north-east angle of this chapel is a very graceful canopied recess on a bracket, much like those at Sedgebrook, about five miles off on the border of the county.

The north aisle and nave are older than the tower and south aisle; and a curious staircase ascends at the east of the south aisle wall, from which a gangway crossed to the rood loft.

There are many aumbries in various parts of the church, and a tall, Decorated font, with grotesque faces in some panels, and in others sacred subjects oddly treated, such as our Lord crowned and holding a Chalice. In the south aisle is an old oak post alms-box resembling one at Halton Holgate.

A doorway leads out from the south side of the east end, an entrance probably to an eastern chapel. The two doorways, one on each side of the altar, at Spalding may have led to the same, or possibly to a vestry, as in Magdalen Chapel, Oxford.

The spire has a staircase, passing curiously from one of the pinnacles. A very massive broken stone coffin, removed from a garden, lies in the south chapel. The fine row of limes, and the ivy-grown walls of old Harlaxton Manor, add to the beauty of this quiet little village, and a group of half-timbered brick buildings, said to be sixteenth century, though looking more modern, which are near the church, are a picturesque feature.

Denton Manor, the seat of Sir C. G. E. Welby, Bart., is just beyond Harlaxton, and there one might once have seen a fine old manor house, now replaced by a large modern hall of fine proportions; the work is by Sir A. W. Blomfield, good in design and detail, and containing a notable collection both of furniture and pictures. St. Christopher’s Well, a chalybeate spring, is in the park, and in the restored church are a good recumbent effigy of John Blyth, 1602, and a figure of Richard Welby, 1713, with angels carefully planting a crown on his wig. After this the road passes into Leicestershire, so we turn to the right and in less than four miles, halfway between the Melton road and the Nottingham road, and more in Leicestershire than in Lincolnshire, we come to Belvoir Castle. The mound on which it stands is over the border and is not a natural height, but was thrown up on a spur of the wold as early as the eleventh century by Robert de Todeni, who thence became known as Robert de Belvedeir. Certainly the pile is grandly placed, and has a sort of Windsor Castle appearance from all the country round. It has been in possession of the Manners family now for four hundred years. The celebrated Marquis of Granby, a name well known in all the neighbourhood as a public-house sign, was son of the third Duke. He was “Col. of the Leicester Blues” in 1745, and General and Commander-in-Chief of the British contingent at Minden, where the English and German forces, under the Duke of Brunswick, defeated the French in 1759, and he distinguished himself in battle in each of the three following years. The castle, destroyed by order of Parliament in the civil wars, was rebuilt in 1668, and again in 1801, but a fire having destroyed part of it in 1816 it was restored at the worst of all architectural periods, so that at a near view it does not fulfil the expectation raised by its grand appearance when seen from a distance. As at Windsor there is a very fine “Guard Room,” and many large rooms hung with tapestry or pictures, and a picture gallery of unusual excellence. The Duchess’s garden in spring is one of the finest horticultural sights in the kingdom. The greater part of the castle is most liberally thrown open daily to the public.

Returning from Belvoir we can pass by Barrowby to join the Nottingham and Grantham road, which leaves the county at Sedgebrook, on either side of which are seen the churches of Muston and East and West Allington, where Crabbe, the poet, was rector 1789-1814. West Allington church stands in Mr. Welby’s park, and close by, a salt well is marked on the map. At Sedgebrook is a farm house which was built as a manor-house by Sir John Markham in the sixteenth century, when he was Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. He it was who received the soubriquet of “The upright Judge,” on the occasion of his being turned out of office by Edward IV., because of his scrupulous fairness at the trial of Sir Thomas Coke, Lord Mayor of London.

From Sedgebrook to Barrowby is three miles of level ground, and then the road rises 150 feet to the village, which commands a splendid view over the vale of Belvoir. Leaving this you descend a couple of miles to Grantham.

At the outskirts of the town the road meets two others, one the northern or Lincoln road, and the other the north-western or Newark road. This is the Great North Road, and it starts by climbing the famous Gonerby Hill, the terror and effectual trial ground of motors in their earliest days, and described by “mine host” in The Heart of Midlothian as “a murder to post-horses.” The hill once gained affords a fine view eastwards, Foston and Long Bennington (which has a large church with a handsome porch, a good churchyard cross, and a mutilated market cross), are the only villages, till the road crosses the county boundary near Claypole, and runs on about four miles to Newark, distant fifteen miles from Grantham. Long Bennington is a mile north-east of Normanton Lodge, where Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire touch.

Stubton, a couple of miles to the east, has a fine group of yew trees growing round the tomb of Sir George Heron, one of the family from Cressy Hall, Gosberton, I suppose, who built the hall now occupied by G. Neville, Esq.

Between Stubton and the Grantham-and-Lincoln road are many winding lanes, by a judicious use of which you may escape the fate that overtook us of landing after a steep and rather rough climb from Barkstone at two farms one after the other, beyond which the road did not even try to go. If you have better luck you will reach the out-of-the-way parish church of Hough-on-the-Hill.

This, the last resting-place of King John, when on his journey to Newark where he died, has a church whose tower is singularly interesting, being akin to St. Peter’s at Barton-on Humber, and the two very old churches in Lincoln, and one at Broughton, near Brigg, and we may add, perhaps, the tower at Great Hale.

The work of all these towers is pre-Norman, and it is not unlikely that the church, when first built, consisted of only a tower and two apses. At Hough, as at Broughton, we have attached to the west face of the tower a Saxon circular turret staircase, built in the rudest way and coped with a sloping top of squared masonry, of apparently Norman work. The tower has several very small lights, 12 to 15 inches high, and of various shapes, while the west side of the south porch is pierced with a light which only measures 8 inches by 4, but is framed with dressed stone on both the wall-surfaces. The two lower stages of the square tower, to whose west face the round staircase-tower clings, are all of the same rough stone-work, with wide mortar joints, but with two square edged thick string-courses of dressed stone, projecting 6 inches or more. The upper stage is of much later date. The Early English nave, chancel, and aisles are very high, and are no less than 20 feet wide, mercifully (for it was proposed to abolish them and substitute a pine roof) they still retain their old Perpendicular roofs with the chancel and nave timbers enriched with carving. The sedilia are of the rudest possible construction.

Hough-on-the-Hill.

The staircase turret has two oblong Saxon windows, like those at Barnack, about four feet by one, in the west face, three small round lights on the north, and four on the south, one square and one diamond-shaped and two circular. The turret is of the same date as the tower, but appears to have been built on after the tower was finished; and it almost obscures the two little west windows of the tower, one on each side of it, and near the top. A round-headed doorway leads from the tower to the turret, inside which the good stone steps lead up to a triangular-headed door into the tower, where now is the belfry floor, from which another similar doorway leads into the nave. Close to the top of the old Saxon tower walls are very massive stone corbels for supporting the roof. The Newel post of the old tower is a magnificent one, being eighteen inches thick. This, where the upper stage was added, is continued, but with only half that thickness.

There was once a porch with a higher pitched roof, as shown by the gable roof-mould against the aisle. On the stone benches are three of the solitaire-board devices, with eight hollows connected by lines all set in an oblong, the same that you see often in cloisters and on the stone benches at Windsor, where monks or chorister boys passed the time playing with marbles. It is a truly primitive and world-wide amusement. The natives of Madagascar have precisely the same pattern marked out on boards, seated round which, and with pebbles which they move like chessmen, they delight themselves, both young and old, in gambling.

The church used to go with the Head-Mastership of Grantham Grammar School, seven miles off, and some of the Headmasters were buried here; one, Rev. Joseph Hall, is described as “Vicar of Ancaster and Hough-on-the-Hill, Headmaster of Grantham Grammar School, and Rector of Snelland, and Domestic Chaplain to Lord Fitzwilliam”—he died in 1814.

It stands on a high knoll, whence the churchyard, which is set round with yew-trees, slopes steeply to the south. The Wapentake of Loveden takes its name from a neighbouring round-topped hill, and the old tower of Hough-on-the-Hill may well have been the original meeting-place; just as Barnack was, where the triangular-headed seat for the chief man is built into the tower wall. The term “Wapentake” means the taking hold of the chief’s weapon by the assembled warriors, or of the warriors’ weapons by the chief, as a sign that they swear fealty to him, and then the name was applied to the district over which a particular chief held rule. The native chiefs of India, when they come to a Durbar, present their swords to the King or his representative in a similar manner, for him to touch.

Just south of Hough is the hamlet of Gelston, where, on a triangular green, is all that is left of a wayside cross, a rare thing in this county. Only about two feet of the old shaft is left and the massive base block standing on a thick slab with chamfered corners. This is mounted on three steps and is a very picturesque object.

There are some two dozen Wapentakes within the county, some with odd names, e.g., Longoboby; of these, eight end like Elloe in oe, which, I take it, means water.

From Hough-on-the-Hill the byway to the Grantham and Newark road, with villages at every second milestone, runs through Brandon, where a small chapel contains a Norman door with a tympanum and a rather unusual moulding, very like one we shall see in the old church at Stow, and then through Stubton, to Claypole, close to the county boundary. The beautiful crocketed spire of this fine church is a landmark seen for miles; as usual, it is Perpendicular, and on an Early English tower, which is plastered over with cement outside and engaged between the aisles inside. It is a cruciform building, and in the Early English south transept are three beautiful sedilia, not at all common in such a position. The flat coloured ceiling of the nave is old, though, since the restoration by C. Hodgson Fowler in 1892, the high pitch of the roof over it has been reverted to, both on chancel and nave. The nave is large with four wide bays, supported on clustered pillars, the capitals being all different and all ornamented with singularly bold foliated carving of great beauty. The chancel arch exhibits brackets for the rood beam. The large clerestory windows were probably in the nave before the aisles were added. Another set of sedilia in the chancel are of the Decorated period, and most of the windows have flowing tracery. On the north side of the chancel is a Sacristy, containing an altar slab in situ with its five dedication crosses. The porch has a very deep niche over it, for a statue, and there is another niche at the east end of the nave; the fine Perpendicular parapet leading to it being, like the rest of the church, embattled. The screen is a good Perpendicular one, and the desk of the well-carved pulpit was once part of it, this now is oddly supported by the long stem of a processional cross. The font, which is hexagonal, is of the Decorated period.

One of the most unusual features in the church is to be found in the stone seats which surround the bases of the pillars in the south arcade. This is to be seen also at Bottesford and at Caistor.

A short distance to the south-west of the church there was, until quite recently, a charming old stone bridge, over a small stream, but this has now, I regret to say, been superseded by one of those iron girder structures, so dear to the heart of the highway surveyor.

In the church the hook for the “Lenten Veil” still remains at the end of the sedilia, and a staple over the vestry-door opposite.

In pre-reformation days there was a regular “office” or service for the Easter sepulchre, in which the priests acted the parts of the three kings, the angel, and the risen Lord, at which time a line was stretched across the chancel to support the “Lenten Veil” which served as a stage-curtain.

CHAPTER VIII SLEAFORD

Six roads go out of Sleaford, and five railways. Lincoln, Boston, Bourne and Grantham have both a road and a railway to Sleaford, Spalding has only a railway direct, and Horncastle and Newark only a road. At no towns but Louth and Lincoln do so many routes converge, though Caistor, Grantham and Boston come very near. The southern or Bourne road we have traced from Bourne, so we will now take the eastern roads to Boston and Horncastle. But first to say something of Sleaford itself. The Conqueror bestowed the manor on Remigius, first Bishop of Lincoln. About 1130 Bishop Alexander built the castle, together with that at Newark, which alone in part survives. These castles were seized by Stephen, and here King John, having left Swineshead Abbey, stayed a night before his last journey by Hough-on-the-hill to Newark, where he died 1216. Henry VIII., with Katherine Howard, held a council here on his way from Grimsthorpe to Lincoln, 1541, dining next day at Temple-Bruer, which he gave in the same year to the Duke of Suffolk. He had here in 1538 ordered the execution of Lord Hussey. Murray’s guide-book tells us that Richard de Haldingham, 1314, who made the famous and curious “Mappa Mundi,” now kept in Hereford Cathedral, was born at Holdingham close by. The church is one of four in this neighbourhood dedicated to St. Denis. The lower stage of the tower dates from 1180. The spire, a very early one, built about 1220, being struck by lightning, was taken down and put up again by C. Kirk in 1884. It is only 144 feet in height. As at Grantham and Ewerby the tower is engaged in the aisles; its lower stage dates from 1180. The nave has eight three-light clerestory windows, with tall pinnacles rising from the parapet. The aisles have a richly carved parapet, without pinnacles; but the beauty and extreme richness of the western ends of the aisles, where they engage with the massive tower, surmounted as they are by turrets, bellcots and pinnacles, and niches, some still containing their statues, is not surpassed in any church in England.

The doorway, which is in the west end of the north aisle, cuts into the fine window above, and opens upon the baptistery.

The nave and aisles are all very lofty; and the grand proportions of the church give one the feeling of being in a cathedral. There is an outer north aisle, now screened off by a good modern oak screen, and fitted with an organ and an altar with modern painted reredos depicting the Crucifixion. The tracery of the big window is good, but that in the north transept (there is no south transept) is one of the finest six-light windows to be seen, and is filled with first-rate modern glass by Ward and Hughes. The supporting arch at the west of the north aisle has an inverted arch, as at Wells, to support the tower. At the end of the south aisle, a tall half-arch acts as a buttress to the other side of the tower arch. The chancel was once a magnificent one, but was rebuilt and curtailed at a bad period.

The fine monuments on each side of the chancel arch—one having two alabaster recumbent figures, much blocked by the pulpit, are all of the Carre family; and a curious carved and inscribed coffin lid, showing just the face, and then, lower down, the praying hands of a man, apparently a layman, with long hair, is set up in the transept against the chancel pier. At Hartington in Derbyshire is one showing the bust and praying hands together, and then, lower down, the feet. An old iron chest is in the south aisle, and the church has a very perfect set of consecration crosses both inside and out.

The rood screen is especially fine, in fact, the finest in the country, having still its ancient canopy projecting about six feet, with very graceful carving on the heads of the panels below it. Two staircases in the chancel piers still remain, opening on to the rood loft on either side.

The west end of the church overlooks the market, where there is always a gay scene on Mondays—stalls and cheap-jacks and crowds of market folk making it almost Oriental in life and colour.

The street runs along the south side of the church, across which is seen the excellent but not beautiful Sleaford almshouse.

North Transept, St. Denis’s Church, Sleaford.

Eastwards on the Swineshead road, and within half-a-dozen miles of Sleaford, is a cluster of especially good churches—Ewerby, Asgarby, Heckington, Howell, Great Hale and Helpringham. Four of these six have fine spires, and are seen from a long distance in this flat country. Ewerby is just on the edge of Haverholme Priory Park, and the building rooks who have chosen the trees at the village end of the park for their colony, gave, when we visited it, pleasant notification of the coming spring.

The tower is at the west end, engaged in the two aisles, and, adjoining the churchyard, a little green with remains of the old village cross leaves room for the fine pile of building to be seen and admired. The roof line of nave and chancel is continuous, and the broach spire, a singularly fine one, perhaps the best in England, is 174 feet high. It is probably the work of the same master builder who planned and built Heckington and Sleaford. The tower has a splendid ring of ten bells (Grantham alone has as many) for the completion of which, as for much else, Ewerby is indebted to the Earls of Winchelsea.

Internally, the walls are mostly built of very small stones, like those in a roadside wall. In the tower are good Decorated windows, in the lower of which, on the western face, is a stained glass window. This was struck by lightning in 1909, and all the faces of the figures were cut right out, the rest of the glass being intact. A lightning-conductor is now installed, but the faces are not yet filled in.

There is a most beautiful little window at the west end of the north aisle. Under the tower are three finely proportioned arches, and a stone groined roof. The ten bells are rung from the ground. The nave pillars are clustered, each erected on an earlier transition-Norman base; and the base of the font is also Norman. The porch is unusual in having a triangular string-course outside the hood-moulding. Besides the Market Cross, there are parts of two others, in the church and churchyard. There is a grand old recumbent warrior, probably Sir Richard Anses, with fourteenth century chain mail and helmet, and gorget, but the most interesting thing of all is a pre-Norman tomb-cover on the floor of the north aisle, with a rude cross on it, and a pattern of knot-work all over the rest of the slab. This is covered by a mat, but it certainly ought to have a rail round it for permanent protection, for it is one of the most remarkable stones in the county. An old oak chest with carved front is in the vestry. The whole church is well-cared-for, but at present only seated with chairs.

From Ewerby, two miles bring us to Howell, a small church with neither spire nor tower, but a double bell-gable at the west end of the nave; the porch is Norman, and a large pre-Norman stone coffin slab has been placed in it. The transition pillars have huge mill-stone shaped bases; and there is only a nave and north aisle. On the floor of the aisle is a half figure of a mother with a small figure of her daughter, both deeply cut on a fourteenth century stone slab. It is curious to come on a monument to “Sir Charles Dymok of Howell, 2nd son to Sir Edward Dymok of Scrielsby”—whose daughter married Sir John Langton. The tomb, with coloured figures of the knight and his lady kneeling at an altar, was put up about 1610 by his nephew, another Sir Edward Dymok.

There is a broken churchyard cross, the base inscribed to John Spencer, rector, 1448. The church is dedicated to St. Oswald. Ivy is growing inside the nave, having forced its way right through the wall—a good illustration of the mischief that ivy can do.

The mention of the stone coffin in Howell church porch calls to mind a similar case in a Cumberland church, where the sexton, pointing it out to a visitor, said: “Ah think thet a varra good thing; minds ’em o’ their latter end, ye knaw; an’ its varra useful for umberellas.”

Heckington is a town-like village on the main road, and its splendid church, which faces you at the end of the street, as at Louth, is one of the wonders of Lincolnshire. It is entirely in the Decorated style, with lofty spire and four very high pinnacles. It owes its magnificence to the fact that the great abbey at Bardney, which had a chantry here, obtained a royal licence in 1345 to appropriate the church. Certainly it is the most perfect example of a Decorated church in the kingdom.

The nave is remarkably high and wide, and the building of it, as in the case of Wilfrid’s great church at Hexham, apparently took thirty-five years. The dimensions are 150 feet by eighty-five, and the masonry, owing probably to the leisurely way in which it was built, is remarkably good throughout. The statue niches have a few of their figures still. The porch, with its waved parapet richly carved, with a figure of our Lord above, still has its original roof. On either side are double buttresses, each with its canopied niche; and the nave ends with handsome turrets. The transept windows are very fine, and the seven-light east window, a most superb one, is only surpassed in its dimensions and beautiful tracery by those at Selby and Carlisle. It is filled with good glass by Ward and Hughes, put up in memory of Mr. Little, by his wife, 1897.

Heckington Church

A massive timber gallery crosses the west end, above the tower arch, giving access to the belfry above the groined roof of the tower. The clock struck while we were in the church, and gave evidence of at least one of the peal being of unusual magnificence of tone.

On the south side of the chancel is one window beneath which is a canopied credence table; and west of this, three tall and richly carved sedilia with figures of our Lord and the Virgin Mary and Saints Barbara, Katherine and Margaret; but the gem of the building is the Easter sepulchre on the north side, where there are no windows. This is only surpassed by one at Hawton, near Newark. Below are the Roman guards asleep, in fourteenth century armour. On each side of the recess for the sacred elements, which once had a door to it, are two figures of women and a guardian angel, and above them, the risen Christ between two flying angels. This is a truly beautiful thing, enshrined in a worthy building.

Outside is a broken churchyard cross, and the slender chancel buttresses are seen to have each a niche for a figure. The magnificent great “Dos-D’Âne” coping-stones on the churchyard wall, both here and at Great Hale, are a pleasure to see.

There was a church at Heckington before the Conquest, and a second was built about 1100. The income of this, as well as of that of Hale Magna, was given in 1208 by Simon de Gant and his wife Alice to support the church of St. Lazarus outside the walls of Jerusalem, and this endowment was confirmed by King John. The rector of Hale Magna in his parish magazine points out that the enormous amount of land which was constantly passing to the churches and monasteries in the Middle Ages became a distinct danger, and that an Act was passed to prevent it, called the Statute of Mortmain, under which licence had to be obtained from the Crown.

Consequently we find that in the fourth year of Edward II. (1310) inquisition was taken on a certain Sunday before Ranulph de Ry, Sheriff of Lincoln, at Ancaster “to inquire whether or not it be to the damage of the King or others if the King permit Wm. son of Wm. le Clerk of St. Botolph (Boston) to grant a messuage and 50 acres of land in Hekyngton and Hale to a certain chaplain and his successors to celebrate Divine service every day in the parish church of Hekyngton for the health of the souls of the said Wm. his father, mother and heirs, &c., for ever,” etc. The jury found that it would not be to the damage or prejudice of the king to allow the grant. They also reported that Henry de Beaumont was the “Mesne,” or middle, tenant between the king and William Clerk of Boston for twenty-eight acres, and between the king and Ralph de Howell for the other twenty-two acres, he holding from the king “by the service of a third part of a pound of pepper,” and subletting to the others, for so many marks a year. The land apparently being valued at about 1s. 8d. an acre. From other sources we find that land thereabouts varied in value from 4d. to 8s. an acre yearly rent.

In 1345 when the abbot and abbey of Bardney by royal licence received the churches and endowments of Hale and Heckington for their own use, the abbot became rector and appointed a vicar to administer each parish. The name of the abbot was Roger De Barrowe, whose tomb was found by the excavators at Bardney in 1909.

The building of the present beautiful church was completed by Richard de Potesgrave, the vicar, in 1380. He doubtless received help from Edward III., to whom he acted as chaplain. That he was an important person in the reigns of both Edward II. and III. is shown by the former king making over to him the confiscated property of the Colepeppers who had refused to deliver Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, to Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II., in 1321; while he was selected by Edward III. to superintend the removal of the body of Edward II. from Berkeley Castle to Gloucester. His mutilated effigy is under the north window of the chancel, and in a little box above it with a glass front is now preserved the small chalice which he used in his lifetime.

The churchwardens’ account book at Heckington begins in 1567, and in 1580 and 1583 and 1590 “VIˢ VIIIᵈ” is entered as the burial fee of members of the Cawdron family, whose later monuments are at Hale.

Another entry which constantly occurs in the sixteenth century is “for Whypping dogges out of Church,” and in the seventeenth century not “dogges” only but vagrants are treated to the lash, e.g.:—

And in 1686:—

A good, sound method of dealing with “Vagrom men,” but for the women and children one wonders the parson or churchwardens were not ashamed to make the entry.

Great Hale.

The book also shows the accounts of the “Dike-reeve” (an important officer) for what in another place is called “the farre fenne.”

We have already spoken of Great Hale or Hale Magna. It is very near Heckington, and was once a large church. Long before the abbey of Bardney appropriated it, in 1345, it had both a rector and a vicar, the two being consolidated in 1296. In 1346 the vicarage was endowed, and on the dissolution the rectorial tithes were granted, in 1543, to Westminster Abbey; but within four years they reverted to the Crown by exchange, and in 1607 were sold by James I., and eventually bought by Robert Cawdron, whose family were for many years lay rectors. Robert probably found the chancel in a bad state, and rather than go to the expense of restoring it, pulled it down and built up the chancel arch, and so it remains. But the great interest of the building lies at the west end. Here the tower arch is a round one, but the tower into which the Normans inserted it is Saxon, probably dating from about 950. It is built of small stones, and the line of the roof gable is still traceable against it outside. It has also a curious and complete staircase of the tenth century in a remarkably perfect condition, though the steps are much worn. The outer walls of this are built of the same small thin stones as are used in the tower, in the upper stage of which are deeply splayed windows with a baluster division of the usual Saxon type.

The nave pillars are Early English and slender for their height, for they are unusually tall, recalling the lofty pillars in some of the churches in Rome. The arches are pointed. Among the monuments are those of Robert Cawdron, and his three wives, 1605, and of another Robert, 1652, father of twenty children, while a large slab with the indent of a brass to some priest has been appropriated to commemorate a third of the same name.

The Cawdron arms are on a seventeenth century chalice. The old registers, which are now well cared for, are on paper, and have suffered sadly from damp and rough handling. The first volume begins in 1568, the second in 1658, and the list of vicars is complete from 1561. To antiquarians I consider that this is one of the most interesting of Lincolnshire churches. Two miles west is Burton Pedwardine, with fine Pedwardine and Horsman tombs, and a pretty little square grille for exhibiting relics. The central tower fell in 1862.

The road which runs south from Heckington to Billingborough and so on by Rippingale to Bourne, passes by Hale Magna to Helpringham. Here is another very fine church, with a lofty crocketed spire, starting from four bold pinnacles with flying buttresses. The tower is engaged in the aisles, as at Ewerby and Sleaford, and as at Ewerby it opens into nave and aisles by three grand arches. The great height of the tower arch into the nave here and at Boston and Sleaford was in order to let in light to the church from the great west window. The main body of the building is Decorated and has fine windows; the chancel with triplet window is Early English. The font, Early English transition, the rood screen is of good Perpendicular design, and the effect of the whole building is very satisfying, especially from the exterior. It is curious that the lord of the manors of Helpringham and Scredington, who since the sixteenth century has been the Lord Willoughby De Broke, was in the fourteenth century the Lord Willoughby D’Eresby.

Helpringham.

South of Helpringham, and situated half-way between that and Horbling, and just to the north of the Sleaford-and-Boston road is Swaton with a beautiful cruciform church in the earliest Decorated style; indeed, looking at the lancet windows in the chancel, one might fairly call it transitional Early English. The simple two-light geometrical window at the east end with the mullions delicately enriched outside and in, form a marked contrast to the rich but heavy Decorated work of the four-light west window. At the east end the window is subordinated to the whole design. At the west end the windows are the predominant feature of the building, and nowhere can this period of architecture be better studied. The roof spans both nave and aisles, as at Great Cotes, near Grimsby, so though the nave is big and high it has no clerestory. The tower arches are very low. The font is a very good one of the period, with diaper work and ball-flower.

We have dwelt at some length on Sleaford and its immediate neighbourhood, and not without cause, for there are few places in England or elsewhere in which so many quite first-rate churches are gathered within less than a six-mile square. They are all near the road from Sleaford to Boston, on which, after leaving Heckington, nothing noticeable is met with for seven miles, till Swineshead is reached, and nothing after that till Boston.

The north-eastern road from Sleaford to Horncastle passes over a flat and dull country to Billinghay and Tattershall, and thence by the interesting little churches of Haltham and Roughton (pronounced Rooton) to Horncastle. The road near Billinghay runs by the side of the Old Carr Dyke, which is a picturesque feature in a very Dutch-looking landscape.

This road crosses the Dyke near North Kyme, where there is a small Roman camp. The Normans have left their mark in the name of “Vacherie House” and Bœuferie Bridge, close to which is “Decoy House,” and two miles to the south is the isolated village of South Kyme. Here is the keep of a thirteenth century castle, which is nearly eighty feet high, a square tower with small loophole windows. The lower room vaulted and showing the arms of the Umfraville family, to whom the property passed in the fifteenth century from the Kymes by marriage, and soon afterwards to the Talboys family, and, in 1530, to Sir Edward Dymoke of Scrivelsby, whose descendants resided there till 1700. The castle was pulled down about 1725, after which the Duke of Newcastle bought the estate and sold it twenty years later to Mr. Abraham Hume. The existing tower communicated from the first floor with the rest of the castle. The upper floors are now gone.

Close by was a priory for Austin canons, founded by Philip de Kyme in the reign of Henry II., but all that now remains of it is in the south aisle of the church, which, once a splendid cruciform building, has been cut down to one aisle and a fine porch; over this is represented the Coronation of the Virgin. A bit of very early carved stonework has been let into the wall, and a brass inscription from the tomb of Lord Talboys 1530.

South Kyme.

The western road from Sleaford has no interesting features, till at about the fifth milestone it comes to Ancaster, the old Roman ‘Causennæ’; here it crosses the Ermine Street, which is a fine wide road, but fallen in many parts into disuse. The Ancaster stone quarries lie two miles to the south of the village in Wilsford heath on high ground; the Romans preferred a high ridge for their great “Streets,” but at Ancaster the Ermine Street descends 100 feet, and from thence, after crossing it, our route takes us by a very pretty and wooded route to Honington, on the Great North Road.

South Kyme Church.

We will now go back to Sleaford and trace out the course of its other western road to Newark, leaving the north or Lincoln Road to be described from Lincoln.

This road starts in a northerly direction, but splits off at Holdingham before reaching Leasingham, of which Bishop Trollope of Nottingham, who did so much for archæology in our county, was rector for fifty years. The church has a fine transition tower with curiously constructed belfry windows and a broach spire. Two finely carved angels adorn the porch, and the font, of which the bowl seems to have been copied from an earlier one, though only the stem and base remain, exhibits very varied subjects, among them The Resurrection, Last Judgment, The Temptation, The Entry into Jerusalem, Herodias and Salome, and the Marriage of the Virgin. Fixed to one of the pillars is the old hourglass stand, of which other specimens, but usually fixed to the pulpit, are at Bracebridge near Lincoln, Sapperton near Folkingham, Hameringham near Horncastle, and Belton in the Isle of Axholme.

But the Newark road holds westwards, and, leaving the tower of Cranwell, with its interesting “Long and Short” work, to the right, climbs to the high ground and crosses the Ermine Street by Caythorpe Heath to Leadenham, eight miles. Here it drops from “the Cliff” to the great plain, drained by the Wytham and Brant rivers, and at Beckingham on the Witham reaches the county boundary. The Witham only acts as the boundary for two miles and then turns to the right and makes for Lincoln. Half way between this and the lofty spire of Leadenham the road passes between Stragglethorpe and Brant-Broughton (pronounced Bruton), which is described later.

CHAPTER IX LINCOLN, THE CATHEDRAL AND MINSTER-YARD

The city of Lincoln was a place of some repute when Julius Cæsar landed B.C. 55. The Witham was then called the Lindis, and the province Lindisse. The Britons called the town Lindcoit, so the name the Romans gave it, about A.D. 100, “Lindum Colonia,” was partly Roman and partly British. The Roman walled town was on the top of the hill about a quarter of a mile square, with a gate in the middle of each wall. Of their four roads, the street which passed out north and south was the Via Herminia or Ermine Street. The east road went to “Banovallum”—Horncastle (or the Bain)—and “Vannona”—Wainfleet—and the west to “Segelocum”—Littleborough. The Roman milestone marking XIV miles to Segelocum is now in the cathedral cloisters.

This walled space included the sites of both cathedral and castle, and was thickly covered with houses in Danish and Saxon times. We hear of 166 being cleared away by the Conqueror to make his castle. The Romans themselves extended their wall southward as far as the stone-bow in order to accommodate their growing colony. Their northern gate yet exists. It is known as “Newport Gate,” and is of surpassing interest, as, with the exception of one at Colchester, there is not another Roman gateway in the kingdom. Only last October the foundations of an extremely fine gateway were uncovered at Colchester, the Roman “Camelodunum”; apparently indicating the fact that there were two chariot gates as well as two side entrances for foot passengers. The Newport Gate is sixteen feet wide, and twenty-two feet high, with a rude round arch of large stones without a key, the masonry on either side having stones some of which are six feet long. On each side of the main gate was a doorway seven feet wide for foot passengers. A fifth Roman road is the “Foss Way,” which came from Newark and joined the Ermine Street at the bottom of Canwick Hill, a mile south of Lincoln.

Newport Arch, Lincoln.

From the junction of these two roads a raised causeway, following the line of the present High Street, ran over the marshy ground to the gate of the walled town. This causeway, bearing in places the tracks of Roman wheels, is several feet below the present level, and even on the top of the hill several feet of debris have accumulated over the Roman pavements which were found in the last century where the castle now stands. Doubtless, as years went on, many villas would be planted outside the walls of the Roman city, but we know little of the history of the colony, except that it was always a place of considerable importance.

To come to post-Roman times, Bede, who died in 785, tells us that Paulinus, who had been consecrated Bishop of York in 625, and had baptised King Ædwin and a large number of people at York in the church which stood on the site afterwards occupied by the Minster, came to Lincoln, and, after baptising numbers of people in the Trent, as he had previously done in the Swale near Richmond in Yorkshire, built a stone church in Lincoln, or caused his convert Blaeca, the Reeve of the city, to build it, in which he consecrated Honorius Archbishop of Canterbury. Bede saw the walls of this church which may well have stood where the present church of St. Paul does. William the Conqueror in 1066 built the Norman castle on the hill to keep the town, which had spread along the banks of the Witham, in order. It was about this time that Remigius, a monk of Fécamp, in Normandy, who had been made by William, Bishop of Dorchester-on-Thames in 1067, as a reward for his active help with a ship and a body of armed fighting men, got leave, after much opposition from the Archbishop of York, to build a cathedral at Lincoln on the hill near the castle. So, next after the Romans (and perhaps the Britons were there before them), it is to him that we owe the choice of this magnificent site for the cathedral. Remigius began his great work in 1075, of which the central portion of the west front, with its plain rude masonry and its round-headed tall recesses on either side of the middle door, and its interrupted band of bas-reliefs over the low Norman arches to right and left of the tall recesses, is still in situ. The sixteen stone bas-reliefs are subjects partly monkish, but mostly Scriptural, concerning Adam, Noah, Samuel, and Jesus Christ. They are genuine Norman sculptures, and they are at the same level as Welbourn’s twelve English kings under the big central window, but these are of the fourteenth century.

The church of Remigius ended in an apse, of which the foundations are now under the stalls about the middle of the choir. It probably had two towers at the west end, and possibly a central tower as well. The church of St. Mary Magdalene was swept away to clear the site, and a chapel at the north west end of the new building allotted to the parishioners in compensation. Like the Taj at Agra it was seventeen years in building, and its great founder died, May 4, 1092, a few months before its completion. This was in the reign of Rufus, a reign notable for the building of the great Westminster Hall.

Gateway of Lincoln Castle.

The wide joints of the masonry, and the square shape of the stones, and the rude capitals of the pilasters are distinctive of Remigius’ work. Bloet succeeded Remigius, and during his thirty years he did much for the cathedral staff, but not very much to the fabric. His successor, Bishop Alexander, 1123, was a famous builder, and besides the castles of Sleaford, Newark and Banbury, the first two of which Stephen forced him to give to the Crown, he built the later Norman part of the west front, raising its gables and putting in three doors and the interlaced arcading above the arches of Remigius. He also vaulted the whole nave with stone, after a disastrous fire in 1141. There had been a previous fire just before Alexander was consecrated Bishop in 1123, of which Giraldus Cambrensis, writing about 1200, says that the roof falling on it “broke the stone with which the body of Remigius was covered into two equal parts.” This richly carved and thus fractured stone you may see to-day, where it is placed close to the north-west arch of the nave and north aisle. Bishop Alexander’s work is richer than that of Remigius, and the shafts and capitals of his west doors are beautifully carved. In these, according to Norman custom, hunters are aiming at the birds and beasts in the foliage. This is best seen in the north-west doorway. King Stephen came to Lincoln in 1141, the year of the fire, and it was there that, after a fierce fight which raged round the castle and cathedral, he was taken prisoner and sent to Bristol, but in the following year terms were arranged between him and the Empress Maud, and he was crowned at Christmas in Lincoln cathedral. After that date Bishop Alexander carried forward his work on the cathedral without intermission till his death in 1047, putting in the central western gable and the two gables over the arcading, vaulting the whole west front with stone, and adding the little north and south gables against the towers and the Norman stages of the towers, of which the northern tower was a little the highest, but looked less high because the south tower had its angles carried up higher than the walls of the square.

Bishop Alexander, like St. Hugh, died of a fever, which he caught at Auxerre in France, where he had been to meet the Pope. Those French towns seem to have been pretty pestilential at all times. Bishop Chesney succeeded him, and either he or Bishop Bloet began the episcopal palace. He assisted at the Coronation of Henry II. in Lincoln, and founded St. Catharine’s Priory. He died in 1166, and, after the lapse of six years, Geoffrey Plantagenet, son of Henry II. by Fair Rosamund, held the See for nine years, but was never consecrated. In 1182 he resigned, and was afterwards made Archbishop of York. He gave many gifts to the cathedral, and notably two “great and sonorous bells,” the putative parents of “Great Tom.” Walter de Constantiis followed him, but was in the very next year translated to Rouen, 1184, and again the See was vacant for the space of two years.

In 1185 an earthquake did great damage, and in the following year Hugh of Avalon, the famous St. Hugh of Lincoln, was appointed Bishop by Henry II. He widened the west end by putting a wing to each side of the work of Remigius, and put a gable over the central arch, and began his great work of making a new and larger cathedral with double transepts and a choir 100 feet longer and a nave ten feet wider than that of Remigius, starting at the east and building the present ritual choir and both the eastern and western transepts. In this his work was of a totally new character, with pointed arches, and “is famous as being the earliest existing work of pure English Gothic.” But Early English work, so says Murray, was already being done at Wells in 1174, twelve years earlier, and it was there that the Gothic vaulting and pointed arch was first seen in England. From the great transept to the angel choir is all his design, and it bears no trace of Norman French influence in any particular. The name of Hugh’s architect is Geoffrey de Noiers, his work is more remarkable for lightness than for strength, and in about fifty years Hugh’s tower fell, setting thereby a bad example which has been followed so frequently that Bishop Creighton’s first question on visiting a new church used generally to be, “When did your tower fall?”

Hugh of Avalon died in London in 1200, and William de Blois (1201) and Hugh of Wells (1209) went on with the building. The latter particularly kept to Hugh of Avalon’s plan of intercalating marble shafts with those of stone. Other characteristics of St. Hugh’s work are the double arcading in the transept and the little pigeon-hole recesses between the arcade arches, a trefoil ornament on the pillar belts and on the buttresses, and the deep-cut base mouldings. He put in the fine Early English round window in the north transept called the “Dean’s eye,” which has plate tracery. The five lancet lights, something after the “Five Sisters” window at York, were a later addition. The end of his work is easily distinguishable in the east wall of the great transept. He also built the Galilee porch, which was both a porch and an ecclesiastical court, and the Chapter house, with its ten pairs of lancet windows, its arcading and clustered pillars and beautiful central pillar to support the roof groining. He was succeeded, in 1235, by the famous Robert Grosteste, a really great man and a fine scholar, who had studied both at Oxford and Paris. He opposed the Pope, who wished to put his nephew into a canonry, declaring him to be unfit for the post, and stoutly championed the right of the English Church to be ruled by English and not Italian prelates. In his time the central tower fell, and he it was who built up in its place the first stage at least of the magnificent tower we have now. He also added the richly arcaded upper portion of the great west front, and its flanking turrets crowned by the figures of the Swineherd of Stow with his horn, on the north, and Bishop Hugh on the south. Henry Lexington, Dean of Lincoln, succeeded him as Bishop in 1254, and during his short episcopate of four years Henry III. issued a royal letter for removing the Roman city wall further east to enable the Dean and Chapter to lengthen the cathedral for the Shrine of St. Hugh after his canonisation. Then began the building of the ‘Angel Choir,’ which “for the excellence of its sculpture, the richness of its mouldings and the beauty of its windows, is not surpassed by anything in the Kingdom” (Sir C. Anderson). Its height was limited by the pitch of the vaulting of Hugh’s Ritual Choir, just as the height of Grosteste’s tower arches had been. The Angel Choir was finished by Lexington’s successor Richard of Gravesend, 1258-1279, and inaugurated in the following year with magnificent ceremony under Bishop Oliver Sutton, Edward I. and Queen Eleanor both being present with their children to see the removal of St. Hugh’s body from its first resting-place before the altar of the Chapel of St. John the Baptist in the north-east transept, where it had been placed in 1200 when King John himself acted as one of the pall bearers, to its new and beautiful gold shrine in the Angel Choir behind the high altar.

The whole cost of the consecration ceremony was borne by Thomas Bek, son of Baron d’Eresby, who was on the same day himself consecrated Bishop of St. David’s, his brother Antony being Bishop of Durham, and Patriarch of Jerusalem. Bishop Sutton, in 1295, built the cloisters and began the charming little “Vicar’s court.” He died in 1300, his successor was Bishop John of Dalderby, the same who had a miracle-working shrine of pure silver in the south transept, and whom the people chose to call St. John of Dalderby, just as they did in the case of Bishop Grosteste, though the Pope had refused canonisation in each case. He finished the great tower, which, with its beautiful arcaded tower stage, its splendid double lights and canopies above, and its delicate lace-like parapet, seems to me to be quite the most satisfying piece of architecture that this or any other county has to show. It is finished with tall pinnacles of wood covered with lead. The exquisite stone rood-screen and the beautiful arches in the aisles were put in at the same time, the work on the screen being, as Sir C. Anderson remarks, very like the work on the Eleanor’s Cross at Geddington. He died in 1320, and the lovely tracery of the circular window in the south transept, called “The Bishop’s eye,” was inserted about 1350 above his tomb.

John de Welbourn, the munificent treasurer, who died in 1380, gave the eleven statues of kings beneath the window at the west end, which begin with William the Conqueror and end with Edward III., in whose reign they were set up. Among other benefactions Welbourn gave the beautifully carved choir stalls, and he also vaulted the towers. These were all, at one time, finished by leaded spires. Those of the western tower being 100 feet high, and that on the great central or rood tower soaring up to a height of 525 feet. This was blown down in 1547, and the western spires were removed in 1807-08, a mob of excited citizens having prevented their removal in 1727, but eighty years later the matter made no great stir, and though their removal may by some be regretted, I think it is a matter of pure congratulation that the splendid central tower, whose pinnacles attain an altitude of 265 feet, should have remained as it is. The delicate lace-like parapet was added in 1775. It is not very likely that anyone should propose to raise those spires again, but dreadful things do happen; and quite lately one of our most eminent architects prepared a design for putting a spire on the central tower at Peterborough. Think of that! and ask yourself, is there any stability in things human?

Apart from its commanding situation, the whole pile is very magnificent, and, viewed as a whole, outside, it has nothing to touch it, though the west front is not to compare in beauty with that of Peterborough. Inside, York is larger and grander, and Ely surpasses both in effect. But if we take both the situation and the outside view and the inside effect together, Lincoln stands first and Durham second.

I was once at an Archæological society’s meeting in Durham when Dean Lake addressed us from the pulpit, and he began by saying: “We are now met in what by universal consent is considered the finest church in England but one; need I say that that one is Lincoln?” The chuckle of delight which this remark elicited from my neighbour, Precentor Venables, was a thing I shall never forget. We will now take a look at the building, and begin first with the outside, and, starting at the west, walk slowly along the south side of the close. If we begin near the Exchequer Gate we see the west front with its fine combination of the massive work of Remigius, the fine Norman doors of Alexander (with the English kings over the central door), the rich arcading of Grosteste along the top and at the two sides, and the flanking turrets with spirelets surmounted by the statues of St. Hugh and the Stow Swineherd. We look up to the gable over the centre flanked by the two great towers on either side of it. Norman below, Gothic above, with their very long Perpendicular double lights, octagonal angle buttresses and lofty pinnacles. The northern tower once held the big bell “Great Tom,” and the southern (“St. Hugh’s”) has still its peal of eight. Lincoln had a big bell in Elizabeth’s reign, which was re-cast in that of James I., and christened “Great Tom of Lincoln,” 1610. This second great bell being cracked in 1828, was re-cast in 1855, and the Dean and chapter of the time actually took down the beautiful peal of six, called the “Lady Bells,” which had been hung in Bishop Dalderby’s great central tower about 1311 and gave that tower its name of the “Lady Bell Steeple,” and had them melted down to add to the weight of “Great Tom,” thus depriving the minster, by this act of vandalism, of its second ring of bells. The third, or new, “Great Tom,” now hangs alone in the central tower. It weighs five tons eight hundredweight, and is only surpassed in size in England by those at St. Paul’s, at Exeter Cathedral, and Christ Church, Oxford. It is six feet high, six feet ten inches in diameter, and twenty-one and a half feet round the rim, and the hammer, which strikes the hours, weighs two hundredweight.

The Rood Tower and South Transept, Lincoln.

From the west front we should walk along the south side, passing first the consistory court with its three lancet windows, and high pitched gable, where is the little figure of “the devil looking over Lincoln.” This forms a small western transept, and has a corresponding transept on the north side, containing the ringers’ chapel and that of St. Mary Magdalene.

Going on we get a view of the clerestory windows in the nave, above which is the parapet relieved by canopied niches, once filled with figures. The flying nave buttresses now come into view, and next we reach, at the south-western corner of the great transept, the beautifully built and highly ornamented “Galilee Porch,” which was meant for the bishop’s entrance from his palace into the cathedral. The room over it is now the muniment room. From this point we get a striking view of the western towers with the southern turret of the west front. The buttresses of the transept run up to the top of the clerestory, and end in tall pinnacles with statue-niches and crockets. The transept gable has a delicately pierced parapet and lofty pinnacles. Above is a five-light Decorated window, and below this a broad stone frieze, and then the large round window, “The Bishop’s Eye,” with its unspeakably lovely tracery, a marvel of lace-work in stone; below this comes a row of pointed arcading. The eastern transept is the next feature, with another fine high-pitched gable. Here the work of St. Hugh ends. The apsidal chapels of St. Paul and St. Peter are at the east side of this transept, and then, along the south side of the Angel Choir, the chapels of Bishops Longland and Russell, with the splendid south-east porch between them. This, from its position, is unique in English churches, and was probably designed for the state entrance of the bishop after the presbytery had been added, in place of the Galilee porch entrance. It has a deeply recessed arch, with four canopied niches holding fine figures. The doorway has two trefoil headed arches, divided by a central shaft with a canopied niche above it, once containing the figures of the Virgin and Child. Above this, and in the tympanum, is represented the Last Judgment. The buttresses of the Angel Choir are beautifully and harmoniously enriched with canopy and crocket, and the upper windows are perfect in design and execution. Apart from its splendid position, it is this exquisite finish to the beautifully designed building that makes Lincoln Cathedral so “facile princeps” among English cathedrals. At the south-east buttress are finely conceived figures of Edward I. trampling on a Saracen, and his Queen Eleanor; and another figure possibly represents his second queen, Margaret. Coming round to the east we look with delighted eyes on what has been called “the finest example of Geometrical Decorated Architecture to be found in the kingdom.” The window is not so fine as that at Carlisle, and no east end competes with that at York, but York is Perpendicular, and Lincoln is Geometrical. Here we have not only a grand window, fifty-seven feet high, but another great five-light window above it, and over that a beautiful figure of the Virgin and Child, and all finished by a much enriched gable surmounted by a cross. The two windows, one above the other, seem not to be quite harmonious, in fact, one does not want the upper window, nor perhaps the windows in the aisle gables, but the buttresses and their finials are so extraordinarily good that they make the east end an extremely beautiful whole. Close to the north-east angle is a little stone well cover, and the chapter-house, with its off-standing buttress-piers and conical roof, comes into view at the north. The north side is like the south, but has near it the cloisters, which are reached by a short passage from the north-east transept. From the north-east corner of these cloisters you get an extremely good view of the cathedral and all its three towers. Steps from this corner lead up to the cathedral library. The north side of the cloisters of Bishop Oliver Sutton, unable to bear the thrust of the timber-vaulted ceiling, fell, and was replaced in 1674 by the present inharmonious pillars and ugly arches designed by Sir Christopher Wren.

We must now look inside the cathedral, and if we enter the north-east transept from the cloisters we shall pass over a large stone inscribed “Elizabeth Penrose, 1837.” This is the resting-place of “Mrs. Markham,” once the authority on English history in every schoolroom, and deservedly so. She took her nom de plume from the little village of East Markham, Notts., in which she lived for many years.

Passing through the north-east transept, with its stained glass windows by Canon Sutton, and its curious “Dean’s Chapel,” once the minster dispensary, and turning eastwards, we enter the north aisle of the Angel Choir and find the chapel of Bishop Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College, Oxford. In this the effigy of the bishop is on the south side, and there is a window to the memory of Sir Charles Anderson, of Lea, and a reredos with a painting of the Annunciation, lately put up in memory of Arthur Roland Maddison, minor canon and librarian, who died April 24, 1912, and is buried in his parish churchyard at Burton, by Lincoln. He is a great loss, for he was a charming personality, and, having been for many years a painstaking student of heraldry, he was always an accurate writer on matters of genealogy, and on the relationships and wills of the leading Lincolnshire families, subjects of which he had a special and unique knowledge. Bishop Fleming was not the only Bishop of Lincoln who founded a college at Oxford, as William Smith, founder of Brasenose, Cardinal Wolsey, founder of Christchurch, and William of Wykeham, founder of New College, were all once bishops here. Opposite to the Fleming chapel is the Russell chapel, just east of the south porch and between these lies the Retro Choir, which contained once the rich shrine of St. Hugh, its site now marked, next to Bishop Fuller’s tomb, by a black marble memorial. Here is the beautiful monument to the reverend Bishop Christopher Wordsworth. This is a very perfect piece of work, with a rich, but not heavy, canopy, designed by Bodley and executed by M. Guillemin, who carved the figures in the reredos of St. Paul’s. This rises over a recumbent figure of the bishop in robes and mitre. The face is undoubtedly an excellent likeness.

The view from here of the perfect Geometrical Gothic east window, with its eight lights, is very striking; beneath it are the three chapels of St. Catherine, St. Mary, and St. Nicholas, and on either side of it are two monuments, those on the south side to Wymbish, prior of Nocton, and Sir Nicolas de Cantelupe; and on the north side to Bishop Henry Burghersh, Chancellor of Edward III., 1340, and his father, Robert. On each tomb are canopied niches, each holding two figures, among which are Edward III. and his four sons—the Black Prince, Lionel Duke of Clarence, John of Gaunt, and Edmund of Langley. Adjoining the chapel of St. Catherine, which was founded by the Burghersh family, is a fine effigy of Bartholomew Lord Burghersh, who fought at Crécy, in full armour with his head resting on a helmet. A fine monument of Queen Eleanor once stood beneath the great window where her heart was buried before the great procession to London began. The effigy was of copper gilt, but, having been destroyed, it has been recently replaced by a generous Lincoln citizen from drawings which were in existence and from a comparison with her monument in Westminster Abbey. A stone at the west of St. Catherine’s chapel shows a deep indentation worn by the scrape of the foot of each person who bowed at the shrine. A similar one is to be seen at St. Cuthbert’s shrine, Durham.

In the east windows of both the choir aisles is some good Early English glass.

We will now turn westwards, past the south porch, and come to the south-east transept; here the line of the old Roman wall and ditch runs right through the cathedral, the apsidal chapels of the eastern transepts and the whole of the presbytery, as well as the chapter-house, lying all outside it. Two apsidal chapels in this transept are dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. It was in St. Peter’s that sub-dean Bramfield was murdered by a sub-deacon, September 25, 1205, who paid the penalty immediately at the hands of the sub-dean’s servants. The exquisite white marble tomb and recumbent figure of John Kaye, bishop 1827 to 1853, by Westmacott, is in this chapel. Opposite to these apsidal chapels are the canons’ and choristers’ vestries; under the former is a crypt; the latter has the monks’ lavatory, and a fireplace for the baking of the sacramental wafers by the sacristan. Passing along the south choir-aisle we reach the shrine of little St. Hugh, and here the work all around us, in choir, aisles, and transepts, is that of the great St. Hugh. The whole of the centre of the cathedral, with its double transept and the choir between them, being his; and we must notice in two of the transept chapels his peculiar work in the double capitals above slender pillars of alternate stone and marble, and projecting figures of saints and angels low down in each spandrel. We now enter the choir, and pause to admire the magnificent work and all its beauty. On either side are the sixty-two beautiful and richly carved canopied stalls. They are only excelled, perhaps, by those at Winchester. The carving of the Miserere seats is much like that at Boston, where humorous scenes are introduced. The fox in a monk’s cowl, the goose, and the monkey being the chief animals represented. Here, on a poppy-head in the precentor’s seat, a baboon is seen stealing the butter churned by two monkeys; he is caught and hanged, and on the Miserere he is being carried forth for burial. A finely carved oak pulpit, designed by Gilbert Scott, is at the north-east end of the stalls. The brass eagle is a seventeenth century copy of an earlier one. We notice overhead the stone vaulting, springing from Purbeck shafts; notice, too, the beauty of the mouldings and carved capitals, and the groups of arches forming the triforium with clerestory window above, which, however, only show between the ribs of the vaulting; and, then, the length of it! For now, by taking in two from the Angel Choir, the chancel has seven bays. It is a very striking view as you look eastwards, but it has the defect of a rather plain, low vaulting, and west of it the nave, which is a generation later, is more splendidly arranged, while east of it the Angel Choir, which is nearly half a century later than the nave, admittedly surpasses all the rest in delicacy and beauty. The choir vaulting being low, caused both nave and presbytery to be lower than they would otherwise have been, so that it has been said that when the tower fell it was a pity the chancel did not fall with it, all would then have been built with loftier roofs and with more perfect symmetry.

If we pass down the Ritual Choir eastwards, we enter the presbytery, and at once see the origin of the name “Angel Choir” in the thirty figures of angels in the spandrels. It was built to accommodate the enormous number of pilgrims who flocked to St. Hugh’s shrine, and is, according to G. A. Freeman, “one of the loveliest of human works; the proportion of the side elevation and the beauty of the details being simply perfect,” and it would seem to be uncontested that all throughout, whether in its piers, its triforium, its aisles, or its carved detail, it shows a delicacy and finish never surpassed in the whole history of Gothic architecture. One of its large clerestory windows was filled, in 1900, with excellent glass by H. Holiday, to mark the seven-hundredth anniversary of St. Hugh’s death.

The angels sculptured in stone, and mostly carrying scrolls, fill the triforium spandrels in groups of three, five groups on either side. They are probably not all by the master’s hand. The Virgin and Child in the south-west bay and the angel with drawn sword in the north-west seem finer than the rest. The stone inscribed in Lombardic letters “Cantate Hic,” marks the place for chanting the Litany; this is chanted by two lay clerks. There are nine of these, one being vestry clerk; also four choristers in black gowns with white facings (a reminiscence of the earliest dress for the Lincoln choir, and a unique costume in England), eight Burghersh choristers or “Chanters” (lineal descendants of the Burghersh chantry of St. Catherine with its separate band of choristers), and some supernumerary boys and men. There are four canons residentiary, viz., the sub-dean, chancellor, precentor, and Archdeacon of Lincoln, and fifty-three prebendaries.

In the first bay of the north side of the Angel Choir is a remarkable monument, part of which once served for an Easter sepulchre. This, like those of Navenby and Heckington of the same date, is richly carved with oak and vine and fig-tree foliage, and shows the Roman soldiers sleeping. Opposite, on the south side, are the tombs of Katharine Swynford of Ketilthorpe, Duchess of Lancaster, Chaucer’s sister-in-law, whose marriage to John of Gaunt took place in the minster in 1396. Like so many of the monuments, these are sadly mutilated, and are not now quite in their original position.

It is on one of the pillars of the east bay, the second from the east end, that the curious grotesque, familiar to all as the “Lincoln Imp,” is perched.

If we now turn westwards we shall come to the fine stone organ screen, and pass through to the tower, whose predecessor fell through faultiness of construction, and was rebuilt by Grosteste as far as the nave roof, and we shall look down the nave, which is forty-two feet wide, each aisle being another twenty feet in width. The planning and execution of the nave we owe to the two Bishops Hugh. Its great length (524 feet with the choir and presbytery) makes the whole building, when viewed from the west, look lower than it is, for it is really eighty-two feet high. Looking west this is not felt so much, and there is a feeling of great dignity which the best Early English work always gives. The piers may seem lacking in massive strength, but they vary in pattern, those to the east being the most elaborate, and so gain in interest. One curious thing about the nave, though not discernible to the uninitiated, is that the axis, which is continuous from the east end for the first five of the seven bays, here diverges somewhat to the north, and so runs into the centre of the Norman west front. The two western bays are five and a quarter feet less in span than the others. Probably the architect, as he brought the nave down westwards with that light-hearted disregard of a previous style of architecture which characterised the medieval builder and his predecessors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, intended to sweep away all the old Norman work at the west end and carry the line straight on with equal-sized arches, but funds failed and he had to join up the new with the old as best he could; and we have cause to be thankful for this, since it has preserved for us the original and most interesting work of Remigius.

Before we leave our place beneath the tower, we must look at the two great transepts. These have piers, triforium and clerestory similar to those in the choir, and each has three chapels along the eastern wall; these, from north to south, are dedicated to St. Nicholas, St. Denis, St. Thomas; and in the south transept to St. Edward, St. John and St. Giles. Of these, St. Edward’s is called the chanters’ chapel, and it has four little figures of singers carved in stone, two on each side of the door. This was fitted up for use and opened in August, 1913, for a choristers’ chapel, the tombstone of Precentor Smith, 1717, being introduced for an altar. Everybody is attracted by the rose windows. That to the north has beneath it five lancet windows, something like those at York, filled with white silvery glass, but the rose above has still its original Early English stained glass, and is a notable example of the work of the period. A central quatrefoil has four trefoils outside it and sixteen circles round, all filled with tall bold figures and strongly coloured. It is best seen from the triforium. Below is the dean’s door, with a lancet window on either side, and over it a clock with a canopy, given in 1324 by Thomas of Louth. This canopy was carried off by the robber archdeacon, Dr. Bailey, and used as a pulpit-top in his church at Messingham, but was restored by the aid of Bishop Trollope.

The south transept, where Bishop John of Dalderby was buried, contains what no one sees without a feeling of delight, and wonder that such lovely work could ever have been executed in stone,—the great rose window with its twin ovals and its leaf-like reticulations, which attract the eye more than the medley of good old glass with which it is filled, but which gives it a beautiful richness of effect. Below this are four lancets with similar glass.

The aisles of the nave are vaulted, the groins springing from the nave pillars on the inner, and from groups of five shafts on the outer side. Behind these runs a beautiful wall arcade on detached shafts, continuous in the north aisle, but only repeated in portions of the south aisle, with bosses of foliage at the spring of the arches. In the aisle at the second bay from the west is the grand old Norman font, resembling that at Winchester. There is another at Thornton Curtis in the north-east of the county. Neither of the Lincolnshire specimens are so elaborately carved as that at Winchester, which is filled with scenes from the life of St. Nicholas, but all are of the same massive type, with dragons, etc., carved on the sides of a great block of black basalt resting on a round base of the same, with four detached corner pillars leading down to a square black base. These early basalt fonts, of which Hampshire has four, Lincolnshire two, the other being at Ipswich, Dean Kitchin conclusively proved to have all come from Tournai, in Belgium, and to date from the middle of the twelfth century, a time coinciding with the episcopacy of Bishops Alexander and De Chesney at Lincoln, and Henry de Blois at Winchester. The one at St. Mary Bourne is the biggest, and has only clusters of grapes on it and doves. The other two are at East Meon and at St. Michael’s, Southampton, and have monsters carved on them like the Lincolnshire specimens.

Of brasses, in which the cathedral before the Reformation was specially rich, having two hundred, only one now remains, that of Bishop Russell, 1494, which is now in the cathedral library; but in a record made in 1641 by Sir W. Dugdale and Robert Sanderson, afterwards Bishop, is the following most charming little inscription to John Marshall, Canon of the cathedral, 1446, beneath the figure of a rose:—

which may be Englished

The ascent of the towers gives magnificent views; from the central tower one may see “Boston Stump” on one hand, and on the other Newark spire. The big bell, too, has its attractions, but the greatest curiosity is the elastic stone beam, a very flat arch connecting the two western towers, made of twenty-three stones with coarse mortar joints, which only rises sixteen inches, and vibrates when jumped on. Its purpose is not clear, possibly to gauge the settlement of the towers. The north end now is thirteen inches lower than the south. A gallery in the thickness of the wall between the great west window and the Cinquefoil above it, allows a wonderful view of the whole length of the cathedral. It is called Sir Joseph Banks’ view.

Within the Close, as we passed along looking at the cathedral, we had our backs to the canons’ houses. First comes the precentory and the sub-deanery near the Exchequer Gate, next the Cantilupe Chantry, with a figure of the Saviour in a niche in the gable end, and a curious square oriel window, and then the entrance to the Bishop’s palace opposite the Galilee porch. The old palace, begun about 1150 or possibly earlier, was a splendid building; the ruins of it are in the palace grounds. Through a gateway or vaulted porch, where is now the secretary’s office, you descend to the site of the magnificent hall, eighty-eight feet by fifty-eight, built by St. Hugh, for, like Vicars Court, with its steep flight of steps and its charming old houses, it is built on the slope of the hill. Succeeding bishops added to the pile in which Henry VI. and Henry VIII. were royally lodged and entertained, and the charges which cost Queen Katharine Howard her life took their origin from her meetings here and afterwards at Gainsborough with her relative Thomas Culpepper. The palace was despoiled in the days of the Commonwealth, and little but ruins now remain, but a part of it has been restored and utilised as a chapel by the late Bishop King, perhaps the most universally beloved of Lincoln’s many bishops. Buckden and Nettleham and Riseholme have supplied a residence for successive bishops, and now the bishop is again lodged close to his cathedral. But, in the grandiloquent language of a work entitled ‘The Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet, containing a series of elegant views of the most interesting objects of curiosity in Great Britain, 1809,’ “The place where once the costly banquet stood arrayed in all the ostentatious luxury of Ecclesiastic greatness has now its mouldering walls covered with trees.” The same authority, speaking of Thornton Abbey, has this precious reflection, which is too good to lose: “Here in sweet retirement the mind may indulge in meditating upon the instability of sublunary greatness, and contemplate, with secret emotion, the wrecks of ostentatious grandeur.” The Chancery, built by Antony Bek, 1316, faces the east end of the minster yard; it is distinguished outside by an entrance arch and an oriel window. Inside, there are some very interesting old doorways, and a charming little chapel, with a wooden screen of c. 1490, the time of Bishop Russell, and two embattled towers on the old minster yard wall in the garden, of the early fourteenth century. The deanery is a modern building on the north side of the minster.

Pottergate, Lincoln.

It was in the chapter house, probably, that Edward I. held his great Parliament in 1301, which secured the Confirmation of Magna Charta. Edward II. and Edward III. also each held a parliament here, and since their time certainly seven kings of England have visited Lincoln.

The cathedral precincts of Lincoln are called the “Minster Yard,” and the church is called the Minster, though Lincoln was a cathedral from the first; the term Minster being only properly applied to the church of a monastery, such as York, Canterbury, Peterborough, Ripon, and Southwell; of these, Canterbury is not often called a Minster, but York is always. Lincoln was never attached to a monastery.

CHAPTER X PAULINUS AND HUGH OF LINCOLN — HUGH OF LINCOLN

Perhaps here it may be well to say something of the life of Paulinus, the first Christian missionary in Lincoln. And in doing so I must acknowledge the debt I owe to Sir Henry Howorth’s most interesting book, “The Birth of the English Church.”

When Pope Gregory, having been struck by the sight of some fair-haired Anglian boys being sold as slaves in the Roman Forum, had determined to send a Mission to preach the Gospel in their land, he chose the prior of his own monastery of St. Andrew’s, which was on the site where now stands the church of San Gregorio on the Cælian Hill in Rome. The name of the prior was Augustine. With his companion monks, he set out, apparently in the spring of 596. They went from Ostia by sea to Gaul, but lingered in that country for above a year, and landed on the Isle of Thanet in April 597. He was well received by Æthelbert King of Kent and his wife Bertha, daughter of Charibert King of Paris. She was a Christian, and had brought her Christian chaplain with her. This made Augustine’s mission comparatively easy. Quarters were given him in Canterbury, and he began to build a monastery and was allowed to make use of the little church dedicated to St. Martin, where the Queen’s chaplain had officiated. Having then sent to the Pope for more missionaries, he received instructions from Gregory to establish a Metropolitan See in London and other Bishoprics in York and elsewhere. At the same time several recruits were sent to him among whom Bede particularises Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus, and Rufinianus. The first three became respectively Bishops of London, Rochester, and York, and Rufinianus Abbot of St. Augustine’s monastery at Canterbury. By the Pope’s command all these bishops were to be subject to Augustine during his life, and he was to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. Augustine died in the same year as St. Gregory, A.D. 604. A few years later, about 616, Mellitus and Justus both withdrew for a year to Gaul, but were recalled by King Eadbald, Justus to Rochester and Mellitus to become Archbishop of Canterbury after Laurence, a priest whom Augustine himself had selected to succeed him in 604, and who died in 619. To this post Justus succeeded in 624, and, as Archbishop, consecrated Romanus to the See of Rochester. Shortly after this Paulinus was consecrated Bishop of York by Justus in 625, and he accompanied Æthelbert’s daughter Æthelberga to the Court of Ædwin King of Deira, who ruled from the Forth to the Thames and who had sought her hand, promising that she should be free to worship as she liked and that if on inquiry he found her religion better than his own he would also become a Christian. He discussed the matter with Paulinus, and after many months’ delay summoned a Witenagemote and asked each counsellor what he thought of the new teaching, which at present had no hold except in Kent. Coifi, the Chief Priest of the old religion, was the first to speak; he said he had not got any good from his own religion though none had served the gods more faithfully—so if the new doctrine held out better hopes he would advise the king to adopt it without further delay. Coifi was followed by another of the king’s Ealdormen. His speech was a very remarkable one, and is accurately rendered by the poet Wordsworth in his Sonnet called Persuasion, which runs thus:—

After this the king gave Paulinus permission to preach the Gospel openly, and he himself renounced idolatry, and in April 627, with a large number of his people, he was baptized at York in the little church which was the first to be built on the site of York Minster. After this Paulinus baptized in the river Swale, and later he came to the province of “Lindissi,” and spent some time in Lincoln, converting Blaecca the “Reeve” of the city, and baptizing in the presence of the king a great number of people in the Trent either at Littleborough or Torksey.

He appears to have spent some time in Lincoln, and to have come back to it after 633, for early in 635 he consecrated Honorius the successor to Justus, and fifth Archbishop of Canterbury. The ceremony taking place probably in the little “church of stone” that he had built, possibly where St. Paul’s Church now stands. It was probably thatched with reeds, for eighty years later Bede speaks of it as being unroofed. If St. Paul’s church really was originally the church of Paulinus, it helps to remove the stigma that though Paulinus preached and baptised with effect, unlike Wilfrith, he founded nothing.

In 633 King Ædwin and both his sons were killed after a great battle against Penda King of Mercia and Coedwalla King of the Britons, at Haethfelth near Doncaster, and Christianity in Northumbria came to an abrupt end; though, when Paulinus left, to escort the widowed queen back to Kent, his faithful deacon James remained behind him, whose memorial we probably have in the inscribed cross shaft with its unusual interlaced pattern at Hawkswell near Catterick. To York Paulinus never returned; but on the death of Romanus, who had been sent by Archbishop Justus on a mission to the Pope but was drowned in the Bay of Genoa, he took charge of the See of Rochester, and there he remained till his death on October 10, 644, after he had been Bishop at York for eight and at Rochester for eleven years. Archbishop Honorius, who was consecrated just a year before the death of a Pope of the same name, ordained Ithamar to succeed Paulinus. He was a native of Kent and the first Englishman to be made a bishop. After the death of Paulinus in 644, more than four centuries passed before Remigius began to build the cathedral in 1075, which was altered and amplified so remarkably about 100 years later by Hugh of Lincoln.

“Hugh of Lincoln” is a title which, like Cerberus in Sheridan’s play, indicates “three gentlemen at once,” and it will perhaps prevent confusion if I briefly distinguish the three.

The first and greatest is the Burgundian, usually called from his birthplace on the frontier of Savoy “Hugh of Avalon.” He went to a good school in Grenoble, and, as a youth, joined the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, where he rose to be procurator or bursar. In 1175, at the request of Henry II. who had, with difficulty, obtained the consent of the Archbishop of Grenoble, he came to England to become the first prior of the king’s new monastery at Witham in Somerset, the first Carthusian house in England. In 1186, much against his will, he was, by the king’s decree, elected Bishop of Lincoln, and took up his residence at Stow, where he at once set to work to master the English tongue. His rule of life was ascetic, and he made a practice of going every year in harvest time to live as a simple monk at Witham. He was a strong man, with high ideals, upright, unselfish and charitable, no believer in the miracles of the day, and so free from prejudice that he always protected the hated Jews, who wept sincere tears at his funeral. He was active in his huge diocese, and was a maker of history, for, besides extending and beautifying the cathedral of Remigius, he eventually became so powerful that he joined the Archbishops in excommunicating their Sovereign, and in 1197 he successfully opposed King Richard I. and his “Justiciar,” who was the great Archbishop Hubert Walter. Walter, when Bishop of Salisbury, had accompanied Richard to the crusade, where he was the king’s chief agent in negotiating with Saladin. He headed the first party of pilgrims whom the Turks admitted to the Holy Sepulchre, led back the English host from Palestine in the king’s absence to Sicily, whence he went to visit Richard in captivity, and repaired to England to raise the £100,000 demanded for his ransom. He was made by the king’s command Archbishop of Canterbury, crowned the king a second time in 1194 at Winchester, and as “Justiciar” had the task of finding means to supply Richard’s ceaseless demands for money for his wars. Hence it was that he had summoned a meeting of bishops and barons at Oxford on December 7, 1197, at which he proposed that they should agree to the king’s latest demand and should themselves furnish him with three hundred knights to serve for twelve months against Philip of France, or give him money which would suffice to obtain them. This was strenuously and successfully opposed by Hugh, seconded by Herbert Bishop of Salisbury, and this action is spoken of by Stubbs as a landmark of constitutional history, being “the first clear case of the refusal of a money grant demanded by the Crown.” Hugh was in France when Henry II. died, but returned in time for the coronation of Richard I. He several times attended both Richard and John to Normandy, and when Richard died he buried him at Fontevrault in 1199, where Henry II. and his wife, Eleanora of Guienne, and John’s wife, Isabella of Angoulême, are also buried. He was back in England for John’s coronation on May 27, but, going again to visit the haunts of his boyhood at Grenoble, he caught a fever and, after a long illness, died next year in the London house of the Bishops of Lincoln, at the “Old Temple.” He was buried in his own cathedral, November 24, 1200, in the north-east transept, King John, who happened to be then in Lincoln, to receive the homage of the Scottish king, taking part as bearer in the funeral procession. Worship of him began at once, and was greatly augmented when the Pope canonized him in 1220. In 1230, when Richard of Gravesend had completed the angel choir, St. Hugh’s body was translated to it in the presence of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor and their children. This was ten years before Eleanor’s death at Harby, near Lincoln. The only thing recorded against Bishop Hugh is that he should have, upon Henry’s death, ordered the taking up of Fair Rosamond’s bones from Godstow Priory.

The story of St. Hugh’s swan is curious but not incredible. Sir Charles Anderson says: “It seems, from the minute description of the bill, to have been a wild swan or whooper.” This swan was greatly attached to its master, and constantly attended him when in residence at Stow Park, where there was a good deal of water, and many wildfowl. It is said, also, that on his last visit the bird showed signs of restlessness and distress. Sir Charles sees no reason to withhold belief from the story, and instances the case of a gander, within his own knowledge, which attached itself to a farmer in the county, and used to accompany him daily for a mile and a half, when he went to look after his cattle in the meadows, waddling after him with the greatest diligence and satisfaction; and, whenever he stopped, fondling his legs with neck and bill.

The “Magna Vita S. Hugonis” in the Bodleian, written by Adam, Abbot of Evesham soon after his death, is the chief source of our information about him; and a metrical life, also, in Latin, is both in the Bodleian and in the British Museum.

Nine years after St. Hugh’s death, Hugh the Second, or “Hugh of Wells,” was appointed bishop. He carried out the plans of his namesake, and completed the aisles and transepts and added the nave-chapels at the west end with their circular windows. He added to the episcopal palace begun by St. Hugh, and built that at Buckden—a fine brick building which later became the sole palace. The Bishops of Lincoln had a visitation palace at Lyddington, near Rockingham, in which a singularly beautiful carved wood frieze ran all round the large room. In the “Metrical Life of St. Hugh” we read that what St. Hugh planned, but left unfinished, Hugh of Wells completed.

He died in 1235, and is buried in the north choir aisle. His extremely harsh treatment of the Jews leads us to the curiously tragic events in the life of the third Hugh, called the “Little St. Hugh.” He was born in 1246, and only lived nine years. That great man Grosteste, or Grostête, had succeeded Hugh of Wells, and died after an active episcopate of eighteen years, in 1254. His successor, Henry Lexington, had procured leave to extend the cathedral close beyond the Roman city wall in order to build the beautiful presbytery or angel choir for the shrine of Hugh I. He was still engaged on this when the persecution which the Jews had long endured produced such a bitter feeling that they were believed to be capable of kidnapping and crucifying, or by less conspicuous methods, putting to death a Christian boy when they had a chance. Hugh was said to be a chorister who disappeared, and his mother, led by a dream, discovered his body in a well outside the Newport Gate. A Jew called Jopin, or Chopin, but in a French ballad Peitevin, was accused of his murder, and is said to have confessed and to have been put to death with others of his nation with no small barbarity. He has left his memory at Lincoln in the name of “The Jews’ House,” which is given to the Norman building on the steep hill. This story was not uncommon, and told with much detail, as having really happened, in several places; nor is the belief in it yet dead. The boy’s body was given to the canons of the cathedral, who buried him with much solemnity in the south aisle of the choir, and set a small shrine over him, to which folk came to worship, and he received the title of “the Little St. Hugh.”

St. Mary’s Guild, Lincoln.

This story is referred to by Chaucer, who wrote a hundred years later in “The Prioress’ Tale”:—

His story makes the murdered boy reveal himself by singing “O alma Redemptoris Mater” “loude and clere,” although, as he says—

and he does not stop singing till a ‘greyn’ is taken from his tongue by the abbot

Marlowe has a similar story in his “Jew of Malta,” and ballads constantly were made on this theme. Sir Charles Anderson quotes one beginning:—

He was buried, in 1255, next to Bishop Grosteste, who had died two years before.

The persistence of this medieval accusation against the Jews is singularly illustrated by a case which is reported in the papers of October 9, 1913, headed “Ritual Murder Trial.” The trial is at Kieff in Russia, of a perfectly innocent man called Beiliss, who has been more than two years in prison without knowing the reason, and is charged with the murder of a Christian boy called Yushinsky “to obtain blood for Jewish sacrificial rites.” The Times says that ritual murder is not now mentioned in the indictment. But that so monstrous a charge should be even hinted at shows how deeply these old malignant calumnies sank into the medieval mind, and how prone to superstition and how ready to believe evil we are even in the twentieth century of the Christian era. The whole idea is on a par with the abominable cruelties of the days when defenceless old women were burnt as witches, and is a cruel and absolutely baseless calumny on a long-suffering and law-abiding people, and yet there are plenty of people to-day in Russia who firmly believe in it.

CHAPTER XI LINCOLN.—THE CITY

The rate at which the soil of inhabited places rises from the various layers of debris which accumulate on the surface is well shown at Lincoln. In Egypt, where houses are built of mud, every few years an old building falls and the material is trodden down and a new erection made upon it. Hence the entrance to the temple at Esneh from the present outside floor level, is up among the capitals of the tall pillars; and, the temple being cleaned out, the floor of it and the bases of its columns were found to be nearly thirty feet below ground. Stone-built houses last much longer, but when a fire or demolition after a siege has taken place three or four times, a good deal of rubbish is left spread over the surface and it accumulates with the ages. Hence, in Roman Lincoln or “Lindum Colonia” pavements may be found whenever the soil is moved, at a depth of seven or eight feet at least, and often more. Thus the Roman West Gate came to light in 1836, after centuries of complete burial, but soon crumbled away; and the whole of the hill top where Britons, Romans, Danes, and Normans successively dwelt, is full of remains which can only on rare occasions ever have a chance of seeing the light. Still there is much for us to see above ground, so we may as well take a walk through the city, beginning at the top of the hill. Here, as you leave the west end of the cathedral and pass through the “Exchequer Gate” with its one large and two small arches, under the latter of which may be seen entrances to the little shopstalls where relics, rosaries, etc., were once sold, you pass along the flat south wall of St. Mary Magdalen’s Church, beyond which the outer Exchequer Gate stood till 1800. The wall in which this and other gates of the cathedral close were inserted was built in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, to protect the close and the canons. The gateways were all double, except the “Potter Gate,” which is the only other one now extant. It is said that the Romans had a pottery near it; at present the road to the Minster Yard goes both through it and round one side of it.

The Pottergate, Lincoln.

Passing from the Exchequer Gate you see a very pretty sixteenth century timbered house, with projecting story, at the corner of Bailgate, now used as a bank. Hard by on your right is the White Hart inn, and on your left you have a peep down Steep Street to the House of Aaron the Jew, a money lender of the reign of Henry II. Near this was once the South Gate of the Roman city, and some of the stones are still visible in the pavement. The gate was destroyed in 1775. Looking straight ahead from the Exchequer Gate you see the east gateway of the castle, a Norman arch with later semi-circular turrets corbelled out on either side of it. Inside is a fine oriel window, brought from John of Gaunt’s house below the hill. The enclosure is an irregular square of old British earthworks, seven acres in extent. The west gate is walled up and the Assize Court within the castle enclosure is near it. In the angles on either side of the east gate are two towers in the curtain wall, one, “the observatory tower,” crowns an ancient mound, and on the south side is a larger mound, forty feet high, on which is the keep, a very good specimen of very early work, in shape an irregular polygon. The castle was one of the eight founded by the Conqueror himself, apparently never so massive a building as his castle, which is now being excavated at Old Sarum, the walls of which, built of the flints of the locality, are twelve feet thick and faced with stone. At Lincoln the Roman walls were ten to twelve feet thick and twenty feet high. Massive fragments of this wall still exist in different places, the biggest being near the Newport Arch. Near here too is “The Mint Wall,” seventy feet long by thirty feet high, and three and a half feet thick, which probably formed the north wall of the Basilica. Most of the fighting in Lincoln used to take place around this spot, as Stephen felt to his cost. The old West Gate of the Roman city was found just to the north of the castle west gate. The line which joined the Roman East and West Gates ran straight then, and crossed the Ermine Street, now called here the Bailgate, near the church of St. Paulinus, but the result of some destructive assaults must have so filled the road that the street now called ‘East Gate’ was deflected from its course southwards and has to make a sharp bend to get back to its proper line.

The Jew’s House, Lincoln.

Remains of the Whitefriars’ Priory, Lincoln.

Getting back to the ‘Bail,’ or open space between the castle gate and the Exchequer Gate, we can go down that bit of the old Ermine Street called “Steep Street” (and I don’t think any street can better deserve its name) and come into the High Street of Lincoln. If we go right down this, we shall see all that is of most interest in the town below the hill. First is the “Jew’s House” where the murderer of Little St. Hugh is said to have lived, a most interesting specimen of Norman domestic architecture, and more ornate than that at Boothby-Pagnell of a similar date. The house has a round-headed doorway, with a chimney-breast starting from above the doorway arch, and showing that the upper floor had a fireplace. On either side the door now are modern shop windows. Between the stringcourses are two double light windows, with a plain tympanum under a round arch. Belaset of Wallingford, a Jewess, lived here in the reign of Edward I. She was hanged for clipping coin in 1290, the year of the Jews’ Expulsion. At the bottom of the street, No. 333, is another charming old structure called “White Friars’ House” with a projecting timbered front, and a passage round one end like that at the old “God begot” house at Winchester. All Friars, whether White (Carmelite), Black (Dominican), Grey (Franciscan), or Black and White (Augustinian), were to be found in Lincoln as well as at Stamford, and, with the exception of the Dominicans, at Boston too. One more bit of old domestic building is the hall of St. Mary’s Guild, commonly called John o’ Gaunt’s Stables. Here you may see a combination of the round and the pointed arch, which dates it as late Norman. The house is longer than the other two, and the upper story mostly gone, but in Parker’s “Domestic Architecture” it is spoken of as “probably the most valuable and extensive range of buildings of the twelfth century that we have remaining in England.” The house within has round-headed windows with a mid-wall shaft, and a fireplace. The house just opposite was the palace built by John of Gaunt for Katharine Swynford; from which the oriel window inside the castle gateway was taken. These old Norman houses are all small. The really magnificent building which was once the boast of Lincoln was a thousand years earlier than these; this was the Roman Basilica, or Hall of Judgment, near Bailgate, perhaps, the baths at the town of Bath alone excepted, the finest Roman building in England. Figure to yourself a building 250 feet long by seventy feet wide, with a triangular pediment rising from a row of pillars thirty feet high, something like what we still see at Milan. Alas! that only the pillar bases of this fine hall have been found. The pillars ran along the west side of Bailgate facing east.

St. Mary’s Guild and St. Peter’s at Gowts, Lincoln.

As we pass down the High Street we shall see on our left the Saxon towers of St. Mary le Wigford and of “St. Peters at Gowts.” The “gowts” or sluices were the two watercourses for taking the waters of the “Meres” into the Witham, originally there were small bridges on either side over each, with a ford between them for carts. These towers are tall and without buttresses, having the Saxon long and short work and the upper two-light window with the mid-wall jamb, and only small and irregularly placed lights below. They are in style much what you see in Italy, though the Italian are higher, but certainly none in England are so uncompromisingly plain as the towers at Ravenna and Bologna. St. Andrews in Scotland comes nearest, and bears a really extraordinary likeness to that of St. John the Evangelist at Ravenna. Near St. Mary le Wigford is the picturesque little remnant of a beautiful but disused church, called St. Benedict’s; only the ivy-clad chancel, a side chapel and the recent low tower are left, a very picturesque and peaceful object in the busy town. Its original tower held a beautifully decorated bell, called “Old Kate,” the gift of the Surgeon Barbers in 1585, it used to ring at 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., to mark the beginning and end of the day’s labour. It now hangs in the tower of St. Mark’s.

The name of ‘le Wigford,’ Wickford or Wickenford, indicates the suburb south of the river. In the days when kings used to wear their crowns, an uneasy belief in the old saying—

made the monarch take it off on passing from Wickford to the city, and certainly of all the kings who were crowned in the cathedral none wore the crown outside except Stephen, and he, as we have seen, soon had cause to repent it. It has been supposed that both these early Lincoln churches were built by a Danish citizen called “Coleswegen,” who is mentioned in Domesday Book as having thirty-six houses and two churches outside the city. But though Lincoln has not lost nearly so many churches and religious houses as Winchester has, yet, where she now has a dozen she once had fifty, so it must be extremely doubtful whether these two old ones that remain were those of Coleswegen. St. Mary’s now has a Perpendicular parapet, and, besides the curious tower arch, some interesting Early English work, and both churches have some good modern ironwork in pulpit, screen and rails from the Brant Broughton forge.

St. Benedict’s Church, Lincoln.

St. Mary-le-Wigford, Lincoln.

The woodwork in St. Peter’s was done by the parish clerk, a pleasant feature not nearly so common now as it used to be. At the road side, and close to the churchyard rails of St. Mary’s, is a handsome carved drinking fountain, here called a “conduit,” partly made of stones from the demolished Whitefriars monastery founded 1269. Leland speaks of it as new in 1540, and it was repaired in 1672. The Grey Friars conduit and the High bridge conduit are supplied from the same chalybeate spring, which once sufficed to turn the mill at the monks’ house, now standing in ruins a mile to the east of the city. This was one of the good deeds of the Franciscans, to bring good drinking water within reach of the poor. A similar system of “conduits” also due to them, existed at Grantham. A serious epidemic, traced to the drinking water, which broke out in Lincoln a few years ago, caused the town to go to great expense in laying on a new supply which comes twenty miles in iron pipes from Elkesley, Notts, between Retford and Clumber, and crosses the Trent at Dunham on a little bridge of its own.

The “High bridge” marks the spot where the Ermine Street forded the Witham. It is the only bridge left in England out of many which still carries houses on it. The ribbed arch is a very old one, twenty-two feet wide. The houses are now only on one side, they are quaintly timbered, and their backs, seen from below by the waterside, are very picturesque. On the other side is an obelisk, set up 150 years ago, to mark the site of a bridge chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. From here you get the most magnificent view that any town can boast, as you look up the steep street to the splendid pile which crowns the height, and see the cathedral in all its beauty.

The length of the High Street is relieved by the “Stonebow.” There was always a gate here from Roman times onward, for when the Roman town was extended southward to a good deal more than twice its original size, it was here that the new wall crossed the Ermine Street. The road had crossed the swampy ground and forded the river, and was now about to enter the city and climb the hill. The mediæval gate which succeeded the Roman ‘porta’ was removed in the fourteenth century, and the present one dates from the sixteenth, and was repaired in 1887, at Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. It has one central and two side arches, with slender towers between, carried up to a battlemented parapet. On the east tower is a tall figure of the Archangel Gabriel, and in a niche on the other tower the Virgin Mary. The patroness of the city and cathedral is represented treading on a dragon. A long room above the arch with timbered roof is used as a Guildhall; in it are portraits of Queen Anne and Thomas Sutton of Knaith, founder of the Charterhouse. The corporation, to whom they belong, has had a long and distinguished existence, for municipal life in Lincoln began in Roman times; and when they left, and Saxons, Danes or Normans ruled, and the counties and towns had to adopt new names under each successive conqueror, Lincoln retained throughout her Roman name and her right of self-government. The corporation, besides their fine Restoration mace, have three civic swords, one apparently made up out of two, but said to have been presented by Richard II. when he visited the city in 1386, to be carried point uppermost, except in presence of the sovereign.

The Stonebow, Lincoln.

The facts about the swords are these: the Charles I. sword, supposed to have been presented to the city at the beginning of the Civil War, in 1642, has been mutilated to supply a new blade to the Richard II. sword. This was done by order of the mayor in 1734. The blade has on it the orb and cross mark and also the running wolf—a fourteenth century German mark—but so common was it on the foreign blades used in England in the sixteenth century that, the figure being taken for a fox—as wolves were not then common in England—the term “Fox” was transformed to the sword; hence in Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” act iv., scene 4, we have Pistol saying to his French prisoner on the field of battle:—

and in one of Webster’s plays we have—

The two finest churches in Lincoln were at one time St. Swithun’s and St. Botolph’s. The former was burnt down, but, after a century, was rebuilt badly, but has now been restored by the munificence of Messrs. Clayton and Shuttleworth to its former grandeur, and has a really fine tower and spire, designed by Fowler, of Louth. St. Botolph’s, near the south “Bargate,” had to endure a similar period of decay, but was at last resuscitated, the south aisle being the last gift to the town of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth.

Lincoln’s last new building, the Carnegie Library, designed by Mr. Reginald Blomfield, stands in St. Swithun’s Square. It was opened on February 24th, 1914.

Old Inland Revenue Office, Lincoln.

Two other houses are interesting because of their inmates in the eighteenth century; one the old Jacobean mansion of the Bromheads of Thurlby, whose descendant, Captain Gonville Bromhead, won with Lieutenant Chard undying fame by the defence of Rorke’s Drift in the Zulu War, 1879. The other is a house called Deloraine House, in which once lived George Tennyson, grandfather of the poet; and we cannot quit Lincoln without going to see the fine bronze statue of the poet by G. F. Watts, which stands in the close at the east end of the cathedral.

In the autumn of 1909 the centenary of the poet’s birth was celebrated at Lincoln. Dean Wickham preached an eloquent sermon to a large congregation in the cathedral nave, after which, the choir, leaving the cathedral, grouped themselves round the statue and sang “Crossing the Bar,” and Bishop King gave a short and memorable address. In the evening the writer read a paper on Tennyson to an intently listening audience of twelve hundred people, which is now published by Routledge & Co., in a little book called “Introductions to the Poets, by W. F. Rawnsley.” Lincoln that day showed how fully she appreciated the great Lincolnshire poet. The statue, a colossal one, represents him looking at a flower, as described in his poem, “Flower in the crannied wall,” and his grand wolf-hound is looking up into his face. This hound was a Russian, whose grandfather had belonged to the Czar Alexander II., he who freed the serfs in 1861, and was so basely assassinated twenty years later. The wolf-hound was a very handsome light brindle, with a curious black patch near the collar. She had a litter of thirteen, and one of these with the mother, “Lufra,” was given to the writer when living at Park Hill, Lyndhurst, in the New Forest. The puppy, “Cossack,” was Mrs. Rawnsley’s constant companion till he died of old age in his sleep; the mother went to Farringford to replace an old favourite that Tennyson had lately lost. Her new owner changed her name to Karenina, and she was his constant companion to the end. Once again, if not twice, she had a litter of thirteen, and the cares of her large family not unnaturally were at times too much for her temper. She is now immortalised with her master in bronze, executed with loving care by his own old friend and quondam neighbour in the Isle of Wight. The inscription at the back of the pedestal is: “Alfred Lord Tennyson, born 1809, died 1892”; and below it is “George Frederick Watts, born 1817, died 1904.”

James Street, Lincoln

Another monument which once adorned Lincoln was the first and one of the very best in the list of Queen Eleanor’s crosses, designed by the famous “Richard of Stowe,” who carved the figures in the angel choir. Only a fragment of this survived what Precentor Venables calls “the fierce religious storm of 1645.” Before starting on its long funeral procession to Westminster, the Queen’s body was embalmed by the Gilbertine nuns of St. Catherine’s Priory, close to which, at the junction of the Ermine Street and Foss Way, the cross was set up, near the leper hospital of Remigius, called the Malandery (Fr. Maladerie) hospital.

Two railway stations and the many large iron and agricultural implement works, which have given Lincoln a name all over the world, occupy the lower part of the town, with buildings more useful than beautiful; for this industry has taken the place of the woollen factories which were once the mainstay of Lincoln. But a tall building with small windows, known as “The Old Factory,” still indicates the place in which the “Lincoln Stuff” was made, from which the Lincoln “Stuff Ball” took its name. In order to increase the production and popularise the wear of woollen material for ladies’ dresses, it was arranged to have balls at which no lady should be admitted who did not wear a dress of the Lincolnshire stuff. The first of these was held at the Windmill Inn, Alford, in 1785. The colour selected was orange; but, the room not being large enough for the number of dancers, in 1789 it was moved to Lincoln, where it has been held ever since, the lady patroness choosing the colour each year. In 1803 the wearing of this hot material was commuted to an obligation to take so many yards of the stuff. The manufacture has long ago come to an end, but the “Stuff Ball” survives, and the colours are still selected.

The swamps of the Wigford suburb have also disappeared, but Brayford Pool, beloved of artists, where the Foss Dyke joins the Witham, still makes a beautiful picture with the boats and barges and swans in front below, and the Minster towers looking down into it from above. This Foss Dyke was a Crown property, until James I., finding it to be nothing but an expense, with economic liberality presented it to the mayor and corporation.

Thorngate, Lincoln.

The river was always outside of the Roman town, for the south wall, running east and west from the Stonebow, where are now Guildhall Street and Saltergate, turned up by Broadgate Street, and here, just inside its south-east angle, is now the interesting “Grey Friars,” a thirteenth century building consisting of a vaulted undercroft and long upper room, now used as a museum.

I have no Lincoln notes of the eighteenth century of any special interest, but from this little extract it looks as if the institution of afternoon tea had been anticipated by a hundred years in Lincoln. The extract is from “A Sketch wrote Aug. 4, 1762, at Lincoln,” and deals with housekeeping expenses. The entries are:—

CHAPTER XII ROADS FROM LINCOLN, WEST AND EAST.—MARTON, STOW, COTES-BY-STOW, SNARFORD, AND BUSLINGTHORPE

Of the eight roads from Lincoln one goes west, and, passing over the Foss Dyke by a swing bridge at Saxilby, crosses the Trent between Newton and Dunham into Nottinghamshire. The view of Lincoln Minster from Saxilby, with the sails of the barges in the foreground as they slowly make their way to the wharves at the foot of the hill, is most picturesque. Saxilby preserves some interesting churchwarden’s accounts from 1551 to 1569, and, after a gap of fifty-five years, from 1624 to 1790. The “Foss Dyke” is a canal made by the Romans to connect the Witham with the Trent and deepened by Henry I. The road runs alongside of it from Saxilby for two miles. Consequently we get glimpses now and again of the low round-nosed barges with widespread canvas sailing slowly past trees and hedgerows; then we turn north and pass by Kettlethorpe Lodge and Fenton village, through lanes lined with oak trees or edged with gorse, and amidst fields brilliant with corn-marigold, and poppy, till we come, all at once, on a little fleet of barges waiting with their picturesque unfurled sails for a passage through the lock near Torksey, a place of some importance in Saxon times, having two monastic houses. Two miles beyond Torksey is Marton. This place is also approached by the old Roman road, now called “Till bridge Lane,” which branched off from the Ermine Street ten miles above Lincoln, and went to Doncaster and York, crossing both arms of the river Till near Thorpe-in-the-fallows. One mile from Marton this road passes out of the county at Littleborough ferry, the “Segelocum” of the Romans. The ferry is the main means of crossing the Trent where it touches Lincolnshire, as there are but two bridges in twenty miles, one at Gainsborough, and one between Dunham and Newton-on-Trent, where the view from the cliff with the bridge below is very picturesque.

Lincoln from the Witham.

There is a ferry at Laneham, between Newton and Torksey; and below Gainsborough are half a dozen, at Stockwith, Ouston, Althorpe, Keadby, where a bridge is now being built, Flixborough, and Burton Stather, but the latter only takes foot passengers, and the others are all, I believe, of the same calibre. It is just the same on the Ouse, across which Yokefleet and Ousefleet look at each other about a mile apart, but to drive from one to the other is a matter of more than thirty miles.

Marton is a tiny place, but has a very interesting church, with unbuttressed tower and heavily embattled parapet to both nave and chancel. The tower up to the upper stringcourse is entirely built in Norman “Herringbone” work, this is now plastered over outside, but you can trace the herring-bone through the plaster, and inside the tower it is plain to see, and shows courses of thin stone laid horizontally at frequent intervals. Above the stringcourse is the usual two light window with mid-wall jamb, which, like the Long-and-Short work at the angles of the tower, we generally describe as Saxon. Several Saxon stones with interlaced work, parts of a cross probably, are built into the west end of the south aisle at about two feet from the ground outside. I always want to see these very old stones inside, for their better preservation. Above the present nave roof, but below the mark of the earlier and high-pitched roof, is a door which once opened from the tower into the church. The chancel arch is Norman, as are the two lofty bays of the north arcade. The rest of the church is Early English. In the chancel south wall is a large niche with a pedestal, evidently intended for a figure, perhaps of St. Margaret, the patron saint, and there is also a low-side window of one light with a two-light window above it. But the most interesting thing in the chancel is a little stone, nine inches by eleven, now in the north wall, which was lately found in part of the wall where it had been used as building material; this has on it a very early attenuated figure of the crucified Saviour, clothed in long drapery. It might have been part of a cross-head; certainly it is a very remarkable figure, and of very early date. There is a tall cross-shaft and pedestal, now in the churchyard, but this is said to have been a market cross originally. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings were called in to do the work of repairing and, as usual, their work has been done in an inexpensive manner and on conservative lines. They found that the foundation of the old walls, only two feet below the surface, was just a trench filled with loose pebbles and sand. Three miles to the east of Marton stands the church which, next to the Minster, we may put at the head of the list of all the churches in the county. This is what Murray rightly speaks of as “The venerable church of St. Mary at Stow, the mother church of the great Minster.”

Stow is thought to be identical with the Roman Sidnacester, and the first church was built there in 678 by the Saxon King Egfrith, husband of Etheldred, the foundress of Ely, at the time when Wilfrid’s huge Northumbrian diocese was divided. From 627, when Paulinus, Bishop of York, preached at Lincoln, baptized in the Trent and built the first stone church in Lincolnshire, to 656, the province of Lindisse, or Lindsey, was under the Bishop of York. From 656 to 678 it was under the Bishops of Mercia, whose “Bishop-stool” was at Repton, and after 669 at Lichfield. In 678 King Egfrith of Northumbria established the diocese of Lindsey, with Eadred as first bishop, with its “Bishop-stool,” and a church of stone built for the See at Sidnacester or Stow. This lasted for 192 years; then, in 870, the Danes overran Mercia and burnt Stow church and murdered Bishop Berktred. Then from 876, when England was divided between Edmund Ironside and Canute, Lincoln became an important Danish borough. This period is marked by the number of streets in Lincoln called ‘gates,’ and by the enormous number of villages in the county ending in the Danish ‘by,’ which we find side by side with the Saxon terminations ‘ton’ and ‘ham.’ The Danes held Lincoln certainly till 940, during which time the province had no bishop. In 958 Lindsey was united with Leicester, and the “Bishop-stool” was fixed at Dorchester-on-Thames till, in 1072, it was transferred to Lincoln, and the province of Lindsey became part of the diocese of Lincoln under Remigius, the first Bishop of Lincoln. Stow being burnt in 870, remained in ruins till about 1040, when Eadnoth, seventh Bishop of Dorchester, rebuilt it, using the materials of the older church as far as they would go, as may be seen in the lower part of the transept walls. He probably built the massive round-headed tower arches. Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife, Godiva, helped liberally both with the building and the endowment. The Early Norman nave, and the upper parts of the transepts are probably the work of Bishop Remigius (1067-1093) who, we are told, “re-edified the Minster at Stow.” The chancel is late Norman, of the best kind, and, together with the rich doorways in the nave, may be assigned to Bishop Alexander (1123-1147) whose great west doorway at Lincoln is of similar workmanship. A few Early English windows, and the Perpendicular central tower, are all that has been added later, so that the church is of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The tower rests on pointed arches, whose piers come down inside the angles formed by the old Norman arches, which remain, and are visible below and outside the pointed arches, and give the very remarkable appearance of double arches supporting the central tower.

A curious loop-moulding goes round the western Norman arch, and is used also on a window in the south transept, and a similar moulding is found at Coleby. The chancel is surrounded by an arcade, and a stone seat runs all round. In restoring the church in 1864 Mr. Pearson left part of the north-west pier of the tower untouched, in order to show the red traces of the fire of 870, and in the north transept a mass of burnt stone is visible behind the organ. This is close to a fine and very early doorway which opens into the north aisle from the west side of the transept, while on the opposite side, in an altar recess, remains, fast fading, are seen of a fresco depicting scenes from the life of St. Thomas à Becket. The steep rood-loft steps start four feet above the pavement from the angle of the north-east pier close by. The stone groining of the chancel has been renewed on the old pattern obtained from several of the old stones which were found built into the walls; and in underpinning the walls in order to replace the groining, the bases of pillars were discovered, showing that a previous chancel with aisles had been either built or else begun and abandoned. The small windows and lack of buttresses give the outside a plain appearance, but the three Norman doorways are rich, and there is a great majesty about the Norman work of the spacious and lofty interior. The font, a very early one, is octagonal, and rests on eight circular shafts. It was late in the evening when we left this wonderful church, but we had only two miles to go to see the beautiful old rood screen at Cotes-by-Stow, which is half way between Stow and the Ermine Street. It is approached by a field road, and stands at the entrance to a farm, but the little chapel, built of small, rough stones, is so shut in by trees that the top of its double bell-turret is the only part of it visible. Inside is a round tub font, with a square base, some old oak benches, four on one side and three on the other; and, what no one would expect in such a tiny remote chapel, the most beautiful of old Perpendicular rood screens, with exquisite carving, and with the overhang complete. Moreover, the gallery is still approachable by the ancient rood loft staircase. The loft is about three feet wide, and there is a tiny pair of keyhole windows, each about ten inches by two, set close together, in the south wall to light it. Of ordinary windows the whole south side has but two, though there are four of different sizes with old leaded panes on the north side. The doorway is Early English. The building was restored in an excellent manner in 1884 by Mr. J. L. Pearson, who put back the original altar slab with its unusual number of six crosses.

Stow Church.

We recrossed the field, and passing between Ingham and Cammeringham, climbed the hill, and, getting on to the ridge, turned to the right for Lincoln, distant about eight miles. As we went along we looked down on Brattleby and Aisthorpe, on Scampton and the Carltons, and passed through Burton to the minster city.

The mists were rising in the flat country westwards, and the ripening corn gave a colour to the fields below us, and, as the sun set at the edge of the horizon, it seemed to us that it would be extremely difficult to find any road in England more striking, or from which so fine a view could be seen for so many miles on end.

Of the three eastern roads one goes by Greetwell and Fiskerton to Gautby and Baumber. Cherry Willingham lies just to the north where, till 1820, the vicarage was a small thatched house at the end of the village.

Fiskerton was given by Edward the Confessor to Peterborough, and the gift still holds. The charter was copied by Symon Gunton in his famous history of Peterborough, of which he was prebendary from 1646 to 1676, and at the same time rector of Fiskerton, where Dean Kipling was also rector in 1806. Only a few years ago what is either the original charter of the Confessor or an early copy was discovered in the cathedral library. The unique chronicle of the abbey and monastery called ‘Swapham,’ and written in MS., was saved from Cromwell’s soldiers who were burning all the books, etc., by Gunton’s son, who tucked it under his arm, saying that it was exempt from destruction being a Bible, as any fool could see. That, too, is now one of the treasures of the cathedral library. The Fiskerton Register is one of the earliest, beginning in 1559. In that book is the following entry for 1826:—

“The driest summer known for the last 20 years. Conduit water taken from Lincoln to Boston. No rain from April Fair 20th to the 26th of June. The river was deepened this summer, packet went to Boston by the drain; prayers for rain during Hay harvest.”

Barlings Abbey lies three miles to the north-east, across Fiskerton Moor. It was founded in 1054 for Premonstratensian canons by Ralph de Hoya, and a grand tower, 180 feet high, was still standing in 1710. Half-way to Gautby we reach Stainfield, founded by Henry Percy at about the same time for Benedictine nuns.

At Gautby was once a hall belonging to the Vyner family, and in the church are monuments dated 1672 and 1673. Here, too, is a slab in memory of F. G. Vyner, who was one of the party so infamously murdered by Greek brigands in 1870.

From here Baumber is quickly reached. This church, whose massive tower base is Norman, is the burial place of the Duke of Newcastle’s family. Here, too, an old hall once stood, close by, in Sturton Park, just below a spur of the South Wold.

From Baumber, going four miles south, we reach Horncastle. The main eastern road from Lincoln to Wragby is described later in the Louth-to-Lincoln route. It is the Roman road to Horncastle. At the seventh milestone, shortly after passing Sudbrooke Holme, the house of Mr. C. Sibthorpe, where the garden is one of the most beautifully kept and tastefully planted of any garden in the county, the road divides to the left for Market Rasen, by Snelland, Wickenby, Lissington, and Linwood; and to the right for Wragby, where it again divides for Louth on the left, and on the right for Baumber and Horncastle. The third of the roads takes a north-easterly direction by Dunholme to Market Rasen. All this route between Nettleham and Linwood lies in the flat strip of country some eight miles wide, which runs up from the Fens to the Humber, narrowing in width after reaching Brigg, from whence it is drained by the river Ancholme and the Wear dyke, which discharge into the Humber opposite Read’s Island, between South Ferriby and Winteringham. Half way across this flat-land, on the way to Market Rasen, and two miles to the left of the Wragby road, is Snelland. This place is called in Domesday Book Esnelent, and also Sneleslunt; and we find that land was held here by Thomas of Bayeux, Archbishop of York and chaplain to the Conqueror, while another land-holder was William de Percy, founder of Whitby Abbey and commander of the fleet which brought the Conqueror over. It is now the property of the Cust family. The following rhymed marriage entry is in the Snelland register for the year 1671, Mr. R. S. having presumably married a well-known scold:—

North of Snelland is Snarford, which we should visit, not so much to see the four inner arches of the church tower, which are Norman, as to inspect the wonderful tombs of the St. Poll family. The earliest is in the chancel, where Sir Thomas lies on an altar tomb in plate armour, with helmet under his head, bearing as crest an elephant and castle; he wears both sword and dagger, and holds in his hand a book. They seem to have been a literary family, for his wife, in a long flowing robe with girdle and a peculiar head-dress, also holds a book, and the side panels have a projection on each face also supporting a book. A son and a daughter are kneeling below; and a canopy supported on pillars and having a richly moulded cornice bears, over each pillar and between the pillars, kneeling figures—ten in all. Shields of arms enclosed in wreaths form further decorations, but both this, which is dated 1582, and the other large monument in the north chantry are much defaced, and the heavy canopies look as if they might fall and destroy the figures beneath them at any moment. It is no good shouting “police!” but where is the archdeacon? This north chantry has been boarded off from the church, which has an ugly effect. The monuments in it are first to Sir George St. Poll, 1613, and his wife Frances, daughter of Chief Justice Sir Christopher Wray of Glentworth, whom he married in 1583. This is very large, being eleven and a half feet in height and width. Sir George reclines on his elbow; he, also, is in armour, his wife is by his side; and below is their little daughter Mattathia, with cherubs weeping and resting their inverted torches on skulls. The wife, after putting up this monument, took for a second husband Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick; and opposite to the monument of herself and her first husband she re-appears as the Countess of Warwick, on a round tablet, with medallions of herself and the earl, her second husband, who died in 1618. His first wife was Lady Penelope Devereux, by whom he had two sons, Robert and Henry, and two daughters, Lettice and Essex. A brass on the south side of the chancel has a quaint Latin inscription, by the Snarford parson, telling us that Frances Wray, after marriage, was twelve years without issue, and then had a daughter who died before reaching her second birthday, “cut off while on her way to Bath.” This was a terrible loss of a most precious treasure, and he mentions that he had christened her Mattathia, and goes on to tell us that the “mother passes no day without tears of poignant anguish,” and ends with “How I wished, alas in vain, that I the writer, instead of thee, had been the subject of a funeral elegy. John Chadwick, Sept. 9th, 1597.”

Close to the St. Poll monument in the chantry is a stone in memory of George Brownlow Doughty, 1743, who married a Tichborne heiress, and took the name in addition to his own. From Snarford, less than four miles brings us to Buslingthorpe, where is a Crusader’s effigy, which, like the priest at Little Steeping, had been turned upside down and used as a paving-stone, possibly for the sake of saving it from destruction. This may be Sir John de Buslingthorpe, c. 1250. But the great treasure of the church is a brass half-effigy on a coffin-lid, which also had been buried, and was only recovered in 1707. This represents a knight in armour, holding a heart and wearing remarkable scaled gauntlets. The inscription in Norman French is without date, but reads: “Issy gyt Sire Richard le fiz sire John de Boselyngthorp,” and is probably not later than 1290. This is earlier than the somewhat similar brass in Croft Church, which is assigned to 1300 or 1310, but is not so early as the fine brass of Sir John d’Abernoun at Stoke d’Abernon in Surrey, which is dated 1277. Anyhow, it is the earliest in Lincolnshire. From here, less than four miles brings us back on to the Market Rasen road at Linwood, only two miles from Rasen.

Instead of going by Snarford and Buslingthorpe we might have reached Rasen by a more direct route from Snelland through Wickenby to Lissington. Here the road divides, the right hand going to Legsby and Sixhills, and then turning left-handed to join the Louth and Rasen road at North Willingham; or, if the day is clear, the traveller can go straight on from Sixhills and climb the Wold, which with a rise of one hundred feet will give him a view and bring him to the crown of the same road at Ludford. The left-hand road from Lissington will bring us to Rasen viâ Linwood. This is a pretty road just elevated above the flat, whence the church spire is visible for a long way. This interesting church, dedicated to St. Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, A.D. 251, is of the Early English period with Perpendicular tower. The brasses, which are good, have been removed from the south chantry to the north aisle and placed at the west end. We have John Lyndewode, wool stapler, and his wife, under a double canopy, date 1419. In his shield are three Linden leaves, which shows the name of the village to mean ‘the Linden (or Limetree) wood.’ There is also one to their son John, a wool stapler, dated 1421, and a figure of a bishop in the south chancel window, probably commemorates another son William, who became Bishop of St. David’s. A cross-legged effigy of a knight has been torn from its matrix. The old Lyndewode Manor once stood close to the church.

Continuing northwards for two miles we find ourselves at Market Rasen.

CHAPTER XIII ROADS SOUTH FROM LINCOLN

Besides these three roads going east from Lincoln, there are three great roads which run along “the ridged wold” northwards, and two going south; but these two, as soon as they are clear of Lincoln, branch into a dozen, which, augmented by five lines of railway, all radiating from one centre and all linked by innumerable small roads which cross them, form, on the map, an exact pattern of a gigantic spider’s web. Of this dozen the three trunk roads southwards are the Foss Way to Newark in the flat country, and the Sleaford road over “the heath,” both of which roads avoid all villages (though the Sleaford road passes through Leasingham, described in Chap. VIII., about two miles north of Sleaford, and has that curious erection, the Dunston pillar, at the roadside about eight miles out from Lincoln, described in the chapter on Nocton); and thirdly, the Grantham road, on the ridge between the two, which has a village at every mile. Others run, one to Skellingthorpe, one to Doddington with its interesting old Hall, which we will revert to shortly; one all down the Witham valley to Beckingham on the border, going by Basingham with its ninth-century Saxon font, and Norton Disney with its fine Disney tombs and remarkable brass, also to be described later; and one to Brant Broughton.

A sign-post in Lincoln points to this village, because, though twelve miles distant, there is nothing on the way; indeed you may follow up the valley of the Brant River another six miles to its source near Hough-on-the-Hill, and then go on another six as it curves round into Grantham, and not pass through anything but Marston, and there is nothing to see there but the old seat of the Thorold family, Marston Hall, now a farmhouse. All these are on the low ground to the west. Then on the ridge itself is “the Ermine Street,” and east of the Sleaford highway is a desolate road over “Lincoln Heath” to Scopwick, where a stream, crossed by several single planks, runs right through the village. East of this, another somewhat important road goes across the low and once swampy ground south of Lincoln, where the Witham gets through the gap in the cliff ridge to Canwick. Here the church, which has a rich Norman chancel arch and arcade, and an Early English arcaded reredos in the vestry, once a chantry chapel, rises, without any other footing, from a Roman pavement; here, too, from the grounds of Mr. Waldo Sibthorp’s house, Canwick Hall, where the cliff begins again, you get a most beautiful view of the minster about two miles distant; indeed, those who live near Lincoln and can see the minster may boast of a view which for grandeur has few equals in the land. This walk from Lincoln is a favourite one, and passes a well-planted cemetery of twenty-five acres, part of which was taken from the common, which rejoices in the delightfully bucolic name of “the Cowpaddle.” The road is really the continuation of the Wragby road, and, curving down Lindum road passes into Broadgate, then crossing the Witham and the Sincel dyke and the intersection of the Midland and Great Northern Railways, crosses yet two more lines before it reaches the cemetery. After Canwick the road goes through Branston and passes, near Nocton, Dunston, and Metheringham, to Blankney. The hall here, the home of Mr. Henry Chaplin, than whom no Lincolnshire man is better known or more popular, is now occupied by Lord Londesborough. The church has a curious tomb-slab to John de Glori, with a bearded head looking out of a cusped opening, and a beautiful sculpture by Boehm of Lady Florence Chaplin. This is one of the few churches in which the ringing of the Curfew-bell still obtains. After Blankney the road passes Scopwick and curves round through Digby, Donnington and Rushington to Sleaford. Of these villages Digby is worth seeing, and so is Rowston, lying one mile north of it. At Digby the village cross has been restored, but with a very indifferent top, and at the other end of the village is a curious stone lock-up, like a covered well-head, and hardly capable of holding more than one man at a time. Lingfield in Surrey has a larger one called ‘Ye Village Cage’; it has two steps up inside, and is capable of holding a dozen people. The tower has three stages, Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular. The south door is transition Norman, the north arcade aisle and chancel Early English, the south arcade and aisle Decorated, and the font, screen and clerestory Perpendicular. In this the six tall two-light windows are distributed in pairs. Rowston, which is dedicated to St. Clement, has a spire rising from a tall tower, so little wider than itself that it may safely be said to cover less ground than any tower in England, for it measures only five and a-half feet inside; it is blank except for a rather heavy window in the upper stage. The first thing that strikes you on entering is the extraordinary loud ticking of the clock. It has to be stopped during service, as no one can compete with it. The next thing is that the thirteen windows are all filled with painted glass and of the same type, striking in design, though not of quite first-rate excellence. One window has figures of the three Lincolnshire saints—St. Guthlac, St. Hugh, and St. Gilbert. The church is in very good order, having been recently restored, and some Saxon stones with interlaced work have been built into the outside wall of the chancel. It would have been better to have put these inside. But there is inside a very good head of a churchyard or village cross, and the base and broken shaft of one, possibly the same, is just outside the churchyard. This head is of the usual penthouse form, with a carved figure on either side; it was found quite recently built into a cowshed. In the nave the pillars are all different. The vestry was over the burial chapel of the Foster family; later it was, as was so often the case, used for a school. A beautiful bit of an old carved oak screen separates it now from the north aisle. A heavy timber floor cuts across the top of the tall tower arch, and below a very curious pillar stands against one side of the arch. An Early English priest’s door, with a flat-arched lintel, is in the south wall of the chancel. It is impossible to walk round the slender tower, as a garden wall runs into it on both the north and south sides, leaving part of the tower in a neighbouring garden, the owner of which once claimed half the tower as his property, and considered that he had a right to pierce a door through it for easier access to his pew.

We have now but one road south of Lincoln to describe—for what we have to say about Norton Disney and Nocton can come afterwards; this is the Grantham road, a road curiously full of villages mostly perched on the western edge of the ridge, whilst the Ermine Street running so near it on the east has no villages at all on it, and the Sleaford road over “the Heath,” a little to the east of the Ermine Street, is, as we have said, just as bare. The number of roads in Lincolnshire which have no villages on them is very remarkable, though not hard to explain. We have already, in treating of the roads from Grantham, through the villages of Manthorpe, Belton, Syston, Barkstone, Honington, Carlton Scroop, Normanton, Caythorpe and Fulbeck, brought the account of this road northwards as far as Leadenham. Here the Sleaford and Newark main road crosses it, and Leadenham spire is a fine landmark for all the neighbourhood. It is to be noted that, common as the Danish termination ‘by’ is in all parts of the county, the Saxon ‘ton’ just about here and on the west side generally, is even more frequent.

This spire is crocketed, but has no flying buttresses. The nave and arcades are lofty, with bold clustered columns, and the doorways, which are quite different in style, are both very good. There is some good Flemish glass, and a stone monument of the Beresford family has long been in use as an altar. Wellbourn, on an Early English tower, has one of those ugly, Perpendicular “sugar loaf” spires, with a sort of bulge in the middle, and that to a worse degree than at Caythorpe. The nave and aisles are the work of John of Wellbourn, the munificent treasurer of Lincoln in the middle of the fourteenth century.

Brant Broughton.

To the right and left of Wellbourn are two places which should not be missed. Brant Broughton, with its beautiful spire, and Temple Bruer, where are the remains of a preceptory of the Knights Templars. The church of Brant Broughton (pronounced Bruton) is a beautiful structure, and all in perfect order, the magnificent lofty chancel having been built to match the rest of the church by Bodley and Garner in 1876. To take the woodwork first, the tall handsome screen and the chancel stalls are in memory of the late rector, Canon E. H. Sutton, as is also the lofty carved font cover, whose doors open and display three carved and coloured figures, one being St. Nicholas, the patron saint, with the three children in a pickling tub, whom he is said to have raised to life after their murder by a butcher, as is so quaintly represented in the famous black font in Winchester Cathedral. The roof, which in the first instance was of a higher pitch, as seen by the string course, is an exact reproduction, both in shape and colour, of the old Perpendicular one which it replaced, and is in appearance upborne by figures of angels with outspread wings. The three tall arches of the aisle arcades and chancel are Early English, two of the pillars are octagonal. These arches are very high, though not so high as those in Hough-on-the-Hill, which are of about the same date. The three-light clerestory windows, five on each side, and the roof to the nave, were added with the upper stages of the tower in 1460, and the Perpendicular aisle windows are large and handsome, and have a transom running across the tracery in the head of each. They are filled with most interesting glass, good in design, and mostly good in colour, all of which was made in the village by the late Canon Sutton, who also filled several windows in Lincoln Minster. The ironwork in the church was also made by Mr. F. Coldron and Son at the village forge, where excellent work is always being done and sent to all parts of the country. All the work inside the church, and the chancel in particular, is beautifully finished in every detail, and bears the impress of being all the work of one mind, and as that mind was Bodley’s, and he took the utmost pains with it, it need hardly be said that it comes very near perfection.

Among the things to notice are the long stone responds of light clustered pillars between each clerestory window, which support the roof timbers. This is seen in other churches in this part of the county, but is otherwise by no means common. Another is that at intervals on the outer moulding of some of the doors and windows are carved rosettes which give a very rich effect and are, I believe, unique. The excellent lectern eagle is a copy of one at Oxborough in Norfolk, and a similar one is in the neighbouring church of Navenby. Thus far I have spoken of the inside, but it is the outside of the church which gives the greatest delight, for it is a very perfect specimen, built of good stone, of the finest proportions, and richly ornamented. The nave and chancel have each an ornate parapet, while the nave is also embattled and pinnacled. The tower has the most glorious base-mouldings, and the pinnacled and crocketed spire soars up 175 feet. Both tower and spire date from about 1320, the period of the Flowing Decorated style. But the two porches, which are a little later, are absolute gems of architecture. They have groined roofs, their parapets are pierced and ornamented, thickly set with gargoyles, and supported by canopied buttresses. Over the entrance of the south porch is a figure of Christ seated, and in the north porch is an ornamental roof ridge of carved stone. These porches are as beautiful as anything can well be; altogether it would be hard to find in a country village anything architectural, more pleasing than Brant Broughton Church.

The Ermine Street at Temple Bruer.

We passed through the village, visited the Coldron forge, and then by a road constantly turning first right then left, with fields of scarlet poppy or brilliant yellow corn-marigold on either hand, and with a stormy sky which ever and anon brought us a squall of rain, we drove across the flat country eastwards till we crossed the railway and reached the ridge. Climbing this, we come to Wellbourn, on the Grantham road, and going on eastwards over Wellbourn Heath we reach the Ermine Street, here only a wide grassy track. This we cross and go forwards through a well-cultivated, but almost uninhabited plain, till we see on the left a farm road leading over a field to a big farmyard, in the middle of which stands a solitary square-built Early English tower, with windows irregularly placed, and steps on one side. This is all that is left of a Preceptory of the Knights Templars, founded early in the thirteenth century in the reign of Henry II. by the Lady Elizabeth de Canz at Temple Bruer.

One does not always like to confess one’s ignorance, but I am sure many people may read that word “preceptory” without at all knowing what it may mean, or what the difference is between a Preceptory and a Commandery. So we may as well say something about the Templars, and the kindred order of the Hospitallers. And here I may say that I am indebted for my facts to a paper read at Lincoln by Bishop Trollope in 1857.

The first, then, of these, in point of time, were the Hospitallers. But as they long outlived the Templars we will take the history of the Templars first. This famous order, half-religious and half military, was founded in 1118, during the first Crusade, by nine French knights, whose object was to protect pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. At first they were bound by laws of poverty, and were termed “Poor Knights,” but Baldwin II., having given them lodging in a part of his palace at Jerusalem, the abbot of the Temple Convent, which adjoined the palace, gave them further rooms to live in, and from this they got the name “Templars.” In 1128 they adopted a white distinctive mantle, to which a red cross on the breast and on their banner was added in 1166. The fame of their feats of arms and chivalry induced many members of noble houses to join the society, and land and treasure were so freely offered them that they became known for their wealth, as at first for their poverty. Their head was termed “Grand Master,” and their headquarters were in Palestine, until they moved, in 1192, to Cyprus. In other countries each section or “Province” was governed by a “Grand Preceptor.” They first came to England in the early part of Stephen’s reign, and had a church in London, near Southampton Buildings, called “The Old Temple,” from which they migrated in 1185 to the spot where the circular Temple Church still stands. Their wealth was the cause of their downfall, morally and physically; and the monarchs, both of France and England, becoming jealous, Philip IV., in 1307, seized and imprisoned every Templar in his dominion, 200 in number, on the vague charges of infidelity, sorcery, and apostasy, and eventually confiscated all their property and burnt more than fifty of them alive, relegating the rest to perpetual seclusion in some monastic house. Edward II. did much the same here, except that there were no burnings or executions. Old Fuller, the historian, was probably thinking of those in France when he says in his inimitable way: “Their lives would not have been taken if their lands could have been got without; but the mischief was, the honey could not be got without burning the bees.” In 1312 the Pope, Clement V., who was under Philip’s thumb at Avignon, and had helped him to coerce Edward II., abolished the order, which was found to be possessed of no less than 9,000 manors and 16,000 lordships, besides lands abroad. Grants were made to favourites, and also to those who had claims for some benefaction to any Templar’s estate. Thus Robert de Swines (Sweyne’s)-thorp was to receive 3d. a day for food, and another 3d. for himself and 2d. for his groom; and his daughter, Alice Swinesthorpe was to have for life (and she drew it for thirty years) “7 white loaves, 3 squire’s loaves, 5 gals of better ale, 7 dishes of meat and fish on Saturday for the week following, and an extra dish (interferculum) of the better course of the brethren, at Xmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, Midsummer, The Assumption, and Feast of All Saints, and 3 stone of cheese yearly and an old gown of the brethren.”

Twelve years later Edward granted the whole of their property to the similar society of “Knights Hospitallers.”

This society came into existence some fifty years before the Templars, and originated in a band of traders from Amalfi, who got leave from the Caliph of Egypt to build a church and monastery for the Latins near the Holy Sepulchre, in order to look after the sick and poor pilgrims who used to come in large numbers to Jerusalem. Soon a hospital, or guest house, was added, and a chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist; but the society did not take the distinctive name of Hospitallers, or guest receivers, until 1099, when Jerusalem was in the hands of the Christians. They then assumed a white cross as their badge, and were termed Knights of the Hospital, Knights Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John.

In 1154 they procured a Papal bull, relieving them from payment of tithes, and exempting them from all interdicts and excommunications, and giving them other privileges, but binding them never to leave the order. These marks of Papal favour seem to have made them presumptuous, and great complaints soon arose of their insolence. They were accused before the Pope, but they managed to clear themselves and to keep their privileges. Hence we find that Temple Bruer, which came to them after the destruction of the Knights Templars, still remains exempt from the payment of tithe, and from episcopal jurisdiction, as being extra parochial.

The head of the order had the title of “Grand Prior,” and when the Christians were expelled from Palestine, the Knights retreated to Cyprus, after which they took from the Turks the island of Rhodes, which they held against the Sultan until 1522, when Solyman II., after a long siege, forced them to capitulate. A few years after that, the Emperor Charles V. gave them a home in Malta, and they thenceforth were commonly called Knights of Malta. They fortified the island, and imported soil to make it productive, and putting to sea with their galleys they made constant war upon all Turkish vessels. Solyman at length determined to drive them out of Malta. He despatched a fleet of 180 galleys, carrying 30,000 men. The Turks took the fort of St. Elmo, but with a loss of 8,000 men; and when the Emperor sent an army to assist the Knights, La Valette, the Grand Prior, a famous leader, drove the Moslems off. After this they remained in Malta until the order was dissolved at the close of the eighteenth century by order of Napoleon, when most of the Knights took service in the French army. Whilst the society existed it had branch establishments in England, where the chief or Prior took precedence of all the barons, and had a seat in Parliament. Their establishments were called “commanderies”—while those of the Templars, who were ruled by “Grand Preceptors,” were called “preceptories.” Of these there were three in Lincolnshire: at Willoughton, four miles south of Kirton in Lindsey; at Aslackby, two miles south of Falkingham; and at Temple Bruer; all three situated close to the Ermine Street or “High Dyke” as they call it, on Lincoln Heath, and it is from the heath that one of them gets its name Templum de la bruère, or the temple on the heath, shortened into Temple Bruer.

The lands of these Knights Templars, which were handed over by Edward II. in 1324 to the Knights Hospitallers, were all sequestrated in England at the time of the dissolution of the monastic and religious houses in 1538, and, like so many other Lincolnshire estates, granted by Henry VIII. to his relative, Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk. Henry, with his wife, Katherine Howard, dined at Temple Bruer when on his way to Lincoln in 1541. The buildings then were of considerable size, and the circular church, whose pillar bases have been laid bare, a little to the west of the existing tower, was fifty feet in diameter. It is modelled on the plan of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, having, as may still be seen in London, Cambridge, and Northampton, a corridor running round between the circular arcade of the church and the outer wall. The existing tower is of the Early English period, fifty feet high, and having three storeys; the walls of the lower storey are decorated by arcading on two sides, and the rising levels of the floor indicate that an altar was placed at the east end, so that it was probably the domestic chapel of the Grand Prior. The roof of this and the next storey is vaulted, and above the third storey was a parapet. The rooms were reached by a winding staircase in the north-west angle. A well nine feet in diameter, and never dry, was in the precincts, and another, discovered in the eighteenth century, was found to have in it three large bells. The Earl of Dorset, who owned this interesting property in 1628, sold it to Richard Brownlow of Belton, whose daughter and co-heiress carried it to the family of Lord Guildford, and he sold it to the ancestors of Mr. Chaplin of Blankney.

Temple Bruer Tower.

It shows that the interest in the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem is not yet extinct when we read the following, which appeared in The Times of December 21, 1913:—

From Temple Bruer we return to the “High Dyke,” and, crossing it, make westward for the Grantham road; but before we go along it, by Boothby Graffoe to Navenby, we must pause on the Ridge, or “Cliff,” as they call it there, and look down on a solitary round tower on a slight elevation about a mile across the flat plain which extends westward from the Wolds to the Trent. This tower and its grassy mounds are all that is left of a once fine stronghold, built, about 1281, by Antony Bec, Archdeacon of Durham, second son of Walter Bec, Baron d’Eresby. He was consecrated Bishop of Durham in the presence of Edward I., on January 9, 1284, and he was wise enough, a few years later, when his growing magnificence excited the jealousy of his sovereign, to present Somerton to Edward I., and it remained a royal castle for some three centuries, passing afterwards through several families, among whom were the Disneys of Norton and Carlton. Edward, son of Thomas Disney of Carlton-le-Moorland having purchased it from Sir George Bromley, and being succeeded in 1595 by his son Thomas, who having lost both his sons, sold it to Sir Ed. Hussey. Hence we find that his son Charles, afterwards Sir Charles Hussey of Caythorpe, is described in his marriage licence, April 10, 1649, as Charles Hussey, Esq., of Somerton.

After the battle of Poictiers, in 1356, John, son of Philip of Valois, King of France, was brought captive to London, together with his third son Philip. Hence, after a short residence at the Savoy Palace, they went to Windsor as guests of the King and Queen Philippa, and were subsequently sent to Hertford Castle. Edward III. soon thought it wiser to transfer them to Somerton, where they were placed under the custody of William, Baron d’Eyncourt of Blankney, during the years 1359 and 1360. The expensive furnishing of the castle (see Chap. XXXVII.) and the provision made for the maintenance of the large number of the king’s French suite, and of the officers and men who were appointed to guard the prisoners, and the style of life there, the tuns of French claret, and the enormous amount of sugar to make French bon-bons, together with the subsequent history of King John, who, on being set at liberty, returned in the most honourable way to England in 1363, because his son Louis, Duc d’Anjou, had broken his parole as a hostage and left England for France, is fully related by Bishop Trollope. King John died in 1364, at the palace of the Savoy.

Somerton Castle, which we must now visit, was a fortified dwelling-place with outer and inner moats, and with round towers at each corner of an irregular parallelogram, only one remains now at the south-west angle. This is forty-five feet high, and has three storeys—the lower one vaulted, the highest covered with a conical roof and having two chimneys, rising well above the plain parapet, which is still perfect, and springs from a bold and effective moulding. Each floor is lit by small lancet windows, the middle one much enlarged of late years, for it is still inhabited, together with some building adjoining it on the east, as a farm house. The large earthworks around the castle, which are especially noticeable on the south, are very remarkable, and must be much earlier than the castle, which seems to have been planted inside these rectangular embankments, of which the northern side has been levelled, probably at the time of the building. The earthworks are not Roman in character, and are probably of very great antiquity. Outside these are at least two round artificial hills, which have not been as yet explained with certainty.

Leaving the castle, and driving over the rough field road which leads to it, we regain a highway which takes us up “the cliff” to the village of Navenby. This is situated on a spur jutting out from the edge of the cliff, with a deep little valley sweeping round on the south side and breaking down into the plain. Nestling in the curve of the hill are some picturesque farm buildings and stacks, and above is an old windmill; whilst over the horizon peeps through the trees the spire of Wellingore Church. The chancel of Navenby Church, as at Heckington, is as long as the nave, and almost as high; indeed, this Decorated chancel is as fine as any to be found, no other being built on at all so magnificent a scale, except Hawton in Notts, and Heckington and perhaps Merton at Oxford. The tower, which probably had a spire, fell in the eighteenth century, and the whole church was restored about forty years ago, by Kirk of Sleaford, who made the chancel roof of too high a pitch, and kept the nave roof too low. The pillars in the nave, of which there are two on each side, have shafts clustered round a central column, four shafts of coursed masonry alternating with four light detached monolithic shafts, all united under a circular capital. But the north-west pillar is thicker than the others, and belongs to the latter part of the twelfth century. The tower arch is a low one; the fine Decorated east window of six lights, restored in 1876, has superb tracery, and is nearly as fine as that at Heckington. There are four large chancel windows, and a good Early English window in the south aisle. There is also a rood-loft staircase, and a rood-loft with canopy, or ‘hang over,’ and a modern rood-beam above bearing a large crucifix and two almost life-size figures carved and painted. An octagon panelled font stands on a pedestal of slender columns. The roof of both nave and aisles is painted. The clerestory, added later, has five three-light windows. The east window is filled with white glass, slightly toned, and is half hidden by a tapestry screen used as a reredos, by no means beautiful, and twice as high as it need be. The Jacobean pulpit and the fine copy of an old brass eagle lectern, as at Brant Broughton, are to be noticed; but the main glories of the church are in the chancel, where, besides the splendid windows, there are, on the south side, three rich sedilia and a piscina; and on the north, just east of the canopied arch for the founder’s tomb, in which is now placed a trefoiled stone with Lombardic lettering of Richard Dewe, priest, is a priest’s door and a very beautiful Easter Sepulchre. This is only surpassed by those at Heckington, Lincoln, and Hawton, near Newark. It has only one compartment, with three Roman soldiers, with mutilated heads, below the opening, and above it, amongst the delicately carved foliage of the canopy, are two figures of women. Few churches can give more pleasure to the lover of church architecture than this; and its fine position on the edge of the cliff, with the wide view over the plain westward, makes a visit to Navenby very memorable.

Going on northwards along the cliff road we pass Boothby Graffoe, where the old church was actually blown down, or, as the Wellingore register has it, “extirpated in a hurricane,” in 1666—and come to Coleby. Here is an early unbuttressed tower with a rude original arch over the door of the tower staircase, and with two keyhole windows in the south side, as in the early Lincoln towers or those at Hough-on-the-Hill, and Clee. Part of the original tower arch is visible inside the tower, which is entered from the nave through a very tall narrow arch supported by two very small pilasters with plain rectangular caps.

The two arches of the north arcade are Transition Norman; those on the south Early English, with good stiff foliage. The tall, plain porch had once a room over it, and retains its richly moulded Transition doorway. The font is of the same date, being a massive cylinder with Norman arcading cut on it, and with four equidistant pillars which give it a square appearance. The crocketed spire is a good one, Perpendicular in style, and of better stone than the tower. The three lancet windows at the east end are filled with good glass, and the seats are of oak with poppy-heads throughout. The fellows of Oriel College, Oxford, to whom the living belongs, helped in its restoration by Bodley and Garner in 1901. The wall at the west end of the south aisle, which runs up to the tower and also forms the west side of the porch, as the aisle has no window, is one long blank face, which has a singularly ugly look outside. Inside, there are some good bench-ends, and there is an inscription by Sir John Coleridge to the Rev. Trevenen Penrose, who spent the greater part of a long life as vicar of the parish.

Navenby.

The Hall is a gabled house of 1628, built by Sir W. Lester, now the property of the Tempest family, and having classic temples in the grounds, one of them adapted from the Rotunda in the baths of Diocletian at Rome.

Harmston, the next village, has a tower of the pre-Norman type, with a mid-wall shaft to the window of the belfry in which are eight bells. A brass plate commemorates Margaret Thorold who had a family of eight sons and eleven daughters, and lived to be eighty.

Waddington has some very good Early English work in its clustered columns and carved capitals. Here the string of villages, one at every milestone, ceases, and we go on for three miles seeing the beautiful minster tower in front of us on the height, and arrive at Bracebridge, a very dark church, but with some most interesting Long-and-Short work in the tower, in the angles of the nave, and in the south porch, and a Norman west door to the tower, which is a very early one with mid-wall shaft to the belfry window. The Norman north door is now blocked. There is a curious rectangular opening, twice as wide as its height, in the south aisle, near the porch, which allows a view between the pillars and through the hagioscope or “squint” on the right of the chancel arch to the altar. Another squint is on the left side of the chancel arch, which is a very narrow and early one, through a thick wall.

The nave pillars, two on each side, are cylindrical with four banded shafts attached. The north aisle and transept are modern. A fine Transition Norman font is mounted on a new base, and on the pulpit is still to be seen the old hour-glass stand, as at Leasingham; though there and at Belton in the Isle of Axholme it is attached to a pillar, at Sapperton and Hammeringham it is on the pulpit. There is also an old cracked Sanctus bell.

The road over the heath unites with the Grantham road near Bracebridge, and runs into Lincoln by the Stonebow, and on up to the Minster Hill.

So much for the roads east, west, and south. The roads north of Lincoln demand another chapter. But a few words about Nocton and Norton Disney shall come first.

CHAPTER XIV PLACES OF INTEREST NEAR LINCOLN — NOCTON — THE NORTON DISNEY BRASS — DODDINGTON HALL — KETTLETHORPE

As an instance of what the great Roman catch-water drain the “Carr-dyke” effected, we may take the little village of Nocton, six miles south-east of Lincoln. Here is a little string of villages—Potter Hanworth, Nocton, Dunston and Metheringham—running north and south on the edge of a moor which drops quickly on the east to an uninhabited stretch of fen once all water, but now rich cornland cut into long strips by the drains which, aided by pumps, send the superfluous water down the Nocton “Delph” into the Witham River. Along the extreme edge of the moorland runs the “Carr-dyke” and intercepts all the water which would otherwise discharge into the already water-logged lowlands, and so makes the task of dealing with the fen water a possible one.

At Potter Hanworth the Romans had a pottery. The church was rebuilt in 1857, one of the bells was re-cast in memory of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and on it were placed Tennyson’s lines from “Morte d’Arthur.”

On the same occasion the ringing of the Curfew bell, which had been continued till 1890, was given up, and a clock with four faces put up instead, which strikes the hours, but is not at all the same thing. Thus one more interesting and historic custom has disappeared, which is much to be regretted in this utilitarian and unimaginative age.

Domesday Book tells us that Nocton was divided in unequal shares between two landlords, Ulf and Osulf; on the land of the former there was already a church with a priest in 1086. These owners had given place to one Norman de Ardreci, written later de Aresci, and finally D’Arcy, a companion of the Conqueror. Norman D’Arcy’s son granted the churches of Nocton and Dunston to the Benedictines of St. Mary’s Abbey, York, also some land to the Carthusians of Kirkstead Abbey, and himself founded a priory at Nocton for canons of the Orders of St. Augustine, who first settled in England in 1108. The buildings are quite gone, but the site is still called the Abbey Field, and the vicarage is called the Priory; the Priory well, whose water was said to be “remarkably good,” in 1727, was only filled up about fifty years ago. Why couldn’t they have let it alone, one wonders. To follow up the history of Nocton: in 1541 Henry VIII. and Katharine Howard slept there.

The D’Arcy family and their descendants in the female line, whose married names were Lymbury, Pedwardine, Wymbishe and Towneley, held the property for three and twenty generations till the middle of the seventeenth century—a good innings of 600 years. But the losses which the Civil War brought about made it necessary for Robert Towneley, at the Restoration in 1660, to sell the estate to Lord Stanhope, from whom it soon passed by sale to Sir William Ellys, about 1676, and in 1726—by the marriage of Sir Richard Ellys’ widow—to Sir Francis Dashwood; after whom, in 1767, it descended to a cousin, George Hobart, eventually third Earl of Buckinghamshire. He altered Nocton considerably, pulled down the church, which was too near the house, and set up a poor structure further off, where the present church stands. He also spent much in draining Nocton fen, and erected a windmill pump which raised the water and sent it into the Witham, and worked well for forty years till it was superseded in Frederick Robinson’s time (1834) by a forty-horse-power steam engine which was found to pump the water faster than the fens could supply it. The earl died in 1804; ten years later his daughter, Lady Sarah Albinia, carried the estate to Frederick John Robinson, second son of Lord Grantham, who became Prime Minister and was created Viscount Goodrich in 1827, and Earl of Ripon in 1833; and, as a member of Sir Robert Peel’s cabinet, moved in the House of Lords the second reading of the Bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. In 1834 the house at Nocton was burnt down, and the earl’s young son, afterwards Marquis of Ripon, laid the foundation stone of the present house in 1841. The earl died in 1859, and his widow, who survived him eight years, built in his memory the present fine church, which was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. In 1889 Lord Ripon sold the estate to Mr. G. Hodgson of Bradford.

It is interesting to hear of a school being set up in 1793 at Nocton; first as a private school by John Brackenbury of Gedney, grandson of Edward Brackenbury of Raithby, near Spilsby, which was continued for forty-six years after her father’s death in 1813, by his daughter Justinia, who became Mrs. Scholey. In her time it was an elementary school which Lady Sarah financed and managed, the children paying a penny a week.

Another thing that was set up was a land lighthouse on Dunston Heath. This was a lonely tract where inhabitants had not only been murdered by highwaymen, but had even been lost in the storms and snow-drifts on the desolate and roadless moor. Here then Sir Francis Dashwood set up the Dunston Pillar, ninety-two feet high with a lantern over fifteen feet high on the top. The date on it is 1751. The fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire, who as Lord Hobart was Governor of Madras, took down the lantern on July 18, 1810, and set up in its place a colossal statue of George III. to commemorate the king’s jubilee.

The granddaughter of the third earl, whose father (The Very Rev. H. L. Hobart) lived at the Priory, being, inter alia, vicar of Nocton and Dean of Windsor, and also of Wolverhampton, tells me that the mail coaches used to pass the pillar and leave all the letters for the neighbourhood at one of the four little lodges close by. She has several interesting specimens of the work done by the Nocton School of Needlework under the guidance of Justinia, whose family were remarkable for their Scriptural as well as “heathen Christian names,” e.g., Ceres and Damaris. Justinia herself always, as they say in Westmorland, used to “get” Justina. These specimens include a very clever and faithful copy in black silk needlework of an engraving by Hoylett from a picture by Thos. Espin of old Nocton Hall, which was burnt down in 1834. The needlework artist has done one of the trees in the picture most beautifully, but has given the rein to her imagination by working in two fine palm trees in place of the oaks of the picture. There is a sampler done at the vicarage by the dean’s daughter, and inscribed:—

“Nocton Priory, 1839.
Louisa C. Hobart.”

And two large samplers with the usual pretty floral borders worked by Justinia’s daughters, signed “Alice Scholey, 1832, and Betsey Scholey, 1848.” The latter has some rather primitive representations of the old Hall and its two lodges; also the Vicarage and the School, and a libellous portrait of Lincoln Minster. Alice Scholey was of a more Scriptural turn of mind and apparently fond of birds, for she has owls in the centre of green bushes, and pheasants or peacocks among her flowers; but her central picture is the temptation, where Adam and Eve, worked in pink silk, au naturel, stand on either side of a goodly tree covered with fruit, a gorgeous serpent twining round the trunk, and one remarkably fine plum-coloured apple temptingly within reach of Eve’s hand.

Certainly Justinia’s school was in advance of the time, but the art needlework doubtless owed much to the interest taken in it by Sarah Albinia, Countess of Ripon.

Samplers of the eighteenth century are now much sought after. I saw one lately of 1791, on which a little mite of seven, in days when the “three R’s” were taught along with the use of the needle in the good old sensible way, had stitched in black silk letters:—

The first stanza with its pathetic little picture is genuine enough, but the second was manifestly dictated by her elders.

Among the treasures long preserved at Nocton was an Anglo-Saxon ornament of great beauty (see illustration, Chap. XXII) in which three discs of silver with a raised pattern of dragons, &c., and with pins four inches long are connected by silver links so as to form a cloak-chain to fasten the garment across the breast. The pins have shoulders an inch from the sharp points to prevent their shaking loose. This for a time was in a museum at Lincoln, and on the dispersal of the collection was bought and presented to the British Museum, and is in the Anglo-Saxon room. In the same room are kept the very interesting finds from the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Sleaford, consisting mainly of bronze ornaments and coloured beads. The cloak-chain was found in the Witham at Fiskerton, four miles from Lincoln, when the river was deepened in 1826.

Sir Charles Anderson, in his excellent Lincoln pocket guide, gives some notion of the gaiety which distinguished Nocton in the eighteenth century by quoting an account of a masquerade held there on December 29, 1767, which begins:—

“Met at the door by a Turk, in a white Bearskin, who took our tickets.”

It is curious to note the use of the word Turk for any dark-skinned person in a turban, for later in the list of dresses we have: “Mr. Amcotts, a Turk, his turban ornamented with diamonds. Mr. Cust, a Turk; scarlet and ermine; turban and collar very rich with diamonds. He represented the Great Mogul,” who would have been little pleased to be called a Turk, I imagine. Amongst more than seventy other dresses which are described we find: “Lady Betty Chaplin: a Chinese Lady, in a long robe of yellow taffety; the petticoat painted taffety. Her neck and hair richly ornamented with diamonds.”

But rich jewellery was the order of the night whether it was proper to the costume or not, so we find “Lady Buck: a Grecian Lady, scarlet satin and silver gauze; her neck and head adorned with diamonds and pearls.”

The host and hostess are thus described:—

“Mr. Hobart: ‘Pan.’ His dress dark brown satin, made quite close to his shape, shag breeches, cloven feet, a round shock wig, and a mask that beggars all description, a leopard skin over his back fastened to his shoulder by a leopard’s claw. In his hand a shepherd’s pipe.”

“Mrs. Hobart; First “Imoinda,” a muslin petticoat, puffed very small, spotted with spangles. The arms muslin puffed like a dancer. Her second dress “Nysa” or “Daphne.” She came in footing it, and singing a song in “Midas.” Muslin and blue ornaments; a white chip hat and blue ribbons.”

Several dancers had two costumes. Thus “Lord George Sutton. First a Pilgrim; next a Peasant Dancer; pink and white.

Miss Molly Peart: a Peasant Dancer; same colours as Lord George.

Miss Peart: ‘Aurora’ Blue and White. The Moon setting on one side of her head; the Sun rising on the other.

Miss A. Peart: a Dancer; pink and silver.”

Mr. and Miss Hales went as a Dutchman and “a Dutchwoman, brown and pink,” and Mrs. Ellis as “a Polish Lady; pink and silver; a white cloak and a great many diamonds.”

Another classic lady to match ‘Aurora’ was “Miss Manners: ‘Diana’ her vest white satin and silver; her robe purple lute-string; a silver bow and quiver: her hair in loose curls, flowing behind, and a diamond crescent on her forehead.”

I should judge that the “Eyewitness” who wrote the account was a Mr. Glover because of the minute particularity with which his own costume is set forth, thus: “Mr. Glover: a Cherokee Chief; a shirt and breeches in one, puffed and tied at the knees; a scarlet mantle, trimmed with gold, one corner across his breast; scarlet cloth stockings; brown leather shoes, worked with porcupine quills and deer’s sinews; a gold belt; gold leather about his neck, and before like a stomacher, and over that a long necklace and gorget; head-dress of long black horsehair, tied in locks of coloured ribbons, a single lock hanging over his forehead; ear-rings red and blue; plumes of black and scarlet feathers on his head; a scalping knife tucked into his girdle; a tomahawk in his hand, and a pipe to smoke tea with.”

Mrs. Glover went in black and yellow as a Spanish lady.

Then we have Henry the Eighth, a shepherdess, “a Witch with blue gown, red petticoat and high crowned hat,” a friar in a mask, a Sardinian knight, a Puritan, a sailor, “Lord Vere Bertie a very good Falstaff,” and many Spaniards, among them “Dr. Willis: a Spaniard with a prodigious good mask.”

Norton Disney (= de Isigny, a place near Bayeux) was the home of a family who lived here from the thirteenth century to nearly the end of the seventeenth.

The castle was in the field near the church, just across the road to the west, but has quite disappeared, as has also the seventeenth century manor-house. The church, which is well worth a visit, belonged to the Gilbertines of Sempringham (see Chap. IV.). The manor is now the property of Lord St. Vincent, a title bestowed on Admiral Sir John Jervis when he so handsomely defeated the Spaniards near the cape of that name on the coast of Portugal in 1797. On opening the door you find that you have to descend three steps into the church. Here the arcade consists of two Norman arches, and one next the chancel smaller and of later date. There are old carved benches without poppy-heads, and a very plain old oak screen with rood stairs on the south side. The east window is filled with stained glass in memory of the Lord St. Vincent who fell at Tel-el-Kebir. The aisle has an old roof with carved bosses, and there is a very deeply carved font. Outside, the look of the church is spoilt by some very inharmonious additions, among these is the north chapel to the chancel, inside which, on a rough brick floor, are the monuments which give the church its interest; these are six in number, three to ladies. One of them is a recumbent effigy in coif and wimple of “Joan d’Iseney,” 1300. One a curious sepulchral slab with the half-effigy of a lady at one end and her feet showing at the other, with Norman French inscription to “Joan Disney.” Another is the recumbent effigy of Hantascia Disney, a name of frequent use in the family. Close to this on the ground is a slab with the matrix of a fine brass of a knight under a canopy, while another knight is on an altar tomb in the chancel. These are all of the fourteenth century. But the most important is a brass of the sixteenth century. This is a thick brass plate three feet by two, now set in an oak frame and hinged so that one may see the reverse side on which is engraved a long inscription in Dutch recording the foundation of a chantry in Holland in 1518 by Adrian Ardenses and the Lady Josephine Van de Steine. The face of this brass is divided horizontally into five compartments, at the top is a pediment with a shield bearing the Disney arms impaling those of Joiner in the centre, and on either side are crests of the Disney and Hussey family—a lion passant regardant and a stag couchant under a tree. The next compartment shows the half-length figures with their names below of “Willm Disney Esquier” in armour and helmeted, and “Margaret Joiner” his wife; he in profile, she three-quarters face, they are kneeling at a faldstool with open books, their hands joined in prayer, and between them on a scroll: “Sufferance dothe Ease.” Behind him are four sons and behind her five daughters, all with hands joined in prayer and with their names engraved on labels above them. The next compartment shows three shields with the arms of Hussey, Disney and Ayscough, in which Hussey has three squirrels sitting up, Disney has three fleurs de lys, and Ayscough three asses coughing. In the compartment below these are the half-length figures of Richard Disney, full face in armour with very high shoulder-pieces, and his two wives who are three-quarter face; and below are their names engraved thus: “Nele daughter of Sr Wilton Husey Knyght, Richard Disney, Janne daughʳ of Sʳ Wilton Ayscoughe Kᵗ.” Behind the first wife are ranged in two tiers her seven sons and five daughters and their names were engraved above them. “Sara, Ester, Judeth, Judet and Susan” are still there, but the sons’ names are gone; a bit of the brass which held them, about six inches by one and a half, having been cut out, in connection, it is said, with a lawsuit arising out of Richard Disney’s will. They can be supplied from Gervase Holles’ MS. as William, Humphrey, John, Daniel, Ciriac, Zachariah and Isaac.

The lowest compartment has this inscription:—

“The lyfe, conversacion and seruice, of the first above named Willm Disney and of Richard Disney his Sonne were comendable amongest their Neigbours trewe and fathefull to ther prince and cutree and acceptable to Thallmighty of Whome we trust they are receved to Saluation accordinge to the Stedfast faythe which they had in and throughe the mercy and merit of Christ oʳ Savior. Thes truthes are thus sette forthe that in all ages God may be thankfully Glorified for thes and suche lyke his gracious benefites.”

No dates are given, but William Disney’s will was proved in 1540; Richard Disney’s in 1578; and that of Jane, the second wife of Richard, in 1591. She was the younger sister of Anne Askew, who was so cruelly burnt for heresy at Smithfield in 1546, because she had read the Bible to some poor folk in the cathedral. She had previously been married to George St. Poll of Snarford, by whom she had a son. Canon Cole, in his “Notes on the Ecclesiastical History of the Deanery of Graffoe during the 15th and 16th centuries,” says that “such demi figures as these are rare in the 16th century, and helmets are seldom seen on the heads of knights at this date,” and he shows an engraving of the brass, which, of course, cannot be earlier than 1578. Richard Disney was one of those who profited most largely by the dissolution of the monasteries. His first wife, Nele Hussey, was grand-daughter of the unfortunate John Lord Hussey, who was beheaded in 1537. Early in the next century one branch of the Disneys removed from Norton to the next parish of Carlton-le-Moorland, where Ursula Disney’s burial on August 22, 1615, is in the register; and her husband, Thomas, removed to Somerton Castle, three miles to the east, the lease of which he bought from Sir George Bromley, but, having no issue, he sold it again to Sir Edward Hussey. Canon Cole also notices that it was while the Disneys were at Carlton that the very unusual event in Elizabethan times, the rebuilding of a great part of the parish church, took place. Churches, as a rule, were getting dilapidated, and the archdeacon’s visitations, preserved in the bishop’s registry at Lincoln, some of which go back to the time of Henry VII., show many presentments for absence of service-books, decay of walls and roofs, or churchyard fences. For instance, at Bassingham in 1601 the churchwardens are cited “for that their churchyard fences toward the street are in manie places downe, by reason whereof their churchyard is abused by swyne and such unseemlie cattell.”

The smiling youthful faces of the figures in this most remarkable brass, and the modern-looking whiskers and beard and moustache, combined with the helmet, give a singularly unancient look to the wearers, and irresistibly call to mind what one has so often seen of late in the twentieth-century pageants.

Between the road which runs west from Lincoln to Saxilby, and the old Roman Foss Way from Lincoln to Newark, which went on by Leicester, Cirencester, and Bath to Axminster, a tongue of Nottinghamshire runs deep into the county. South of this and north of the Foss Way are a few villages of no particular importance, amongst them Eagle, which was once a preceptory of the Knights Templars. But here also, within six miles of Lincoln, is Doddington. This deserves especial mention for its fine Elizabethan hall, which is still very much as it was three hundred years ago.

The station of Doddington and Harby is just over the border, and Harby village is in Nottinghamshire. A statue over the doorway in the church tower commemorates the fact that Here Queen Eleanor died. Edward I. was holding a council at Clipston in Sherwood Forest in 1290 when the queen was taken ill and was removed to the house of one of her gentlemen in attendance who lived at Harby. After her death her heart was buried in Lincoln Minster and her embalmed body was taken by stages to Westminster, a beautiful cross being subsequently ordered to be set up at each resting place, ten of the thirteen were either not completed or subsequently destroyed, all those in the county being among the number. These were at Lincoln, Grantham, and Stamford. The only three Eleanor crosses that have survived the abominable destruction of all beautiful things from which the country suffered, first at the hands of Henry VIII.’s minister Cromwell, and then from the acts of Parliament passed by the iconoclasts of the Reformation, and finally by the soldiery of the Civil War, are at Northampton, Geddington, and Waltham.

The first owner of Doddington Manor that we know of was one Ailric, in Edward the Confessor’s time, who gave it as an endowment to the newly built Abbey of Westminster. The family of Pigot held it under the abbot, paying a rent of £12, and the estate remained with them till 1486, after which Sir John Pigot, having no heir, his widow sold it to Sir Thomas Burgh of the Old Hall, Gainsborough, and his family 100 years later sold it, in 1586, to John Savile, M.P. for Lincoln; but when, seven years later, he ceased to represent the town, he sold it to Thomas Taylor, for many years registrar to the Bishops of Lincoln. He was a wealthy man, and at once set to work to build the present hall, which was finished in 1600. It is built of red and black brick with stone quoins and mullions, and is approached by a stone gateway with two brick storeys above it and three gables. It stands between two quadrangles, with gardens in that on the west, and with a cedar-planted lawn on the east, and the E-shaped house is surmounted by three octagonal brick turrets with leaden cupolas. It is 160 feet long and seventy-five feet deep on the wings. There is no superfluous ornament, all being solidly plain but harmonious outside, and with fine stately rooms inside. The hall is fifty-three feet by twenty-two, and the long gallery on the third floor ninety-six feet by twenty-two, the house being all one room thick. A good deal of internal decoration—oak panels, a staircase, and marble chimney-pieces, and heavy architraves over the doors—was the work of Lord Delaval about 1760. The pictures are numerous, mostly family portraits, one being of Lord Hussey of Sleaford, beheaded after the Lincolnshire rebellion, 1536. At the south end of the long gallery is a group by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Thomas Taylor died in 1607, and his son in 1652, when the estate devolved on his niece, Lady Hussey of Honington. Her husband, whose great uncle was the man beheaded by order of Henry VIII., was fined as a Royalist in 1646 in the enormous sum of £10,200, of which £8,759 was actually paid—half of it in his lifetime, and the rest by his widow and his eldest son’s widow, Rhoda, who had for her second husband married Lord Fairfax. The accession to her uncle’s estate at Doddington just two years after she had cleared this huge debt on Honington must have been truly welcome to Lady Hussey, but she only lived to enjoy it for six years, and was succeeded by her grandson, Sir Thomas Hussey, who lived till 1706. Then his title passed to Sir Edward Hussey of Caythorpe and his estate to his three daughters, the last of whom, Mrs. Sarah Apreece, by will dated 1747, settled it on her daughter, Rhoda, the wife of Captain Francis Blake-Delaval, R.N., who had large estates in Northumberland, Seaton Delaval, Ford Castle near Flodden Field, and Dissington. The estate remained with the Delavals till 1814, when Edward Hussey Delaval, a learned man of science and an F.R.S., died, and was buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey. Lord Delaval held the property for nearly forty years and spent much on the house, but to spite his brother Edward he had the meanness to cut down all the timber of any value. His youngest daughter was the beautiful Countess of Tyrconnel who died in 1800, and to her daughter he left Ford Castle. He himself died at the age of eighty at Seaton Delaval, and was buried in the family vault in St. Paul’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey.

His brother Edward was only one year younger, but lived to the age of eighty-five. Then, in 1814, Seaton Delaval went to his nephew, Sir Jacob Astley, but Doddington to his widow and daughter, the latter of whom became Mrs. Gunman. The mother survived the daughter, and in 1829 it was found that they had left all their property to a friend, Colonel George Ralph Payne Jarvis, who had served in the Peninsular War, and whose grandson, Mr. G. Eden Jarvis, is the present owner.

The tongue of Nottinghamshire, mentioned above, runs into the county as far as Broadholme, near Skellingthorpe, within five miles of the city. The northern boundary of this tongue is the Saxilby road, between which and the Trent is Kettlethorpe, which has an interesting history, though the present hall was reconstructed in 1857 by Colonel Weston Cracroft Amcotts, father of the present Squire of Hackthorn, who dropped the name of Amcotts after his father’s death in 1883, and handed over the Kettlethorpe estate to his brother Frederick, whose widow is now lady of the Manors of Kettlethorpe and Stow.

The name takes us back to the invasions of Ketil the Dane, and the old spelling of Ketilthorp is therefore the correct one.

In 1283 Sir John de Kewn was the owner. Later it passed to the De Cruce or De Sancta Cruce or De la Croix or De Seynte Croix family.

In 1356 John De Seynte Croix, son of William de la Croix, conveyed the manor and advowson to Sir Thomas Swynford, Knight, one of a family who had held land of the Darcys at Nocton in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Sir Hugh de Swynford was employed in his wars by John of Gaunt, son of Edward III., and he died in 1371. His widow, Katharine, being placed in charge of John of Gaunt’s children, became his mistress and had four children by him who were afterwards legitimised, she took the name of Beaufort, and of her sons one became Earl of Somerset, one Duke of Exeter, one Bishop of Lincoln and of Winchester, and then Cardinal Beaufort, whilst Joan became Countess of Westmorland. Katherine Swynford was called “Lady of Ketilthorpe.” In 1394 John of Gaunt’s second wife, Constance of Carlisle, died, and in 1396 he married Katherine at Lincoln, and her title in Deeds of that time is “The Lady Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster, Lady of Ketilthorpe.” Her father was Sir Payne (Lat. Paganus) Roelt, and her sister Philippa is said to have been the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer.

John of Gaunt died in 1399 at Lincoln, and Katherine, dying four years later, was buried on the south side of the Angel Choir, her son Henry being at that time Bishop of Lincoln. Later, the tomb of her daughter, who died in 1440, was placed near her. The tombs were defaced in the Civil War. The Swynfords remained owners of Kettlethorpe for 150 years; now only a fourteenth century gateway and a portion of the moat remain.

Sir William Meryng was the next owner, and in 1564 it passed from the Meryngs to John Elwes, who in 1588 conveyed it to W. Meekley, whose successor sold it to Gervase Bellamy, of Luneham. He died in 1626, and his heirs were his two daughters, Mary, who married Gervase Sibthorp of Luneham, ancestor of the Sibthorps of Canwick, and Abigail, whose husband, Charles Hall, became owner of Kettlethorpe. His son, Thomas, married for his second wife the widow of Vincent Amcotts, of Harrington, who had died in 1686, and their son left the property to his nephew Charles Amcotts, of Amcotts, in the Isle of Axholme. He, in 1762, purchased from Lord Abingdon the manor of Stow, once the property of the Bishops of Lincoln. He enclosed the lordship, and, dying in 1777, his two sisters inherited. The husband of the survivor of these sisters, Wharton Emerson, of Retford, had assumed the name of Amcotts, and in 1797 was created a baronet. He died in 1807, and his daughter Elizabeth married Sir John Ingilby, and their son, known as Sir William Ingilby Amcotts, held both the Amcotts and Ingilby baronetcies inherited from his grandfather Sir Wharton Amcotts, and from his father Sir John Ingilby. He died in 1854 and the baronetcies died with him, but the estate passed to his sister Augusta, wife of Robert Cracroft of Hackthorn, who took the name of Amcotts. His son, Weston Cracroft Amcotts, was Member of Parliament for Mid-Lincolnshire 1866-1874. He it was who reconstructed the hall which Sir William Ingilby Amcotts had allowed to get into disrepair, and rebuilt the tower of West Keal church, which had fallen. He died in 1883, and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son Edward Weston Cracroft of Hackthorn.

For most of my facts about Kettlethorpe and Doddington I am indebted to the exhaustive papers by Rev. Canon Cole, Prebendary of Lincoln, contributed to the Lincoln Architectural Society’s Journal, to whom also I owe valuable information about the brass at Norton Disney, which we visited together, and also a pleasant and profitable hour in the minster.

CHAPTER XV HERMITAGES AND HOSPITALS — SPITAL-ON-THE-STREET

Spital-on-the-Street is an ancient hospital situated twelve miles north of Lincoln on the Roman Ermine Street, which had its origin in a Hermitage. The Hermits or “Eremites,” dwellers in the Eremos or wilderness, commonly placed their habitats in remote spots, though some stationed themselves near the gates of a town where they could assist wayfarers with advice and gather contributions at the same time for their own support; others dwelt by lonely highways in order to extend hospitality to benighted wayfarers. A hermitage on the “Ermine Street” between Lincoln and the Humber would be of the latter sort. For the Street runs in a bee line for two-and-thirty miles through an absolutely tenantless country. Villages lie pretty continuously a few miles distant on either side, but with the exception of Spital itself the Street passes through nothing till it arrives within five miles of its termination. The hermitage would therefore be a welcome asylum to a belated traveller on a stormy night and the sound of the chapel bell, or the gleam of the hermit’s rushlight through the darkness would be just salvation to him. Probably such a picture was in Shakespeare’s mind when he wrote:—

The chapel attached to the hermitage was one of four churches in Lincolnshire dedicated to St. Edmund King and Martyr.[4] A licence was granted by Edward II. for land and rent to be appropriated by the Vicar of Tealby for the payment of the chaplain; and, by a document signed at Tealby in the year 1323 and witnessed by nearly all the dignitaries of the Cathedral of Lincoln, the foundation was placed under the jurisdiction of the Lincoln Dean and Chapter. Ten years later we find the hermitage called “Spital-on-the-Street,” so that its uses had already been enlarged, though we have no documentary evidence of this. All we know of, is the building of a house for the chaplain by John of Harrington in 1333.

In 1396 Richard II., “at the request of his dear cousin John de Bellomonte, grants to Master Thomas de Aston, Canon of Lincoln, leave to newly build a house adjoining the west side of the chapel of St. Edmund the King and Martyr at Spitell o’ the Street, for the residence of William Wyhom the Chaplain and of certain poor persons there resident and their successors,” and before the end of the fourteenth century it had buildings sufficient for the maintenance of these poor persons. As such it escaped in Henry VIII.’s time, but in the sixteenth century the property was seized by Elizabeth for her own use in the most barefaced manner and sold by her. The Sessions for the Kirton division of Lindsey were for many years held in the chapel, but subsequently it fell into disrepair and was pulled down by Sir William Wray in 1594, and a new sessions house built close by, on which was this Latin couplet,

In 1660 Dr. Mapletoft, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, being appointed Sub-Dean of Lincoln and also Master of the Spital Hospital, at once rebuilt the chapel and set to work to improve the revenue, and when he became Dean of Ely in 1668, he retained his Mastership of Spital, and so well did he and his next-but-one successor, Chancellor Mandeville do their work, that, whereas it had sunk to a master and two poor persons to whom he paid 2s. each, they restored it to its complement of seven poor people and bought land for it, which so increased in value that, when the Charity Commissioners took the Spital in hand in the reign of Queen Victoria, the revenues were estimated at £959, which was nearly all of it being misappropriated.

Wykeham Chapel, near Spalding.

In 1858 a new scheme was drawn up, and now seven alms-people of each sex receive £20 a year, and besides other annual payments £5,500 has been spent out of the Spital funds on the Grammar School at Lincoln and on founding and maintaining a middle-class school at Market-Rasen called after the Spital’s founder The De Aston School. Of the old hospital at Spital only the chapel built by Mapletoft in 1662 remains; a plain structure with its east end to the road where the entrance door is, the altar being at the west end. Below the small square bell-cot is a stone bearing this inscription:—

Qui hanc Deus hunc destruat.
G.P. 1830.

This means:—

Whoever destroys this house may God destroy him.

This means that it was founded by De Aston as a chantry and hospital in 1398,[5] pulled down by Wray in 1594 and rebuilt by Mapletoft in 1661. The mason who carved the date has transposed the two last figures in 1661.

G.P. should be J.P. for John Pretyman, the last “Master.”

CHAPTER XVI ROADS NORTH FROM LINCOLN — BARTON-ON-HUMBER

Of the three roads north from Lincoln we have spoken of the road on the ridge which is the continuation of the Cliff road on which we travelled from Navenby to Lincoln. The view is the notable thing on this road, for, though it looks down on a series of small villages below its western slope, Burton, Carlton, Scampton, Aisthorpe, Brattleby, Cammeringham, Ingham, Fillingham, Glentworth, Harpswell, Hemswell, Willoughton, Blyborough and Grayingham, all in a stretch of fourteen miles, it passes through nothing of importance but Kirton-in-Lindsey. This Kirton is a very old place, the manor being once held by Piers Gaveston, the favourite of Edward II., and later by the Black Prince. The office of Seneschal was filled at one time by the Burgh family of Gainsborough. The church is an interesting one, and has a richly carved and moulded west doorway. Leading from the nave to the tower is a very massive double Early English arch, resting on a large circular pillar, and two thick responds. The south doorway is like the western one, richly carved with tooth moulding. The porch is used as a baptistry. On the north wall of the nave is a wall-painting representing the seven sacraments and blood flowing from the crucified Saviour to each.

The road east of Ermine Street goes through any number of villages, for it goes on the low ground, and each parish runs up to the Ermine Street and has its portion of high ground or “cliff.” Normanby Cliff, Owmby Cliff, Saxby Cliff, etc., and from the west side each village does the same, so that we have in succession Brattleby, Ingham, and Hemswell Cliff. The winds on the ridge apparently, which “extirpated” the church of Boothby Graffoe, have always deterred people from building on the height; but none of the places on this low road which occur regularly at intervals of two miles are of any special importance except Glentham, which will be noticed later. We will therefore run along the middle road, the grand old Roman Street, which begins at Chichester and, as seen on the map, goes through the county north of Lincoln as straight as an arrow for over thirty miles. At the twelfth mile we pass Spital, and when, after eighteen miles we get to the latitude of Kirton-Lindsey on the cliff road, we shall find that the branch road to the right, which goes to Brigg, takes all the traffic, and the Ermine Street for seven or eight miles is disused. So, turning off, we pass Redbourne Hall and Hibaldstow, the place of St. Higbald, who came to Lincolnshire across the Humber with St. Chad to bring Christianity to the Mercians in the seventh century. This parish runs up to the ridge, and in the middle of it is an old camp at Gainsthorpe on the “Street.” At Scawby Park, with its fine lakes, the property of the Sutton-Nelthorpes, we turn eastwards and reach Brigg. This, once a fishing place on the Ancholme River, is now the one market town of all this low-lying neighbourhood. Roads from the four villages of Scawby, Broughton, Wrawby and Bigby unite here, and the great Weir Dyke or “New River Ancholme” which runs from the river Rase to the Humber goes through it. It is eleven miles from Bishopsbridge on the Rase to Brigg, and seven from Brandy Wharf, whence boats used to run to meet the Humber boats at Ferriby Sluice, ten miles north of Brigg. Hereabouts the fens are called “carrs.” We noticed the term “carr dyke” for the Roman drain near Bourn, which runs from the Nene to the Witham; and the map along the whole course of the Ancholme, which runs north for twenty miles, is covered with “carrs.” The villages are at the edge of the Wold generally, but they all have their bit of fen and all are called by this name, Horkstow carrs, Saxby carrs, Worlaby carrs, Elsham carrs, etc.

Carr is a north country word, and has two distinct meanings in Lincolnshire.

1. The moat-like places which originally surrounded the inaccessible islets, with which the Fenland at one time abounded; but now used chiefly of low-lying land apt to be flooded.

2. A wood of alder, ash, &c., in a moist boggy place, e.g., “Keal Carrs,” near Spilsby.

A third meaning is less common, viz., the humate of iron or yellow sediment in water which flows from peaty land.

Of the four parishes above mentioned which meet at Brigg,[6] Broughton on the Ermine Street is worth a visit. The pre-Norman church and tower, like Marton, has a good deal of herring-bone work, and, like Hough-on-the-Hill, an outer turret containing a spiral staircase. There is a small rude doorway, and as at Barton, the tower with its two apses probably formed the original church.

The present nave is built on the Norman foundation, and the cable moulding is visible at the base of two of the pillars. There is a chapel in the north aisle, and on the north side of the chancel a good altar tomb with alabaster effigies of Sir H. Redford and his wife, 1380, and a fine brass on the floor of about the same date. This chancel was once sixteen feet longer. In another meanly built chantry is a monument to Sir Ed. Anderson, 1660. In Broughton woods, as at Tumby, the lily of the valley grows wild. North of Broughton the Ermine Street becomes again passable, and, after running some miles through a well-wooded country, is crossed by the railway at Appleby Station, whence it becomes a good road again, but again falls into disuse when the road turns to the left for Winterton, a large village in which three fine Roman pavements were ploughed up in 1747. Here we have a large cruciform church with a very early tower. Afterwards the Street continues, a visible but not very serviceable track, to Winteringham Haven, the Roman “Ad Abum.”

In Brigg we had hoped to see the old boat which was dug out near the river in 1886, it is forty-eight feet long and four to five feet wide, hollowed out of a single tree, and could carry at least forty men over the Humber, though not perhaps across the sea. Its height at the stern was three feet nine inches, and it was six inches thick at the bottom. The tree trunk was open at the thick or stern end, and two oak boards slid into grooves cut in the sides and bottom to make a stern-board. It probably had bulwark-boards also, certainly it had three stiffening thwarts, and the stern end had been decked, as a ledge still shows on either side on which the planking rested. One very interesting feature in it was that the boat had been repaired, with a patch of oak boarding six feet by one foot, on the starboard side, the board being bevelled at the edges and pegged on with oak pins. A similar boat made out of a huge oak tree is in the portico of the British Museum. In this, which is fifty feet long and four feet wide, tapering off a little at either end, both the ends and two thwarts are left solid. The latter are not more than six inches high, but sufficient to add considerably to the strength of the hull. The boat is three inches thick at the gunwale and possibly more at the bottom, and has no keel. But this most interesting relic of Viking days has been removed from Brigg, for what reasons I know not, to the Museum at Hull, and is no longer in the county. A British corduroy road or plank causeway was also found below the mud from which the boat was dug out, and is therefore probably of greater age, though such a mud-bearing stream as the Humber can make a considerable deposit in a very short time. This fact is illustrated by the process of “warping,” which is described in the chapter on the Isle of Axholme.

Brigg, without its old boat, has little to detain us, so we can pass to Wrawby, and then desert the main road, which goes east through a gap in the Wold to Brocklesby, and turn northwards to Elsham, where we come up against the most northerly portion of the “Wolds” as distinguished from the “Cliff” or Ridge which lies more to the west. The main road or highway to Barton runs right up the hill and crosses the Wold obliquely, and, as usual, being on the high ground, exhibits no villages in the whole of its course, but we will turn sharp to the left and take a byway which goes by “the Villages” of which we shall pass through no less than half a dozen in the six miles between Elsham and the Humber.

At Elsham is the seat of Sir John Astley. The church has a rich tower doorway with curious sculptured stones on either side.

Any road which runs by the edge of a curving range of hills is sure to be picturesque; and the continuation of the Wolds south of Elsham, after the Barnetby Gap, where the railway line gets through the Wolds without tunnelling, with the string of villages all ending in “by,” Bigby, Somerby, Searby, Owmby, Grasby, Clixby, Audleby, and Fonaby, which lead the traveller to Caistor, affords pleasant travelling. But it does not come up in varied charm to this western edge of the Wold, which goes farthest north, and ends on the plateau which overlooks the Humber near South Ferriby. On this route the first village from Elsham is Worlaby, and whereas Elsham had once a small house of Austin Canons founded by Beatrice de Amundeville before 1169, and given by Henry VIII. at the Dissolution to the all devouring Duke of Suffolk, Worlaby had its benefactor in John, first Lord Bellasyse, who founded in 1670 a hospital for poor women, of which the brick building still exists. The twisting road with its wooded slopes and curving hollows is here extremely pretty. We next reach Bonby, and soon after come to Saxby All Saints. This is a really delightful village, and evidently under the care of one owner, for all the houses are extremely neat and, with the exception of two proud-looking brick-built houses of the villa type, all have tiled roofs and buff-coloured walls. That the village is grateful to the landlord and his agent, and is also, like Mrs. John Gilpin, of a thrifty mind, is quaintly testified by the inscription on a drinking fountain in the village, with a semicircular seat round one side of it which tells how it was set up “in honour of the 60ᵗʰ year of Queen Victoria’s reign, and of Frederick Horsley, agent for 42 years on Mr. Barton’s estate.” Each of these parishes extends up on to the Wold, and down across the fen, and the map shows this and marks Saxby or Elsham “Wolds” as well as Saxby or Elsham “Carrs”; and in each village a signpost points west “to the bridge,” which goes over the land drain and the Weir Dyke.

In the next village of Horkstow, a big elm stands close to the gates of the churchyard and parsonage. Here the fine air and the bright breezy look of sky and landscape fill one with pleasure, and the snug way in which the churches nestle against the skirt of the wold give a charming air of peace and retirement. The church here is singular in its very sharp rise of level towards the east. You mount up six steps from the nave at the chancel arch, further east are two more steps and another arch, and again further on, two more and another arch. It looks as though the ground had been raised, for the capitals of the pillars on which these last two arches rest are only four feet and a half from the floor. The north arcade is transition Norman, the arches on the Norman pillars, instead of round, being slightly pointed.

A Colonel of the sixty-third regiment, who died in 1838, has a mural tablet here, which tells us that “In the discharge of his publick duties he was firm and just yet lenient, and as a private gentleman his integrity and urbanity endeared him to all his friends.” This is almost worthy to be placed beside that of the man who on ending “his social career” is stated to have “endeared himself to all his friends and acquaintances by the charm of his manner and his elegant performance on the bassoon.” Curious, what things people used to think proper to put up in churches! One of the oddest is at Harewood in Yorkshire, where, under a bust of Sir Thomas Denison, who is represented in a wig, his widow writes that “he was pressed and at last prevailed on to accept the office of Judge in the Kings Bench, the duties of which he discharged with unsuspected integrity.” Doubtless she meant with an integrity which was above suspicion, but it reads so very much as if those who knew him had never for a moment suspected him of possessing the virtue mentioned. For other examples see Chapter V.

After Horkstow we come to South Ferriby, where a chalk road leads along the edge of the cliff towards a little landing stage on the water’s edge, giving a pretty view over the wide estuary to the Yorkshire continuation of the Wold, and the little village of North Ferriby opposite.

The church of South Ferriby, which is dedicated, as many coast churches are, to St. Nicholas, the patron Saint of children and fishermen, has its nave running north and south, and a bit railed off at the north end for the altar, though that is now placed at the south end.

The name suggests a ferry over the Humber, but the locality seems to forbid this, for in no place is the Humber wider until you have almost reached Grimsby, and from Barton to Hessle, about three miles further down stream, it is only about half the width, and there, no doubt, there was a ferry. The reason of this great width is that the Humber has made inroads here and washed away a good deal of land which used to be between Ferriby Hall and the water. This being partly deposited on the “old Warp” sand bank, once the breeding place of many sea birds, has formed a permanent pasture there, now claimed by the Crown and called “Reads Island.”

A hundred years ago the ‘hoy,’ a sloop-rigged packet, used to take passengers from Barton Waterside Inn, just north of Barton, to Hull; and Sir J. Nelthorpe notes in his pocket book, under date August 9th, 1793. “arrived at Scawby after a very bad passage over the Humber, having been on the water five hours, and at last forced to run on shore in Barrow Haven, not being able to make Barton, owing to the negligence of the boatmen in not leaving Hull in time; my horses, seven in number, remained in the boat from four o’clock in the morning till seven at night, before they could be landed.”

Coming back from the Cliff Edge road, we turn up the hill for Barton-on-Humber, and from the top of the Wold, which here comes to an end, we get a really beautiful and extended view in all directions. But we must now speak of Barton, with its two old churches.

Barton-on-Humber had a market and a ferry when Domesday Book was compiled, and was a bigger port than Hull. At the Conquest it was given to the King’s nephew, Gilbert of Ghent, son of Baldwin Earl of Flanders, whose seat was at Folkingham. The ferry is still used, and the Hull cattle boats mostly start from Barton landing-stage, but most of the passenger traffic is from the railway pier at New Holland, four miles to the east. The town is a mile from the waterside. It has two fine churches, of which St. Peter’s is one of the earliest in England; curiously one of the same type of Saxon church is also at a Barton, Earl’s Barton in Northants, and not far from it is another of similar date, at Brixworth, which is held to be the most noteworthy of all the early churches in England. Barnack and Wittering in the same county are also of the same style and of the same antiquity, and at Dover, at Bradford-on-Avon, and at Worth and Sompting in Sussex are others similar. Stow, near Lincoln, Broughton near Brigg, and Hough-on-the-Hill, and the two Lincoln towers and Bracebridge, are of similar age, but these last, like Clee and so many in the neighbourhood of Grimsby, Caistor and Gainsborough, have little but their tower or part of their tower left that can be called Saxon, while at Stow, and some of the churches in the other counties mentioned, there is more to see of the original building.

The last restoration of St. Peter’s, Barton, in 1898, has put the church into good condition and left the old work at the west end much as it was a thousand years ago; probably the church at first was very like what we may still see at Brixworth. The tower outside is divided into panels by strips of stone, which go deep into the walls and project from the rubble masonry, as at Barnack. This has been aptly termed “Stone carpentry,” but cannot really be a continuation in stone of a previously existing method of building with a wooden framework, such as we see in the half-timbered houses of the south of England, because that method of building was later. It is possibly a method imported from Germany; certainly the double light with the mid-wall jamb came from Northern Italy to the Rhenish provinces, and may have come on to England from thence. Hence it has been termed “Teutonic Romanesque.”

The Avon at Barton-on-Humber.

Of the four stages of the tower the lowest has an arcading of dressed stone, as there is at Bradford-on-Avon, and on the east, south and west sides a round-headed doorway, and on the north a triangular-headed one, with massive “Long-and-Short” work. The next stage exhibits triangular arcading with double lights and a massive baluster and capital under a triangular arch. The third stage has no arcading, but a similar two-light window. The fourth stage is not Saxon but early Norman in style. From the west of the tower projects a sort of annexe, fifteen feet by twelve, of the same width as the tower and cöeval with it, having quoins of “Long-and-Short” work, this is pierced with two small rude lights north and south, and with two circular lights on the west. These circular lights are of extraordinary interest, for they still have in them, across the top of the upper opening and at the bottom of the lower one, a portion of the old original Saxon oak shutter, perforated with round holes to let in light and air, a thing absolutely unique. A chancel, whose foundations have been recently discovered, projected from the tower eastward, and just below the floor, near the north wall, is a curious bricked chamber, which might have been a small tomb.

St. Peter’s, Barton-on-Humber.

The tower has four doorways irregularly placed and all differing from each other: it is fitted up for daily morning service, for which it has been used intermittently for over a thousand years; for no doubt the original church consisted simply of the tower and the two chambers east and west of it. At present, from the interior of the spacious Decorated nave, with its added Perpendicular clerestory, when you look up at the west end and see the rude round-headed arches of the first and second stages of the tower, and the double triangular-headed light of the next stage, all of which come within the nave roof, you see at the same time two deep grooves cut in the tower face for the early steep-pitched roof. These start from the double light and finish by cutting through the upright stone strips which run like elongated pilasters up the whole height of the tower on either side. The tower and its annexe is of such absorbing interest that one hardly looks at the rest of the church, or stops to note its beautifully restored rood screen with a new canopy to it, which serves to hide the wide ugly chancel arch. But we shall perhaps be able to make up for this if we go on to St. Mary’s Church, which was the church of the people of Barton, and served by a secular priest, St. Peter’s being an appanage of Bardney Abbey. The churches both stand high, and are quite near one another. St. Mary’s was a Norman building, as the north arcade testifies; the south arcade was rebuilt in the Early English period, to which the massive tower also belongs, the parapet being later. Once the nave and chancel had a continuous roof till the clerestory was added, and were of the same width, and built of brick and stone intermingled and set anyhow. The four-light windows in the chancel are handsome. The north arcade has five round arches, and one, at the west end, pointed. The south arcade has only four arches, but larger and with slenderer columns, consisting of eight light shafts round a central pillar. On the south the chantry chapel extends the whole length of the chancel, and has beside the altar an aumbry and, what is very unusual in such a chapel, sedilia. The aisles are wide and out of proportion to the building in both churches. The east window is white, with one little bit of old glass in it, and on the floor is a full-sized brass of Simon Seman Sheriff of London, in Alderman’s gown. Some Parliamentarian soldiers’ armour is in the vestry of St. Peter’s. There are also two fine oak chests, one hollowed out of a section of a large tree with the outer slab of the tree several inches thick as a lid. A similar, but smaller, chest is in Blawith church vestry, near Coniston Lake, Lancashire.[7]

St. Mary’s, Barton-on-Humber.

In Barton St. Peter’s the Rector has provided a very full account of the history of the church, for which all who visit it must be extremely grateful.

It is very pleasant to find that the number are so decidedly on the increase of clergymen who take an interest in the past history of their churches, and write all they can find out about them, either in their parish magazines or in a separate pamphlet. Some of these, too, take pains with their old registers, and if only the rector, or someone in the parish whom he could trust to do the work with skill, care, and knowledge, would copy the old sixteenth and seventeenth century registers in a clear hand, the parish would be in possession of the most interesting of all local documents in a legible form, and the originals could be safely housed in a dry place, which is by no means the case with all of them at present, and no longer be subjected to the wear and tear of rough handling and the decay from damp which has been so fatal to the earliest pages of most of them.

The printing and placing more frequently in the church of a card, pointing out the salient features and giving what is known of the history of the building, would also be a boon to those visitors who know something of architecture, and would stimulate a taste for it in others, and a respect for old work, the lack of which has been the cause of so much destruction under the specious name of restoration in the earlier half of the past century. Things are much better now than they were two generations ago, but ignorance and want of means may still cause irreparable damage, which, if the above suggestion were universally carried out, would become less and less possible.

Amongst those who take the greatest interest in their churches I am especially indebted to the Rev. G. G. Walker, Rector of Somerby near Grantham, the Rev. Canon Sutton, of Brant Broughton, the Rev. F. McKenzie, of Great Hale near Sleaford, and the Rev. C. H. Laing, of Bardney, who has done such good work in the excavation of the famous abbey. The writer, too, of letters in The Spilsby and Horncastle Gazette, on town and village life in Lincolnshire, brings together much interesting information. From him I gather that as far back as 668, when Theodore was Archbishop of Canterbury, local provision was made for the village clergy who were then, of course, but few in number. His wise arrangement, that those who built a church should have the right of choosing their pastor, initiated the system of private patronage and thereby encouraged the building and endowing of churches, so that it is not surprising to hear that in Domesday Book—400 years later than Theodore’s time—the county of Lincolnshire had no less than 226 churches. The original patron often gave the right of presentation to an abbey, which was a wise plan, as it ensured to the people a pastor, and to the pastor an adequate means of living, and provided for the building and upkeep of the church, which was often larger than the population of the village warranted either then or since.

CHAPTER XVII THE NORTH-WEST

It is quite a surprise to the traveller in the north of the county to find so much that is really pretty in what looks on the map, from the artistic point of view, a trifle “flat and unprofitable,” but really there are few prettier bits of road in the county than that by “the Villages” under the northern Wolds, and there is another little bit of cliff near the mouth of the Trent which affords equally picturesque bits of village scenery combined with fine views over the Trent, Ouse, and Humber.

From South Ferriby a byway runs alongside the water to Winteringham, from whence the Romans must have had a ferry to Brough, whence their great road went on to the north.

In Winteringham church there are some good Norman arches, and a fine effigy of a knight in armour, said to be one of the Marmions. The road hence takes us by innumerable turns to West Halton, where the church is dedicated to St. Etheldreda, who is said to have hidden here from her husband Ecgfrith, when she was fleeing to Ely, at which place she founded the first monastery, in 672, six years before the building of the church at Stow. Murray notes that in the “Liber Eliensis” Halton is called Alftham.

Three miles to the south-east we find the large village of Winterton, just within a mile of the Ermine Street, and it is evident that a good many Romans had villas on the high ground looking towards the Humber, for both here and at Roxby, a mile to the south, good Roman pavements have been found, and another, four miles to the east, at Horkstow. Roxby church shows some pre-Norman stone work at the west end of the north aisle, and a fine series of canopied sedilia in the chancel, with unusually rich and lofty pinnacles. At Winterton a Roman pavement was noticed by De la Pryme in 1699, and another with a figure of Ceres holding a cornucopia was discovered in 1797. The churchyard has an Early English cross, and the tower, which is engaged in the aisles, is of the primitive Romanesque type, with the Saxon belfry windows in the lower stage, and elegant Early English ones above. An early slab is over the west door, the nave has lofty octagonal pillars with bands of tooth ornament. The transepts are unusually wide and have rich Decorated windows. A Holy Family, by Raphael Mengs, forms the altarpiece.

From here we go west to Alkborough, and on a grassy headland overlooking the junction of the Trent with the Ouse, we find a saucer-shaped hollow a few feet deep and forty-four feet across, at the bottom of which is a maze cut in the turf by monks 800 years ago. It is almost identical in pattern with one at Wing, near Uppingham, in Rutland, and unlike those “quaint mazes on the wanton green” mentioned in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which “for lack of tread are undistinguishable,” it has been kept cleared out, and a copy of it laid down in the porch, as we find to be done on one of the porch piers at Lucca Cathedral, and in the nave of Chartres Cathedral. These mazes were Christian adaptations of the Egyptian and Greek labyrinths, and were supposed to be allegorical of the mazes and entanglements of sin from which man can only get free if assisted by the guiding hand of Providence, or of Holy Church. Hence in a Christian Basilica in Algeria the words “Sancta Ecclesia” are arranged in a complicated fashion in the centre of the maze. Other mazes used to exist at Appleby, Louth, and Horncastle in Lincolnshire, and at Ripon one of the same pattern, but half as large again as the Alkborough maze, was only ploughed up in 1827. At Asenby in Yorkshire is a similar one still carefully kept clear. That on St. Catherine’s Hill, Winchester, is quadrangular and much simpler. At Leigh in Dorset is a “Miz Maze.” Northants, Notts, Wilts, Beds, Cambridge, and Gloucestershire, all had one at least. Comberton in Cambridge has one of precisely the same pattern, and at Hilton, in Huntingdonshire, is one called by the same name as that at Alkborough, “Julian’s bower.” This is thought to be a reminiscence of the intricate ‘Troy’ game described in Virgil, Aen. v., 588-593, as played on horseback by Iulus and his comrades:—

And the fact that a labyrinthine figure cut in the turf near Burgh on the Solway by the Cumberland herdsmen was called “the walls of Troy” somewhat favours the interpretation. But it seems rather a far-fetched origin. Doubtless they served as an innocent recreation for the monks who lived at St. Anne’s chapel hard by, and the idea of such labyrinthine patterns is found in many churches abroad, for they are executed in coloured marbles, both in Rome and in the Early church of St. Vitale at Ravenna. The mazes formed of growing trees, as at Hampton Court, are more difficult to make out, as you cannot see the whole pattern at one time.

The church at Alkborough was, like Croyland, a bone of contention between the monks of Spalding and Peterborough, each claiming it as a gift from the founder Thorold, in 1052. Tradition says that it was partly rebuilt by the three knights, Brito, Tracy, and Morville, who had taken refuge in this most remote corner of Lincolnshire, where one of them lived, after their murder of Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. The original Early tower and tower-arch remain, and a fragment of a very early cross is now to be seen by the north pier. One of the bells has this inscription:—

In the village is a really beautiful old Tudor house of brick, with stone mullions, called Walcot Old Hall, the property of J. Goulton Constable, Esq. The little isolated bit of chalk wold which begins near Walcot is but four miles long, and in the centre of it is perched the village of Burton-Stather. The church stands on the very edge of the cliff, and a steep road leads down to the Staithe, a ferry landing stage, from which the village gets its name. Here, at a turn in the road, close to the village pump, still in universal use by the road side, we stopped to admire the wide and delightful view. The Trent was just below us. Garthorpe, where the other side of the ferry has its landing place, was in front, across the Trent lay the Isle of Axholme, green but featureless, and beyond it the sinuous Ouse, like a great gleaming snake, with the smoke of Goole rising up across the wide plain, and beyond the river, Howden tower; while, on a clear day, Selby Abbey and York Minster can be seen from the churchyard. We leave the village by an avenue of over-arching trees, and cross the Wold obliquely, passing Normanby Hall, the residence of Sir B. D. Sheffield, many of whose ancestors are buried in Burton-Stather church, and leaving the height, descend into a plain filled with smoke from the tall chimneys of the Scunthorpe and Frodingham iron furnaces. To come all at once on this recent industrial centre is a surprise after the bright clear atmosphere and keen air in which we have been revelling all day. But we soon leave the tall chimneys behind and find that the road divides; the left passing over to the “Cliff” at Raventhorpe near Broughton on the Ermine Street, and continuing south past Manton, where the black-headed gull, “Larus Ridibundus,” the commonest of all the gulls on the south coast of England, breeds on land belonging to Sir Sutton Nelthorpe of Scawby, to Kirton in Lindsey, and so by Blyborough, Willoughton, Hemswell, and Harpswell, to Spital-on-the-Street; and thence by Glentworth and Fillingham to Lincoln.

Of these places Blyborough is curiously dedicated to St. Alkmund, a Northumbrian Saint, to whom also is dedicated a church founded in the ninth century by the daughter of Alfred the Great in Shrewsbury. Willoughton once had a preceptory of the Templars, founded in 1170.

Harpswell in its Early Norman, or possibly pre-Norman, tower has a mid-wall shaft carved with chevron ornament, similar to that in the upper of two sets of early double lights on the south side of the tower of Appleton-le-Strey near Malton in Yorkshire. It also possesses a clock which was given in memory of the victory at Culloden, 1746. Moreover it contains several fine monuments; but Glentworth and Fillingham are of more interest than all these. Glentworth, for its very interesting church, and Fillingham, because from 1361 to 1368 it was the home of the great John Wyclif, who held the living as a ‘fellow’ of Balliol College, Oxford.

Wyclif was made Master of Balliol in 1360, and became rector of Fillingham in the same year. In 1368 he moved to Ludgershall in Bucks, and in 1374 to Lutterworth, where he died on December 31, 1384. He was a consistent opposer of the doctrine of transubstantiation, for which he was condemned by the University of Oxford; and he renounced allegiance to the Pope, who issued no less than five Bulls against him. The Archbishop of Canterbury persecuted him in his latter years, and forty-four years after his death his bones were exhumed and burnt by order of the Synod of Constance, and the ashes cast into the Swift. He made the first complete translation of the Bible into English from the Vulgate, and in this he was assisted by Nicolas of Hereford, who took the Old Testament, Wyclif doing the New. Chaucer, who died in 1400, thus describes him in his Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales”:—

Glentworth has a typical pre-Norman tower, built of small stones with dressed quoins. It has the two stringcourses, the first being two-thirds of the way up from the ground with only thin slits for lights below it and with the usual mid-wall shaft in the belfry window above it, but with an unusual impost; a slab with a boldly-cut cross on it forms the jamb in the light over the west window, and the south side shows ornamentation similar to that which we noticed at Stow. Besides the tower, the chancel-arch and a narrow priest’s door are all that remains of the Early work. The monument to Sir Christopher Wray, who lived here from 1574 to 1592, is a very fine one. The judge is represented in his robes and hat, with ruff, which his wife also wears, she having a hood and gown with jewelled stomacher. Four daughters are figured kneeling below, while the son kneels above in armour. Marble pillars with Corinthian capitals support the arch over the recess in which the figures lie, and it was once richly coloured and enclosed by a screen of wrought ironwork.

The right hand road from Scunthorpe runs down the centre of the plain half-way between the Cliff and the Trent, through a number of villages. Of these Ashby still maintains a Duck Decoy near the Trent. Bottesford has a fine cruciform church, with a handsome chancel, having narrow deep-set lancet windows of unusual length, ornamented with tooth moulding, a singular arrangement of alternate lancet and circular windows in the clerestory, and stone seats round the Early English arcade pillars, as at Claypole. Messingham, with its stained-glass and oak furniture collected by Archdeacon Bailey from various churches in his Archdeaconry and elsewhere, as also Scotter and Scotton, are but milestones on the way to Northorpe, where are two good doorways, one Norman, and one, in the south porch, Decorated, with fine carved foliage, and the old door still in use. The western bays of the arcade are built into the walls of the Perpendicular tower, which has been inserted between them. A sepulchral brass with inscription to Anthony Moreson, 1648, has been inserted into an old altar slab, shown as such by its five crosses. Thanks to Mrs. Meynell Ingram the church of Laughton, three miles west of Northorpe, was beautifully restored by Bodley and Garner in 1896. Here is a very fine brass of a knight of the Dalison (D’Alençon) family, about 1400, which, like that of Thomas and Johanna Massingberd at Gunby, has been made to serve again by a parsimonious Dalison of a later century.

Roads lead both from Northorpe and Laughton to Corringham. This village is on the great east-and-west highway from Gainsborough to Market-Rasen, and here, too, the fine Transition Norman church has been magnificently restored by Bodley at the sole cost of Miss Beckett, of Somerby Hall. It now has a fine rood-screen, good modern stained-glass windows, and a painting of the adoration of the Magi for a reredos. There is here a brass in memory of Robert and Thomas Broxholme, 1631, placed by their brother and sister, Henry and Mary, who all had “lived together above sixty years and for the most parte of the time in one family in most brotherly concord.” A long rhymed epitaph goes on to say:—

From Corringham a turn to the right brings us after four miles to Gainsborough. From this town on the extreme edge of the county four roads and four railway lines radiate, and the Trent runs along the edge of the town with a good wide bridge over it, built in 1790, for which a stiff toll is demanded. It is described by George Eliot in “The Mill on the Floss,” as “St. Oggs,” where the ‘Eagre’ or ‘bore’ is thus poetically referred to. “The broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea; and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.” Constantly overrun by the Danes, the town was eventually looked on as his capital city by Swegen, who, with his son Canute, brought his vessels up the Trent in 1013, and died here, “full King of the Country,” in 1014. In the Civil War it was occupied first by the Royalists and afterwards by the Parliamentarians, and one of Cromwell’s first successful engagements was a cavalry skirmish at Lea, two miles to the south, when he routed and killed General Cavendish, whom he drove “with some of his soldiers into a quagmire,” still called ‘Cavendish bog.’ The place has some large iron works and several seed-crushing mills for oil and oil-cake, and much river traffic is done in large barges. Talking of barges, Gainsborough has the credit of having owned the first steam-packet seen in Lincolnshire waters. This was the ‘Caledonia,’ built at Glasgow, and brought round by the Caledonian Canal, to the astonishment of all the east coast fishermen, in 1815. She was a cargo boat, but she took passengers to Hull, and was a great boon to the villages on the Trent.

North Side, Old Hall, Gainsborough.

South Side, Old Hall, Gainsborough.

River traffic below Gainsborough is somewhat hampered during the time of spring tides by the Eagre, which, when the in-rushing tide overcomes the river current and rides on the surface of the stream, rising in a wave six or seven feet high, rolls on from the mouth of the Trent to Gainsborough, a distance of more than twenty miles. The long street leading to the bridge is so dirty and narrow that you cannot believe as you go down it that you are in the main artery of the town. But when you have crossed the bridge and look back, the long riverside with its wharf and red brick houses, boats, and barges, has a very picturesque and old-world effect. The great sight of the town is the Old Hall, which stands on a grassy plot of some two acres, with a very poor iron railing round it, and a road all round that. In the middle of this rough grass-grown plot in the heart of the town is a charming old baronial hall, rebuilt in the times of Henry VII. and Elizabeth, after its destruction in 1470, and still occupied as a private residence. There was doubtless a building here before the time of the Conquest, and here it would be that Alfred the Great stopped on the occasion of his marriage with Ethelwith, daughter of Ethelred, and here, too, it would be that Swegen died, and his son Canute held his court. The present building is of brick and timber with a fine stone-built oriel on the north side, as the centre of a long frontage, and is of various patterns, having tall chimneys and buttresses on the west, and a brick tower on the north-east, and two wings on the south projecting from a magnificent central hall with much glass and woodwork, and a lantern. The large kitchen with its two huge fireplaces is at the end of this hall. Henry VIII. and Katharine Howard were entertained here by Lord Burgh, whose ancestor rebuilt the hall in Henry VII.’s time, c. 1480; and another of his Queens, Katharine Parr, was often here, being at one time the wife of Lord Burgh’s eldest son.

The wide area round the hall, with its untidy grass and the miserable iron fence, gives a singularly forlorn appearance to a beautiful and uncommon-looking building. It is supposed that the famous master-builder, “Richard de Gaynisburgh,” was born at Gainsborough, with whom, then styled “Richard de Stow,” the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln in 1306 contracted “to attend to and employ other masons under him for the new work,” at the time when the new additional east end or Angel Choir as well as the upper parts of the great tower and the transepts were being built. He contracted “to do the plain work by measure, and the fine carved work and images by the day.” One of the Pilgrim Fathers was a Gainsborough man, and a Congregational Chapel has been built as a memorial to him.

From Gainsborough, going north, we come at once to Thonock Hall, the seat of Sir Hickman Bacon, the premier baronet of England, and Morton is just to the west, where the church has a very good new rood screen and five Morris windows, from designs by Burne-Jones. Between Morton and Thonock is a large Danish camp, called Castle Hills, with a double fosse. On the other side of the town the westernmost road of the county runs south by Lea, Knaith, and Gate Burton to Marton, and thence to Torksey, which in early times was a bigger place than Gainsborough, and so on to Newark, but another road branches off by Torksey to the left, for Saxilby and Lincoln, twelve miles distant.

Lea church stands high, and has a chantry in which is a cross-legged knight, Sir Ranulph Trehampton, 1300, and some good early glass of about 1330. Of Trehampton’s manor-house only the site remains, but the hall, which is full of antiquarian treasures, was the home of that well-known Lincolnshire worthy Sir Charles Anderson, Bart., the county antiquarian, 1804-1891. He was a charming personality. The following story, referring to him, was told me by that delightful teller of good stories, the Very Rev. Reynolds Hole, Dean of Rochester. At the time when a railway was being cut (between Lincoln and Gainsborough probably, for that passes through Lea), but at all events in a part of the county in which Sir Charles took a great interest, he was visiting the works, when an insinuating Irish navvy stopped and looked at him and then said, “So you’re Sir Charles Anderson, are ye? Sure now there’s scores of Andersons where I come from; there’s one now in Sligo, a saddler. Ach! he’s a good fellow is that; the rale gintleman. He gives without asking.” Then, after a pause, “You’ve a look of ’em.” The Andersons lived in Lincolnshire from the days of Richard II., first at Wrawby then at Flixborough, temp. Henry VII.

Gainsborough Church.

Knaith is noticeable as being the birthplace, in 1532, of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charterhouse in London, where he is buried. The church has what is not at all common in English churches, a baldacchino over the altar, but in fact it is not an ordinary church, being just a part of an old Cistercian nunnery, founded by Ralph Evermue, about 1180.

Thomas Sutton was of Lincoln parents. He served in the army and was made inspector of the King’s Artillery. Having leased some land in the county of Durham, he proceeded to work the coal there, and became very wealthy, in fact the wealthiest commoner in the realm, and with at least £5,000 a year, so that he was able to give Lord Suffolk £13,000 for the house then called Howard House in Middlesex, which had been the original Charterhouse, founded in 1371 by Sir Walter Manney and dissolved in 1535. This was in May, 1611. He wished to do something to benefit the nation, but he left the details to the Crown. He died in December of the same year, but his charity was arranged to support eighty poor folk, and to teach forty boys, being, like Robert Johnson’s foundation at Uppingham, both a hospital and a school. The hospital remains in its old buildings in London, the school was moved in 1872 to Godalming, where it greatly flourishes.

A central road runs through the middle of the flat country, half-way between the Lincoln-and-Gainsborough road and the Ridge. This takes us from Corringham by a string of small villages to Stow, and thence by Sturton to Saxilby, and so back to Lincoln. Of those villages Springthorpe and Heapham both have the early unbuttressed towers, described in Chapters XXII. and XXIII., the former with herring-bone masonry, the latter, like Marton, is unfortunately covered with stucco. In the next village of Upton again we find herring-bone masonry; at Willingham-by-Stow, the base of the tower is early Norman; so that in spite of the ruthless way in which succeeding styles destroyed the work of their predecessors, we have a large group in this neighbourhood of churches whose early Norman or even Saxon work is still visible. At Sturton is a good brick church by Pearson, reminding one of that by Gilbert Scott at Fulney, just outside Spalding.

A few years ago, when the first motor made its way into Lincolnshire, the road from Gainsborough to Louth was one long stretch of small loose stones. It had never even dreamt of a steam roller, and there were always ruts for the wheels, and as Lincolnshire carriage wheels were set three or four inches wider apart so that they could accommodate themselves to the cart ruts, when we brought a carriage up from Oxfordshire it was found impossible to use it till the axles had been cut and lengthened so that it could run in the ruts. But this was a great improvement on the days my grandmother remembered, when it took four stout horses to draw a carriage at foot’s pace from Ingoldmells to Spilsby (and this was only 100 years ago), or when Sir Charles Anderson saw a small cart-load of corn stuck on the road and thatched down for the winter there, doubtless belonging to a small farmer who had but one horse, which could not draw the load home. Mention is made in this chapter of Scunthorpe. The iron workers there appear to be keen footballers, for I notice that there is now (December, 1913) one family there of eleven brothers between the ages of 18 and 43, ten of them experienced players, who challenge any single family anywhere to play two matches, one at the home of each team. I wonder if any family of eleven stalwart sons will be found to take them on.

CHAPTER XVIII THE ISLE OF AXHOLME

The Isle of Axholme, or Axeyholm, is, as the name when stripped of its tautology signifies, a freshwater island, for Isle, ey and holm are all English, Anglo-Saxon, or Danish, for “island,” and Ax is Celtic for water. The whole region is full of Celtic names, for it evidently was a refuge for the Celtic inhabitants. Thus we have Haxey, and Crowle (or Cruadh = hard, i.e., terra firma), also Moel (= a round hill), which appears in Melwood. Bounded by the Trent, the Idle, the Torn, and the Don, it fills the north-west corner of the county, and is seventeen miles long and seven wide. The county nowhere touches the Ouse, but ends just beyond Garthorpe and Adlingfleet on the left bank of the Trent, about a mile above the Trent falls. The northern boundary of the county then goes down the middle of the channel of the Humber estuary to the sea. Once a marsh abounding in fish and water-fowl, with only here and there a bit of dry ground, viz., at Haxey, Epworth, Belton and Crowle, it has now a few more villages on Trent side, and two lines of railway, one going south from Goole to Gainsborough, and one crossing from Doncaster by Scunthorpe and Frodingham to Grimsby.

An unfair arrangement was made by Charles I. by which the Dutchman Vermuyden, the famous engineer who afterwards constructed the “Bedford Level,” undertook to drain the land, some of which lies from three to eight feet below high water-mark, he receiving one-third of all the land he rescued, the king one-third, the people and owners only the other third between them. This gave rise to the most savage riots; and the Dutch settlement at Sandtoft, where it is said that the village is still largely Dutch, was the scene of endless skirmishes, sieges, and attacks. A good insight into the lawlessness of the time is obtained from a book called “The M.S.S. in a Red Box,” published by John Lane. The ancestors of Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, whose banishment with Bolingbroke in lieu of trial by combat, is described in the opening scenes of Shakespeare’s “Richard II.,” had a castle in Norman times near Owston, between Haxey and East-Ferry on the Trent: so that both the would-be combatants were Lincolnshire men.

Bolingbroke in the play is banished

and Mowbray’s sentence is pronounced by the king in these words:—

Norfolk was banished in 1398, and died in Venice in the following year, and in Act IV., Scene 1 of the play, when Bolingbroke announces that he shall be “repealed”:—

The Bishop of Carlisle answers:—

In the church of Belton is a fine effigy of a knight in chain armour, an hour-glass-stand on a pillar near the pulpit, as at Leasingham, and a monument to Sir Richard de Belwood. Temple Belwood, in the centre of the island, was a preceptory of the Knights Templars. Epworth is the chief town, and is famous as the birthplace of John Wesley. His father, Samuel, was the rector of S. Ormsby when he published his heroic poem in ten books on the Life of Christ, which caused him to be hailed by Nahum Tate, the Laureate of the day, as a sun new risen, before whom he and others would naturally and contentedly fade to insignificance.

Queen Mary, to whose “Most sacred Majesty” the poem was dedicated, bestowed on him the Crown living of Epworth, to which he was presented in 1696, two years after her death. But, though he owed his living to the Whigs, rather than side with the dissenters, he voted Tory, and was accordingly persecuted with great animosity by high and low, thrown into prison for a debt, his cattle and property damaged, and in 1709 his home burnt down, which made a deep impression on his six-year-old son John, who never forgot being “plucked as a brand from the burning.”

John, the fifteenth child, was the middle brother of three, who all had a first-rate public school and university education, getting scholarships both at school and college: John at Charterhouse, the others under Dr. Busby at Westminster, and all at Christchurch, Oxford, whence John, at the age of seventeen, wrote to his mother “I propose To be busy as long as I live.” Eventually he became a Fellow of Lincoln. The whole family were as clever as could be, and the seven daughters had a first-rate education from their father and mother at home. Mrs. Wesley was a remarkable woman, a Jacobite—which was somewhat disconcerting to her husband, who had written in defence of the Revolution—and a person of strong independence of spirit. Of her daughters, Hetty was the cleverest; and she is the only one who gives no account of the famous “Epworth Ghost,” which is significant, when both her parents and all her sisters wrote a full account of it. Hetty’s poems are of a very high standard of excellence, and it is more than likely that she wrote the verse part—for it is partly in prose dialogue—of “Eupolis’ Hymn to the Creator,” which is far better than anything else attributed to Sam Wesley. He died in 1735, and John, who had been curate to him at Epworth and Wroot (the livings went together), left the neighbourhood; and the place which had been the home of one of Lincolnshire’s most remarkable families for nearly forty years knew them no more. (See Appendix I.)

Lincoln, however, saw John Wesley, for he preached in the Castle yard in 1780, as his father had done seventy-five years earlier, when he was spitefully imprisoned for debt. He was preaching at Lincoln again in 1788, and again in July, 1790, in the new Wesleyan Chapel. Eight months later he died. His last sermon was preached at Leatherhead, February 23, 1791, and his last letter was written on the following day to Dr. John Whitehead. He died on March 2, aged 88, having, as he said, during the whole of his life “never once lost a night’s sleep.” A memorial tablet to John and his brother Charles was placed in 1876 in Westminster Abbey. But there is also a fine statue of him as a preacher in gown and bands, showing a strong, rugged and kindly face, and at the base an inscription: “The world is my parish.” This is in front of the City Road Chapel, which he had built in Moorfields, and where he was buried, but not till 10,000 people had filed past to take their last look at the well-known face as he lay in the chapel.

Dean Stanley visiting this once, said that he would give a great deal to preach in the pulpit there, and when, to his query whether the ground was consecrated and by whom, the attendant answered, “Yes; by holding the body of John Wesley,” he rejoined, “A very good answer.”

John Wesley himself had been denied access to Church of England pulpits for fifty years, 1738-1788. Even when he preached at Epworth in 1742, it was from his father’s tombstone; and in most cases his congregations, which were often very large, were gathered together in the open air. We hear of him preaching to a large assemblage in the rain at North Elkington, on April 6, 1759; and also at Scawby, Tealby, Louth, Brigg and Cleethorpes; but in June, 1788, he notes in his diary: “Preached in church at Grimsby, the Vicar reading prayers (a notable change this), not so crowded in the memory of man.” Each president of the Wesleyan Conference sits in Wesley’s chair on his inauguration, and has Wesley’s Bible handed to him to hold, as John Wesley himself holds it in his left hand in the statue.

We have alluded to the process of warping which is practised in the isle. The word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Weorpan (= to turn aside); it indicates the method by which the tide-water from the river, when nearly at its highest, is turned in through sluices upon the flat, low lands, and there retained by artificial banks until a sufficient deposit has been secured, when the more or less clarified water is turned back into the river at low tide, and the process may be continuously repeated for one, two, or three years. The water coming up with the tide is heavily charged with mud washed from the Humber banks, and this silt is deposited to the depth of some feet in places, and has always proved to be of the utmost fertility. The process is a rather difficult and expensive one, costing £10 an acre, but it needs doing only once in fourteen years or so. A wet season is bad for warping, and 1912 was as bad as 1913 was good.

At Crowle is a church of some importance, for in it is a bit of very early Anglian carving, probably of the seventh century. It is part of the stem of a cross, and has been used by the builders of the Norman church as a lintel for their tower arch. On it are represented a man on horseback (such as we see on the Gosforth cross, and on others in Northumbria), some interlacing work and a serpent with its tail in its mouth. Also two figures which I have nowhere seen accurately explained, but explanation is easy, for if you go and examine the great Anglian cross at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire, you will find just such a pair of figures with their names written over them thus: “S. Paulus et S. Antonius panem fregerunt in Deserto.” The figures are so similar that they would seem to have been carved by the same hand, and the cross at Ruthwell can be dated on good evidence as but a year or two later than that at Bewcastle, whose undoubted date is 670.

The church is dedicated to St. Oswald, not the archbishop of York who died in 992 and was buried at Worcester, but the sainted king of Northumbria who died in battle, slain by Penda, King of Mercia, at Maserfield, A.D. 642. His head, arms and hands were cut off, and set up as trophies, but were afterwards kept as holy relics, the hands at Bamborough, while one arm was for a time at Peterborough. The head was at Bamborough, and later at Lindisfarne in St. Cuthbert’s Cathedral, where the monks placed it in St. Cuthbert’s coffin. He had died in 687, and this coffin, when the Danes pillaged the cathedral, was taken away by the monks to Cumberland and carried by them from place to place in their flight, according to St. Cuthbert’s dying wish; and from 690 to 998, when it finally rested in the cathedral, it was kept in the coffin which is now in Durham Library. For 100 years, 783 to 893, it rested at Chester, and then passed to Ripon, and so to Durham, where it was enshrined and visited by hundreds of pilgrims. The marks of their feet are plain to see still. In 1104 the coffin was opened, and St. Oswald’s head seen in it. In 1542 the shrine being defaced, the body was buried beneath the pavement. In 1826 it was again opened, and some relics then taken out are now in the Cathedral Library—a ring, a cup and patten, the latter about six inches square, of oak with a thin plate of silver over it, and a stole. This was beautifully worked by the nuns at Winchester 1,000 years ago, and intended for Wulfstan, but on his death given by them to King Athelstan, and by him to St. Cuthbert’s followers.

The late Dean Kitchin described to me how, in company with a Roman Catholic bishop and a medical man, he had opened what was supposed to be St. Cuthbert’s tomb about the beginning of this century. The old chronicler had related how he was slain in battle, how the body was hastily covered with sand and afterwards taken up, and for fear of desecration was carried about by the monks whithersoever they went, until at last it was laid in a tomb, and a shrine built over it in Durham Cathedral. He also said that the saint suffered from a tumour in the breast, the result of the plague in 661, which latterly had got better. It was known where the shrine was and the reputed tomb was close by. The tomb slab was removed; beneath it were bones enough to form the greater part of one skeleton, and there were two skulls. “What do you think of that?” asked the dean; the bishop at once replied “St. Oswald’s head.” The doctor then said, “This body has never been buried.” “How do you make that out?” “Because the skin has not decayed but dried on to the limbs as you see, as if it had been dried in sand,” just as tradition said. “Also,” he said, “there is a hole in the breast here which has partly filled up, evidence probably of a tumour or abscess which was healing,” again just what the chronicler stated. One of the skulls showed a cut right through the bone, like the cut of axe or sword, again corroborating the story of the death of St. Oswald in battle. The whole account seemed to me to be most interesting, and certainly it would be difficult to obtain more conclusive proof of the veracity in every detail of the old chronicler.

CHAPTER XIX THE NORTH-EAST OF THE COUNTY

We will now return to the north-east of the county.

From Brocklesby a good road runs north by Ulceby, with its ridiculously thin, tall spire, and Wootton, to Thornton Curtis and Barrow-on-Humber.

Thornton Curtis is a place to be visited, because it possesses one of the seven black marble Tournai fonts like those at Lincoln and Winchester. This stands in a wide open space at the west end of the church, mounted on a square three-stepped pedestal. The four corner shafts, like those at Ipswich, are of lighter colour than the central pillar and the top. The latter has suffered several fractures owing to its having been more than once moved, and the base is much worn as if it had been exposed to the weather. The sides are sculptured with griffins and monsters, and on the top at each corner is a bird. Of the church the groined porch has been renewed, but the doorway is old and good, and part of the ancient oak door remains with the original fine hinges, and a design in iron round the head of the door. On the floor near the south-west corner of the church is a sepulchral stone slab with a half effigy of a lady in deep relief showing at the head end. There is a fine wide Early English tower arch, and the handsome arches of the nave are borne on clustered pillars, which are all alike on the north side, but of different patterns on the south side, and with excellent boldly cut foliage capitals, the western capital and respond being especially fine. The north aisle is very wide, and the church unusually roomy. The pine roof and the oak seats were all new about thirty years ago. The light and graceful rood screen is also new, and has deep buttress-like returns on the western side, as at Grimoldby. The chancel has late twelfth century lancets, one with a Norman arch, the others pointed, showing the transition period; once the church was all Norman, but it was extended westwards early in the thirteenth century. There are two charming piscinas of the same period, with Norman pilasters and round-headed arches, but the western one has had a later pointed arch, apparently put on in more recent times.

In the north aisle wall there are three arched niches for tombs, and on the north side of the chancel outside is a wide Norman arch with a flat buttress curiously carried up from above the centre of the archway, as in the Jews’ House at Lincoln. Near the south porch is a mural tablet carved in oak, with old English lettering, which reads thus:—

In the yer yat all the stalles
In thys chyrch was mayd
Thomas Kyrkbe Jho Shreb
byn Hew Roston Jho Smyth
Kyrk Masters in the yer of
Our Lorde God MCCCCCXXXII.

In the churchyard is half of the shaft of a cross, octagonal, with rosettes carved at intervals on the four smaller sides. Like the font, it is mounted on a broad, square three-stepped pedestal.

At Barrow, two miles further north, there was once a monastery, founded in the seventh century by St. Ceadda, or Chad, on land given by Wulfhere King of Mercia. This is an interesting corner of the county. New Holland, where the steam ferry from Hull lands you, is but three miles to the north, and near Barrow Haven station, between the ferry pier and Barton, is a remarkable ancient Danish or British earthwork called “The Castles”—a large tumulus-topped mound with a wide fosse, and with other mounds and ditches grouped round it, which, when occupied, were surrounded by marshes and only approachable by a channel from the Humber. The claim that this is the site of the great battle of Brunanburh in 937 cannot be looked upon as more than the merest conjecture. Both Barton and Barrow have been claimed for it; and “Barrow Castles” might or might not have had some connection with the great battle, which certainly is referred to as near the Humber in Robert de Brunne’s chronicle, as follows:—

The Great Northern Railway runs south from Holland pier to Ulceby, and then splits right and left to Brigg and Grimsby; and here let me warn anyone who thinks to bring a motor over by the ferry to or from Hull. The sloping stage at New Holland is fairly easy, though the boats’ moveable gangway is not provided with an inclined approach board, the simplest thing in the world, but each car or truck has to bump on and off it with a four-inch rise, and an extra man or two are required to lift the wheels of each loaded truck on or off—a childishly stupid arrangement which reflects no credit on the brains of the officers of the Central Railway, who own the ferry service; but on the Hull side matters are much worse, and I don’t think that any method of loading or unloading even in a remote Asiatic port can be so barbaric and out-of-date as that which the Central Railway provides for its long-suffering customers. To get a motor on board from Hull is both difficult and dangerous; after threading an intricate maze of close-set pillars a car has to go down a very steep and slippery gangway, and when at the bottom has to turn at right angles with no room to back, and across a moveable gangway so narrow that the side railing has to be taken off and a loose plank added to take the wheels; then, whilst the car hangs over the water on the slippery slope, several men lift the front part round to the left and then, with a great effort, drag the back wheels round to the right, and after filling up a yawning gap between the slope and the gang-plank by putting a piece of board of some kind, but with no fit, to prevent the wheel from dropping through or the car going headlong into the sea, the machine is got on to the deck; and then all sorts of heavy goods on hand-barrows are brought on, four men having to hang on to each down the slippery planks, and these are piled all round the motor, and all are taken off on the other side with incredible exertions before the motor has a chance to move. The crossing itself takes but twenty minutes, but the whole process of getting on, crossing and getting off, occupied us two hours, and a really big car would never have been able to get over at all. No one at the Hull Corporation pier seems to know anything about the use of a crane for loading purposes, and it is evident that passenger traffic with any form of vehicle is not to receive any encouragement from this anything but up-to-date railway company. Why do not the Hull Corporation insist on something very much better? The parallelogram between the railway and Humber, when it turns south opposite Hull, has a belt of marsh along the river side, and because it was in old times so inaccessible, it contains some fine monastic buildings.

Great Goxhill Priory.

Two miles west of Barrow is Goxhill. Here there is a fine church tower, with a delicate parapet, and a mile south is the so-called “Priory,” which was probably only a memorial chapel served by a hermit in the pay of the De Spenser family. Murray gives this entry from the bishop’s registers for 1368: “Thomas De Tykhill, hermit, clerk, presented by Philip Despenser to the chapel of St. Andrew in the parish of Goxhill, on the death of Thomas, the last hermit.” It is now a picturesque ruin of two stories, the lower one vaulted and with three large Decorated windows at the sides, and a large double round-headed one at the end, all now blocked, the building being used for a barn. Two miles from this, and near Thornton Abbey Station, is all that is left of Thornton Abbey. A fine gateway, second only to that at Battle Abbey, and two sides of a beautiful octagonal chapter-house, with very rich arcading beneath the lovely three-light windows. Founded in 1139, for a prior and twelve Augustinian canons, it became an abbey in 1149, and in 1517 a “mitred” abbey, the only one in the county except Croyland. And these two are now the most notable of all the monastic remains in Lincolnshire. One of its abbots was said to have been walled up alive, and Bishop Tanner, in his MS. account of the abbey, now in the Bodleian, says of Abbot Walter Multon, 1443: “He died, but by what death I know not. He hath no obit, as other Abbots have, and the place of his burial hath not been found,” and Stukeley, 1687-1765, says that on taking down a wall in his time a skeleton was found in a sitting posture, with a table and a lamp, but I am glad to think that though the tradition is not infrequent,—probably as an echo from the days of the Roman Vestal Virgins—there is no positive evidence of anyone ever being immured alive; though an inconvenient dead body was doubtless got rid of at times in that way.

The principal remaining part of the abbey is the fine grey stone gateway, a beautiful arch flanked by octagon turrets, with a passage through them, and then other arches on each side, and beyond these two corner towers. Above the central archway there are two rows of statues in niches with canopies. The Virgin being crowned by the Holy Trinity is flanked by full-length statues of St. Antony and St. Augustine. Other figures are above these, but not easy to make out. Inside the gateway are guard rooms, and a winding staircase leading to the large refectory hall. An oriel in this contained an altar, as the piscina and a squint from an adjoining chamber testify. The approach over the ditch up to the gateway is by a curious range of massive brickwork, with coved recesses and battlements, all along on each side. The ruin is owned by Lord Yarborough, and is kept locked, but an attendant is always on the spot, as both the abbey and Brocklesby Park are favourite objects for excursions from Hull, Grimsby, and Cleethorpes.

Thornton Abbey Gateway.

The abbey was a very magnificent one, occupying 100 acres. Henry VIII. was so well entertained there in 1541 that when he had suppressed the abbey he bestowed the greater part of the land on a new foundation in the same building, a college of the Holy Trinity; but a few years later, either in 1547 or 1553, that in turn was dissolved, and the land granted to the pitifully subservient Bishop Henry Holbeche. Inside the gateway is a large square, on the east side of which stood the chapter-house, a handsome octagonal building, of which two sides remain, as does also a fragment of the beautiful south transept, and, still further south, the abbot’s lodging, now in use as a farmhouse. The church was 235 feet long and sixty-two feet wide, the transepts being double of that. The architecture was mainly of the best Decorated period. There are many slabs with incised crosses still to be seen, one of Robert Girdyk, 1363.

Remains of Chapter House, Thornton Abbey.

East Halton lies east of the abbey, whence the road runs through North and South Killingholme, at the corner of which is a picturesque old brick manor-house of the Tudor period, with linen-pattern oak panelling and grotesque heads over the doors inside, and outside a remarkably fine chimney-stack and some fine old yew trees. The church has a very large Norman tower-arch, an interesting old roof and the remains of a delicately carved rood-screen. From here we go to Habrough and Immingham, where some curious paintings of the Apostles are set between the clerestory windows.

Immingham village is more than two miles from the haven, and here the most enormous works have long been in progress. Indeed, at Immingham a new port has sprung up in the last five years, and to this the Great Central Railway, who so utterly neglect the convenience of passengers with vehicles at the Hull ferry, have given the most enlightened attention, and by using the latest inventions and all the most advanced methods and laying out their docks in a large and forward-looking way to cover an enormous area, have created a dock which can compete successfully with any provincial port in England.

A deep-water channel leads to the lock gates on the north side of what is the deepest dock on the east coast, with forty-five acres of water over thirty feet deep. It runs east and west, and it is about half a mile long. A quay 1,250 feet long, projects into the western half of this, leaving room for vessels to load or unload on either side of it, direct from or into the railway trucks. A timber-quay occupies the north-west side of the dock, and the grain elevator is at the east end, while all along the whole of the south side runs the coaling quay. There are at least twenty-seven cranes able to lift two, three, five, ten, and one even fifty tons on the various quays, and on the coaling-quay eight hoists, on to which the trucks are lifted and the coal shot into the vessels, after which the truck returns to the yard by gravitation automatically. Each of these hoists can deal with 700 tons of coal an hour, and as each hoist has eight sidings allotted to it there are 320 waggons ready for each. One of these hoists is moveable so that two holds of a vessel can be worked simultaneously. The means for quick and easy handling of the trucks, full and empty, by hydraulic power, and light for the whole dock also is supplied from a gigantic installation in the power-house, near the north-west corner of the dock; and this quick handling is essential, for the many miles of sidings can hold 11,600 waggons, carrying 116,000 tons of coal or more, besides finding room for empties. The coal is brought from Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Notts, and Lincolnshire, and not far short of 3,000,000 tons of coal will be now sent out of England from this port alone.[9] It seems to the writer that to send away at this tremendous rate from all our big coaling ports the article on which all our industries virtually depend is a folly which no words are too strong to condemn. With coal England has the means of supplying all her own wants for many generations, but it is not inexhaustible, and when it is gone, where will England be? Will anything that may be found ever take its place? And, unless we are able to reassure ourselves on this point, is this not just a case in which a wise State would step in and prohibit export, and not allow the nation to cut its own throat like a pig swimming? Large store sheds are now (1914) being built for wool to be landed direct from Australia. Thus Immingham will compete with Liverpool, where I have seen bales so tightly packed that when you knock with your knuckles on the clean-cut end of one it resounds like a board.

Going on south from Immingham village we come, after three miles, to Stallingborough.

The old church having fallen, the present brick parallelogram, with tower and campanile, was built in 1780. Inside, though destitute of any touch of church architecture, it is beautifully clean, and if you penetrate up to the very end you will be rewarded by seeing what the organ absolutely obscures till you reach the altar rail—a really wonderful alabaster tomb of the Ayscoughe, Ayscugh, or Askew family, at the north-east corner, inside the chancel rail. Above is part of a bust of Francis, the father, who lived at South Kelsey, near Caister, and who so basely, in terror for himself, betrayed his sister Anne’s hiding-place, which resulted in her being first tortured and then burnt at Smithfield in 1546, her crime being that she had read the Bible to poor folk in Lincoln Minster. The whole story is too horrible to dwell upon. This cowardly brother is portrayed half length, in a recess, leaning his head on his left hand and holding in his right a spear. From this it will be seen that this is no ordinary sepulchral monument, but a work of art. Below him his son, Edward of Kelsey, 1612, lies supine in plate armour and a ruff, with bare head pillowed on a cushion, while on a raised platform, just behind him, his wife Esther, daughter of Thomas Grantham, Esq., leans on her right elbow; she, too, in a ruff with hair done high and with a tight bodice and much-pleated skirt. The faces look like portraits, and Sir Edward has a singularly feeble, but not unpleasant, face, with small, low forehead. On the wall at his wife’s feet is a painted coat of arms on a lozenge, with nineteen quarterings, and a real helmet is placed on the tomb slab below it. The slab is a very massive one, and below it is an inscription in gold letters on a black ground in Latin, which is from Psalm CXXVIII. “Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thine house, thy children like the olive branches round about thy table, lo thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord”; and beneath this, on the side of the tomb, are the kneeling effigies of six sons and six daughters. The whole thing—both the effigies and the inscription—is similar to the Tyrwhit tomb at Bigby. Above the mural monument of the father is the Ayscoughe crest, a little grey ass coughing, and under his half-effigy is a later inscription, which doubtless refers to his son, and not to himself, the poor, unhappy cause of his sister’s dreadful sufferings. It runs thus:—

And a thing called on the monument an “Anigram,” which is past the understanding of ordinary men, is also part of the inscription. The extraordinary state of preservation of the whole group is a marvel.

Other inscriptions and brasses are in the church, though partly hidden by the organ and the altar, one to the second wife of Anne’s father, Sir William, along with others of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the churchyard is the stem of a cross.

Four miles further south the fine broad fifteenth-century tower of Great Cotes of rich yellow stone, attracts anyone who is passing from Goxhill to Grimsby, and it is a church which well repays a visit.

In the churchyard, after passing under a yew-tree arch, you see a magnificent walnut on a small green mound. There is no porch. You enter by a small, deeply moulded doorway at the north-west end of the north aisle. The pillars of the arcades are clusters of four rather thick shafts, some with unusually large round capitals, but others various in shape, and all of a bluish grey stone. There are four bays, three big and one a small one next the tower at the west end. There is a flat ceiling, both in nave and chancel, which cuts off the top of the Early English tower arch; hence the nave and aisles are covered, as at Swaton, near Helpringham, by one low, broad slate roof, reminding one of that at Grasmere. The chancel arch, if it can be called an arch at all, is the meanest I ever saw, and only equalled by the miserable, and apparently wooden, tracery of the east window. The chancel, which is nearly as long as the nave, is built of rough stones and has Decorated windows. On the floor is a curious brass of local workmanship probably, to Isabella, wife of Roger Barnadiston, c. 1420, and the artist seems to have handed on his craft, for the attraction of the church is a singular seventeenth century brass before the altar, to Sir Thomas Barnadiston, Kt. of Mikkylcotes, and his wife Dame Elizabeth, and their eight sons and seven daughters. The children kneel behind their kneeling parents, who are, however, on a larger scale, and have scrolls proceeding from their mouths. Above them is a picture of the Saviour, with nimbus, rising from a rectangular tomb of disproportionately small dimensions, while Roman soldiers are sleeping around. A defaced inscription runs all round the edge of the brass, and in the centre is the inscription in old lettering: “In the worschypp of the Resurrectio of o̅r Lord and the blessed sepulcur pray for the souls of Sir Thos Barnadiston Kt. and Dame Elizabeth his wife

Another six miles brings us to the outskirts of Grimsby, the birthplace, in 1530, of John Whitgift, Queen Elizabeth’s Archbishop of Canterbury. This is not at all an imposing or handsome town, but the length of the timber docks, and the size and varied life in the great fish docks, the pontoons which project into the river and are crowded with fishing boats, discharging tons of fish and taking in quantities of ice, are a wonderful sight. 165,510 tons of fish were dealt with in 1902—it is probably 170,000 now; and 300 tons of ice a day is made close by. The old church is a fine cruciform building, with a pair of ugly turrets at the end of nave, chancel, and transepts. Inside it is fine and spacious, and in effect cathedral-like. The transepts have doorways and two rows of three-light windows with tooth moulding round the upper lights and the gables. A corbel table with carved heads runs all round the church.

The south transept Early-English porch had eight shafts on either side, in most cases only the capitals now remain. The south aisle porch is good, but less rich. The tower arches are supported on octagonal pillars, which run into and form part of the transept walls. They are decorated by mouldings running up the whole length. The nave has six bays, and tall, slender clustered columns and plain capitals, with deeply moulded arches. Dreadful to relate, the columns and capitals are all painted grey.

There is a unique arrangement of combined triforium and clerestory, the small clerestory windows being inserted in the triforium into the taller central arches of the groups of three, which all have slender clustered shafts. This triforium goes round both nave, chancel and transepts, a very well carved modern oak pulpit rests on a marble base with surrounding shafts. The lectern is an eagle of the more artistic form, with one leg advanced and head turned sideways and looking upwards. I wonder that this is not more common, for I see it is figured in the A. and N. Stores catalogue. The sedilia rises in steps, as at Temple Bruer. A raised tomb carries the effigy of Sir Thomas Haslerton, brought from St. Leonard’s nunnery; he is in chain armour with helmet. A chapel in the north aisle has a squint looking to the high altar. This chapel is entered by a beautiful double arch from the transept, with Early capital to the mid pillar. The proportions of the whole church are pleasing, and its size is very striking. The tower has an arcaded parapet, and on each side two windows set in a recess under a big arch, between them a buttress runs up from the apex of a broad and deep gable-coping, which goes down each side of the tower, forming the hood-mould into which the gables of the nave transepts and chancel fit. All the doors, curiously enough, are painted green outside. There is in the churchyard a pillar with clustered shafts and carved capital, the base of which rests on a panelled block, which looks like an old font. Many bits from the old church, which was restored throughout in 1885, are ranged on the low wall of the churchyard walk, some of which look worthy of a better place.

The line from the docks runs along by the shore to Cleethorpes, where the Humber begins to merge into the sea. The wide, firm sands and the rippling shallow wavelets of the brown seawater are the delight of thousands of children; the air is fresh, food and drink are plentiful, and all things conspire to make a trippers’ paradise, while the Dolphin Hotel, which, like the others, looks out on the sea, is no bad place for a short sojourn in the off season.

The corporation had in old times two seals, one the common seal, and one the mayor’s seal; the latter showed a boar charged by a dog and a huntsman winding his horn, an allusion to an ancient privilege of the mayor and burgesses of hunting in the adjacent woods of Bradley Manor. The common seal bore a gigantic figure of a man with drawn sword and round shield, and the name ‘Gryem,’ the reputed founder of the town; on his right a youth crowned, and the name ‘Habloc,’ and on his left a female figure with a diadem and the legend “Goldeburgh,” the name of the princess he is said to have married.

These two interesting and distinctive old seals have, sad to say, been discarded for one bearing the arms of the corporation, just like what any mushroom town might adopt.

The figures on the old seal alluded to the tradition embodied in the old Anglo-Danish ballad of Havelock the Dane, which was borrowed from a French romance of the twelfth century, called “Le lai de Aveloc,” which in turn was probably taken from an Anglo-Saxon original. It tells how Havelock, son of the Danish King Birkabeen, was treacherously put to sea and saved by one Grim, a Lincolnshire fisherman, who brought up the waif as his own. He grew to be of huge stature and strength and of great beauty, and, from serving as a scullion in the king’s kitchen, he became betrothed to the king’s daughter; and his royal descent being discovered, the Danish king rewarded Grim with a sum of money with which he built a village on the coast and called it Grim’s town or Grimsby.

CHAPTER XX CAISTOR

Caistor is the centre from which roads radiate in all directions, so much so that if you describe a circle from Caistor as your centre at the distance of Swallow it will cut across seventeen roads, and if you shorten the distance to a two-mile radius, it will still cross eleven, though not more than four or five of them will separately enter the old Roman town. For the town has grown round a Roman “Castrum,” and the church is actually planted in the centre of the walled camp. A portion of the solidly grouted core of their wall shows on the southern boundary of the churchyard, and bits of it still exist to the east and west just beyond the churchyard boundary, and also a little further from the church on the north. Even the well which the Roman soldiers used, one of many springs coming out of the chalk, for Caistor is on the slope of the Wold, is still in use to the south-east of the church, and was included within the walls of the “Castrum.”

Dr. Fraser of Caistor, who takes a keen interest in the subject, kindly showed me a plan on which such portions of the wall as have been laid bare, in some half-a-dozen spots, were marked. He lives in a house belonging to the Tennyson family, the poet’s uncle and his brother Charles having both tenanted it. The place has a long history. It was a hill fort of the early Britons, then it was occupied by the Romans till late in the fourth century, and, after their departure, it was a stronghold of the Angles, who called it, according to Bede, Tunna-Ceaster or Thong-caster, which might refer to its being placed on a projecting tongue of the Wold, just as Hyrn-Ceaster or Horncastle is so named, because it is on a horn or peninsular, formed by the river. In 829 Ecgberht, King of Wessex, defeated the Mercians in a battle here, and offered a portion of the spoil to the church, if a stone dug up about 150 years ago with part of an inscription apparently to that effect can be trusted. Earl Morcar, who had land near Stamford, was lord of the manor in Norman times, and the Conqueror gave the church to Remigius for his proposed Cathedral.

For the present church inside the Roman camp goes back to probably pre-Norman times. The tower has a Norman doorway, and has also a very early round arch, absolutely plain, leading from the tower to the nave, and it shows in its successive stages Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular work. The lower part of the tower has angle buttresses and two string-courses, and, except the battlements, which are of hard whitish stone, the whole building is, like all the churches in the north-east of the county, made of a rich yellow sandy ironstone with fossils in it. This gives a beautiful tone of colour and also, from its friable nature, an appearance of immense antiquity. The north porch has good ball-flower decoration, but is not so good as the Early English south door with its tooth ornaments; here the old door with its original hinges is still in use. The octagonal pillars stand on a wide square base two feet high with a top, a foot wide, forming a stone seat round the pillar, as at Claypole and Bottesford. The nave arcade of four bays is Early English with nail-head ornament. Since Butterfield removed the flat ceiling and put a red roof with green tie-beams and covered the chancel arch and walls with the painted patterns which he loved, the seats, like the porch doors at Grimsby, have all been green! This, to my mind, always gives a garden woodwork atmosphere. In the north aisle is a side altar, and near it are the interesting tombs of the Hundon family, while in the south aisle, behind the organ, is a fine marble monument with a kneeling figure in armour of Sir Edward Maddison, of Unthank Hall, Durham, and of Fonaby, who died in his 100th year, A.D. 1553. His second wife was Ann Roper, sister-in-law to Margaret Roper, who was the daughter of Sir Thomas More, and who—

The Hundon tombs have recumbent stone effigies under recessed arches in the North wall, one being of Sir W. de Hundon cross-legged, with shield, and clad in chain-mail from head to foot. He fought in the last crusade, 1270. Another, in a recess massively cusped, is of Sir John de Hundon, High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1343, and Lady Hundon his wife, in a wimple and the dress of the period. Sir John is in plate armour, with chain hauberk, and girt with both sword and dagger, and both wear ruffs. She has a cushion at her head, and a lion at her feet. He lies on a plaited straw mattress rolled at each end, and wears a very rich sword-belt and huge spurs, but no helmet.

The singular cluster of very early church towers near Caistor are similar to those near Gainsborough, and to another group just south of Grimsby (see Chapter XXIII.). South of Caistor is Rothwell, which we hoped to reach in a couple of miles from Cabourn, but could only find a bridle road, unless we were prepared to go two miles east to Swallow, or two miles west to Caistor, and then make a further round of three miles from either place. The church, which keeps the register of marriages taken in Cromwell’s time before Theophilus Harneis, Esq., J.P., after publication of banns “on three succeeding Lord’s Days, at the close of the morning exercise, and no opposition alleged to the contrary,” has two very massive Norman arches, the western bays with cable moulding. The tower is of the unbuttressed kind, and exhibits some more unmistakable “Long-and-Short” work than is at all common in the Saxon-built towers of Lincolnshire churches, built, that is to say, if not by Saxon hands, at least in the Saxon style, and in the earliest Norman days. The village is in a depression between two spurs of the Wold, and a road from it, which is the eastern one of three, all running south along the Wold, leads to Binbrook. The middle road is the “High Dyke,” the Roman road from Caistor to Horncastle, and has no villages on it. The western one goes by Normanby le Wold, Walesby, and Tealby, and joins the Louth-and-Rasen road at North-Willingham. From this road you get a fine view over the flats in the centre of the county, as indeed you do if you go by the main road from Caistor to Rasen. This takes you through Nettleton, where there is another of these early towers, but not so remarkably old-looking a specimen as some. A buttress against the south wall of the tower is noticeable, being carefully devised by the mediæval builders so as not to block the little window. Usselby, three miles north of Rasen, lies hidden behind “The Hall,” and is the tiniest church in the county. It has a nave and chancel of stone, and a bell-turret, and hideous brick-headed windows. At Claxby, close by, some fine fossils have been found. The eastern main road to Grimsby has most to show us, for on it we pass Cabourn and Swallow, both of which have towers like Rothwell, as also has Cuxwold, which is half-way between Swallow and Rothwell. All these unbuttressed towers are built of the same yellow sandy stone, and generally have the same two-light belfry window with a midwall jamb. Cabourn was the only church we found locked, and we could not see why, and as the absence of the rector’s key keeps people from seeing the inside, so the presence of his garden fence, which runs right up to the tower on both sides, keeps them from seeing the west end outside—a horrid arrangement, not unlike that at Rowston. The tower has a pointed tiled roof, like a pigeon cote, a very small blocked low-side window is at the south-west end of the chancel, and the bowl of a Norman font with cable moulding, found under the floor of the church, has been placed on the top of the old plain cylinder which did duty as a font till lately. The view from Cabourn hill, which drops down to Caistor, is a magnificent one. To the north the lofty Pelham Pillar, a tribute to a family distinguished as early as the reign of Edward III., stands up out of the oak woods, a landmark for many a mile.

Swallow has no jamb to its belfry window. But it has a very good Norman door, and round-headed windows. The south aisle arches have been built up. During the recent restoration two piscinas, Norman and Early English, were found, the former with a deep square bowl set on a pillar. The next church has the singular name of Irby-on-Humber, though the Humber is eight miles distant. Here we find Norman arcades of two arches with massive central pillars, thicker on the north side than the south, and Early English tower and chancel arches. An incised slab on the floor has figures of John and Elianora Malet, of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries. In the south aisle there is a blocked doorway to the rood loft, and a piscina. The east window is of three lancets. All the woodwork in the church is new and everything in beautiful order. Laceby Church, two miles further on, has a Transition tower, and an Early English arcade with one Norman arch in the middle. There are some blow-wells in the parish, as at Tetney. John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the end of Elizabeth’s reign, was formerly rector here.

A mile to the left as we go from Irby to Laceby, lies the fine and well-wooded park of Riby Grove, the seat of Captain Pretyman, M.P. The Royalists won a battle here in 1645, in which Colonel Harrison, the Parliamentary leader, was slain. He was buried at Stallingborough. Riby of late years has been famous for the flocks and herds of the late Mr. Henry Dudding, which at their dispersal in July, 1913, realised in a two days’ sale 16,644 guineas. Over 1,800 Lincolnshire long-wool sheep were sold, the highest price being 600 guineas for the champion ram at the Bristol and Nottingham shows, who has gone to South America, in company with another stud ram who made eighty guineas, and several more of the best animals. But though the ram lambs made double figures, as the best had been secured before the sale the prices on the whole were not high, the sheep on the first day averaging just over £4 9s. Among the shorthorns 160 guineas was the highest price; this was given for a heifer whose destination was Germany. It is owing to men like Mr. Dudding that Lincolnshire farming and Lincolnshire flock and stock breeding has so great a name.

About five miles further, we come to the suburbs of Grimsby, and the road runs on past Clee to Cleethorpes.

It is curious how different localities, though in the same neighbourhood, have their own special and different terms for the same thing, thus: alongside the ridge north of Lincoln, each village has its bit of “Cliff,” and from Elsham to the Humber each has its bit of “Wold,” while on the continuation of the Wold near Caistor from Barnetby to Burgh-on-Bain the same thing is called neither “Cliff” nor “Wold,” but “top”; and we have Somerby, Owmby, Grasby, Audleby, Fornaby, Rothwell, Orby, Binbrook, Girsby and Burgh “top,” etc. There is an Owmby “Cliff” as well as an Owmby “top,” but the words sufficiently indicate the position of the villages—one (near Fillingham) on the Ermine Street, and one (near Grasby) north of Caistor.

There is no view, I think, in the county so wide all round as that from the top of the Pelham Pillar. It stands on one of the highest points of the Wold, from whence the ground falls on three sides. In front are the woods of Brocklesby and the mausoleum, with the Humber and Hull in the distance; on the right Grimsby, the Spurn Point, and the grand spire of Patrington in Holderness, and on the left the wide mid-Lincolnshire plain as far as “the Cliff.” Of the Wold villages between Caistor and Barnetby, where the Wold stops for a couple of miles and lets the railway and the Brigg-to-Brocklesby road through on the level, none affords a better view than Grasby. But the whole of this road is one not to be missed. As we pass along it we first reach Clixby, which shows, or rather hides, a tiny church in a thick clump of trees by the road side, where is a churchyard cross, restored after the model of Somersby. The little stone church has been once very dilapidated, and is now renewed with a double bell-turret in brick—no wonder it hides itself in the trees. There is also a remarkable modern graveyard cross of dark stone, of a very early primitive shape, such as is seen on some of the incised grave stones of Northumbria. North of Clixby is Grasby. This church was the home for over forty years of the poet’s brother Charles Tennyson-Turner, the author, with Alfred, of the “Poems by Two Brothers,” and afterwards of many sonnets written at Grasby. It would be difficult to surpass the charm of one called ‘Letty’s Globe’:

A white marble tablet of chaste design on the wall of the nave shows a couple of sprays of bay or laurel beneath the Christian monogram, bending to right and left over the inscription, on the left to “Charles Tennyson Turner, Vicar and Patron of Grasby, who died April 25, 1879.

and on the right to “Louisa his wife, died May 20, 1879.

They rest with Charlotte Tennyson in the cemetery at Cheltenham.” Charlotte was his brother Horatio’s first wife; his wife Louisa was the sister of Lady Tennyson, the two brothers having married two Miss Sellwoods, nieces of Sir John Franklin. Tennyson’s grandfather had married Mary Turner of Caistor, and Charles succeeded his uncle Sam Turner.

The church, with its low broached spire, has a nave and a north aisle, but has little of the old left in it, except the south doorway and some Early English clustered pillars, and a curious plain font set on four little square legs mounted on steps. The church was rebuilt, and the schools and vicarage built de novo by the Tennyson-Turners, for until his time the vicar had lived at Caistor. Under the east window outside is a stone let into the wall with three dedication crosses on it.

We must follow this Caistor and Brigg highway along the edge of the Wold to Bigby, where it turns to the left, and only a byway runs north to Barnetby le Wold which looks down on Melton Ross, so named from the Ros family to whom Belvoir came by marriage with a d’Albini heiress in the thirteenth century. Sir Thomas Manners—Lord Ros—was created Earl of Rutland in the sixteenth century.

Barnetby Church has a most ancient appearance; it stands high in a field by itself, the village lying below. A long, high wall of brick and stone, grey with lichen, a low tower and a flat roof and windows irregularly placed, make up a building of undoubted antiquity. Inside, and lately recovered from the coal-hole, is a Norman lead font, thirty-two inches across. This is unique in Lincolnshire, though twenty-eight others are known in other counties, the best being that at Dorchester-on-Thames. From Barnetby we must retrace our steps for a couple of miles to see Bigby, which is well placed on the edge of the Wold. The church has corbels all round, as at Grantham, under a parapet of later build and of a lighter-coloured and harder stone. The old thick tower is of the yellow stone, with a good two-light window to the west. The porch is of oak with panelled sides. The nave has an Early English arcade of three bays, with slender octagonal pillars. The tower arch is low, the chancel arch lofty. Here we find two fonts, not superimposed, as at Cabourn, but one in each aisle. One is low and formed of grey marble, the other has an old carved stone bowl of nine panels on a new pedestal. This number of sides is unique. Near it is placed an incised slab showing the figure of a lady of the Skipwyth family, 1374, and another lady of the same name has a recumbent effigy in the chancel, c. 1400. The nave and chancel roof are one,[10] and in the chancel are some more interesting monuments. On the floor a brass of Elizabeth Tyrwhit, wife of William Skipwyth of Ormsby, c. 1520. On the north side a large altar tomb with alabaster effigies of Sir Robert Tyrwhit of Kettelbie, 1581, and his wife. He is on a plaited mattress rolled at each end for his head and feet, and below his feet a wild man or “Wode-howse” on all fours and covered with hair. Two of these support the feet of Ralph Lord Treasurer Cromwell in the fine brass at Tattershall, and the Willoughby chapel at Spilsby shows one. His wife lies nearest the wall, with a lion at her feet and a cushion for her head; both wear ruffs, and he is in armour, but without helmet. In many respects the monument resembles the tomb of Sir John and Lady Hundon at Caistor, but is still more like the Ayscoughe tomb at Stallingborough.

On the two ends and front of the tomb are figures of their children, twenty-two in number, two or three infants in cradles, the rest all kneeling, and above them is the old metrical version of the 128th Psalm, running round three sides of the tomb. The front or middle portion bears the following lines:—

Inside the chancel rails is a mural monument with life-size figures of a man and his wife kneeling, but the lady’s head is gone. The man is Robert Tyrwhit, who made a runaway match with Lady Bridget Manners, maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, who was highly incensed at it, and doubtless used language appropriate to the occasion. At the back of the sedilia two or three little brasses have been inserted, one to Edward Nayler, rector 1632, with wife and seven children. He is described as “a painefull minister of God’s word.”

From Bigby four miles brings us to Brigg, passing near Kettleby, the home of the Tyrwhits, who kept up a blood feud with the Ros family till the beginning of the seventeenth century—not a very neighbourly proceeding—and as they only lived four miles apart their combats and murders were perpetual.

The road which runs north from Caistor goes along the top of the Wold as far as “Pelham’s Pillar,” where the real High Wold stops. It is then 460 feet above sea level. Caistor itself, on the western slope, is only 150 feet up, but the High Wold keeps rising south of Caistor till it attains its highest point between Normanby-le-Wold and Stainton-le-Vale, at about 525 feet. From “Pelham’s Pillar” the road forks into three, and runs down into the flat at Riby, Brocklesby, and Kirmington, where there is a church with a bright green spire sheathed with copper. Brocklesby, Lord Yarborough’s seat, has a deer park more than two miles long. It is entered on the west side through a well-designed classical arch, erected by the tenantry in memory of the third lord. Extensive drives through the woods planted by the first lord, who married Miss Aufrere of Chelsea, and was created Baron Yarborough in 1794, reach as far as the “Pelham Pillar,” some six miles from Brocklesby. On the pillar it is recorded that twelve and a half million trees were planted. The planter, who rivals “Planter John,” he who laid out the many miles of avenue at Boughton near Kettering, was an Anderson, whose grandmother was sister of Charles, the last of the Pelhams, hence the family name now is Anderson-Pelham.

The Welland, near Fulney, Spalding.

The mausoleum on the south side, designed by Wyatt in 1794 in memory of Sophia, first Countess of Yarborough, is in the classical style, with a flat dome rising from a circular balustrade supported on twelve fluted Doric columns. It stands on an ancient barrow, in it is a monument by Nollekens, of the Countess. The house, part of which was rebuilt after a fire in 1898, has the appearance of a brick and stone Queen Anne mansion. In it are some of the exquisite wood carvings by Wallis of Louth, some of whose work was admired in the first “Great Exhibition” of 1851, attracting almost as much attention as the Koh-i-noor Diamond, then in its rough form, as worn by “Akbar the Great,” by Nadir Shah, and by “The Lion of the Punjab,” Runjeet Sing. It is now in the crown of the Queen of England, and, being re-cut, is much smaller, but far more brilliant. In addition to a fine hall and staircase there is a picture gallery built in 1807 to take the paintings and sculptures which had been collected by Mr. John Aufrere of Chelsea, father-in-law of the first Lord Yarborough. The gem of this collection is the antique bust of Niobe, purchased in Rome by Nollekens the sculptor, who has himself contributed a fine bust of the first earl’s wife. In a conservatory are portions of another once famous collection of antiques, tombs, altars, and statues, made by Sir Richard Worsley and kept as a kind of classical museum till 1855 at Appuldurcombe in the Isle of Wight.

Religious houses abounded here. Thornton Abbey is only five miles off, and here, outside the park to the north-west, is Newsham Abbey, 1143, perhaps the earliest Premonstratensian house in England. On the east was the Cistercian nunnery of Colham, and just at the south of the park, in the village of Limber, was an alien priory belonging to the Cistercian house of Aulnay in Normandy. Newsham abbey, which was worth twice what the other two were, became part of the spoil which was absorbed by Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk. The gardens have some fine cedars, and the church with its curious tower and small spire is in the garden grounds. There are some Pelham monuments in it of the sixteenth and seventeenth century: one to Sir John and one to Sir William and Lady Pelham and their seventeen children. At her feet is the head of a king and the Pelham “Buckle,” commemorating the seizure by a Pelham of King John of France, at the battle of Poictiers.

Thornton Abbey Gateway.

CHAPTER XXI LOUTH AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

Louth spire is one of the sights of Lincolnshire; it is a few feet higher than Grantham, which it much resembles, and in beauty of proportions and elegance of design one feels, as one looks at it, that it has really no rival, for Moulton, near Spalding, though on the same lines, is so much smaller.

The way in which it bursts upon the view as the traveller approaches it from Kenwick, which lies to the southward, is a thing impossible to forget. Taking the place of originally a small Norman, and later a thirteenth century building, the present church of St. James dates from the fifteenth century. Louth once had two, if not three, other small churches, dedicated to St. John, St. Mary, and St. Herefrid; but no certain traces of these remain, and only the north and south doorways of the thirteenth century church are now visible. Excavations made at the last restoration in 1867 revealed the pillar bases of this church and some fragments of eleventh century moulding of the earlier one. The present building has nothing of interest inside—it is only the shell from which the living tenant has long been absent. Once its long aisles were filled with rich chapels, and the chancel arch was furnished with a rood-loft and screen, and the church was unusually rich in altars, vessels, vestments, and books, of which only the inventory remains. In the vestry an oak cupboard has medallions carved in the panels of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York; and that is all. The steeple, with its large belfry windows, was doubtless built for its clock and bells; there were at first but three, which in 1726 were increased to a full peal of eight, but the clock and its chime was there as early as 1500. The spire was not completed till 1815; the weathercock was fixed then, but no lightning-rod until 1844 after the spire had been struck and damaged three times, in the sixteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth centuries; in the eighteenth it escaped.

The first of the Louth churchwardens’ books has an ill-written entry of the year 1515-16, the time of the second (or thirteenth century) church, which tells us that one Thomas Taylor, a draper, bought a copper basin in York and had it made at Lincoln into a “Wedercoke” for the church. This is very interesting, for the basin had been part of the spoil taken from the King of Scots at Flodden.

Twenty years later the vicar of Louth was hanged with others, at Tyburn, for his part in the Lincolnshire rebellion, when 20,000 men took up arms in defence of the pillaged monasteries. Concerning this rebellion, there is a graphic account of the receipt of Henry VIIIth’s letter in response to the people’s petition, which was read in the chapter-house at Lincoln, on October 10, 1556. Moyne tells how, when they thought to have read the letter secretly among themselves in the chapter-house, a mob burst in and insisted on hearing it: “And therefore,” he goes on to say, “I redd the Kynges letter openly and by cause there was a lyttyl clause therein that we feared wolde styr the Commons I did leave that clause unredd, which was persayved by a Chanon beying the parson of Snelland, and he sayde there openly that the letter was falsely redd be cause whereof I was like to be slayn.” Eventually they got out by the south door to the Chancellor’s house, while the men waited to murder them at the great West door, “And when the Commons persayved that wee were gone from theym another way, they departed to ther lodgings in a gret furye, determynyng to kill us the morowe after onles wee wolde go forwards with theym.”

Bridge Street, Louth.

The “lyttyl clause” referred to as likely to “styr the Commons,” was wisely omitted, for it is that in which the king expresses his amazement at the presumption of the “rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm and of least experience, to take upon them to rule their prince whom they were bound to obey and serve.”

This rebellion, which was called the Pilgrimage of Grace, brought disaster on many Lincolnshire families. Over sixty of all conditions were put to death for it in Louth alone, and others at Alford, Spilsby and Boston, and at all the monasteries, and the vicars of Cockerington, Louth, Croft, Biscathorpe, Donington and Snelland and some others, as well as John Lord Hussey at Sleaford, suffered for their religion and were canonized as martyrs by the Pope. A list of more than one hundred victims is given in “Notes and Queries,” III., 84.

The town has a museum of some interest, and outside of it may be seen a large boulder of some foreign stone, probably brought by an icefloe from Denmark or Norway. This used to stand at a street corner in the town, but was afterwards removed to the inn-yard at the back, and painted blue, and was known for many years as the blue stone. Speaking of stone, we have a record that a good deal of the stone for building the church spire in the sixteenth century was landed at Dogdyke, and drawn thence on wheels or carried on pack horses on flag pavements across the fen. The stone is of good quality and adapted for carving.

There is notably good openwork on the east gable of the church, much resembling that at Grimoldby and Theddlethorpe-in-the-Marsh, a few miles to the east of Louth. Turner’s picture of the horse fair at Louth shows the spire, which was no doubt the motive of the picture, and until one has seen it, both from a distance and from the street of Louth itself, one can have no notion how beautiful a thing a well-proportioned spire can be, one is never tired of looking at it.

An old statue of Edward VI. over a doorway in the Westgate indicates the grammar school where Alfred and Charles Tennyson spent a few uncomfortable years. The school seal shows a boy being birched, with the motto “Qui parcit virgam odit filium,” and date 1552. Among other pupils were Governor Eyre, one of the victims of British sentimentality, and Hobart Pasha. Thomas of Louth gave a clock to Lincoln Minster in 1324, and William de Lindsey, Bishop of Ely, 1290, who has there a beautiful monument, was also a Louth native.

Hubbards Mill, Louth.

Louth Park Abbey, about a mile and a half to the east of the town, was built on a site belonging to the Bishops of Lincoln, and was given to the Cistercian colony from Fountains Abbey, who found Haverholme too damp for comfort, by Bishop Alexander in 1139. The Cistercians built themselves a large church, 256 feet long and sixty-one feet in width, with transepts which more than doubled this; parts of these and the chancel, also a portion of the west front and one nave pillar, are all that is left of it, but the ground plan has been excavated, which shows that there were no fewer than ten bays to the nave, and massive circular piers. There was a cloister on the south, surrounded by monastic buildings, and east of these a chapter-house with groined roof springing from six pillars. A very large gateway stood at the south-west, and outside was a double moat to which the water from St. Helen’s Spring was conducted by what is still known as “the Monk’s Dyke.” It flourished greatly at the beginning of the fourteenth century, having then sixty-six monks and 150 lay brethren. The Louth Park Abbey Chronicle, though very valuable, is not exactly contemporaneous with the things it mentions, for it was all written by a scribe in the fifteenth century. It covers the years from 1066 to the death of Henry IV. in 1413.

Near the abbey, but on the other side of the canal, is Keddington, where the arch of the organ chamber is made of carved stones, no doubt brought from the abbey. The church, which is built of chalk and greensand, is older than any in the immediate neighbourhood, and has a Norman south door. It has a remarkable lancet window on the south side, in the upper part of which is a carved dragon, and has also what is very rare, a wooden mediæval eagle lectern.

Half-a-dozen main roads radiate from Louth, one might call it eight, for two of the half-dozen divide, one within a mile, and one at a distance of two miles from the town. They go, one north to Grimsby, twenty miles of level road along the marsh, and one west to Market Rasen, by the Ludfords and North Willingham, fifteen and a half miles. One mile out, this road divides and goes west and then south to Wragby by South Willingham, sixteen and a half miles. Both of these roads, as well as that which runs south-west to Horncastle, fourteen and a half miles, cross the Wolds and are distinctly hilly, rising and falling nearly four hundred feet. The fifth road, which goes due south to Spilsby, sixteen miles, though seldom as much as 250 feet higher than Louth, which stands about seventy-five feet above sea level, affords fine views, and is a very pleasant road to travel. But all these highways must be dealt with in detail later. The sixth road from Louth runs south-east to Alford, and keeps on the level of the marsh, and the seventh and eighth roads run eastwards across the marsh to the sea, one branching off the Alford road at Kenwick and avoiding all villages, comes to the coast at Saltfleet; the other, starting out from Louth by Keddington and Alvingham, loses itself in many small and endlessly twisting roads which connect the various villages and reaches the sea eventually at Donna Nook and Saltfleet, places five miles apart, with no passage to the sea between them—nothing but mud flats, samphire beds and sea birds. There is a charm about “the waste enormous marsh,” and also about the high and windy Wolds, which never palls, but before we journey along either of the highways from Louth I should like to introduce one of those byways which form the chief delight of people who love the country.

We will leave Louth, then, by the Spilsby road, and when we reach the second milestone, 147 miles from London, turn and look at the beautiful spire of Louth Church rising from a group of elms in the middle distance of a wide panorama. From our height of 300 feet we look across the whole marsh to the sea, ten miles to the east, and far on beyond Louth we look northwards towards Grimsby and the Humber, the perpetually shifting lights and shades caused by the great cumulus clouds in these fine level views, the many farmsteads and occasional church towers—

of our own Lincolnshire poet—all combine to make a very satisfactory picture to which the wonderfully wide extent which lies unrolled before us, lends enchantment; and always the eye reverts to rest with delight on that perfect spire standing so high above the trees by the banks of the river Lud.

At length we turn and pursue our way, but soon quit the Spilsby road and go down the hill to the left, past the entrance to Kenwick Hall, till we reach the Alford road, and, turning to the right, come to the pretty little village of Cawthorpe.

This is not a bad centre for country walks. You can walk on a raised footpath all along the side of the curious water-lane, and if you go out in the opposite direction the road to Haugham takes you through two miles of as pretty a road as you could desire; it is called “Haugham Pastures,” but it is really a road through a wood, without hedges, reminding one of the New Forest or the “Dukeries.” On the right, going from Cawthorpe, the trees extend some distance with oak and fern and all that makes the beauty of an English wood; on the other side it is only a belt of trees through which at intervals a grassy tract curves off from the road and leads to the fields; and as we passed in September we could see the corn-laden waggons moving up towards us or the teams going afield among the sheaves. No county could supply a prettier series of pictures of simple pastoral beauty than this byway through “Haugham Pastures.” A deep lane near the little brick-built manor-house is noticeable as the site of a famous jump. The roadway is about fifteen feet wide, with steep sides and a low hedge, the top of which is nine or ten feet above the roadway. Over these Dr. Trought of Louth, on a famed hunter, once jumped for a wager, flying from field to field, a distance of some twenty feet.

The Lud at Louth.

One of the charming peculiarities of Cawthorpe is that here the “Long Eau” stream runs between hedge-banks over a level sand and gravel bed and forms a water street, which extends for about a furlong. There is a similar thing at Swaby, six miles to the south, where the “Great Eau” runs along a street or road through the village. At Cawthorpe the water is always running and usually about six inches deep. The village lies in a hollow with curiously twisting little roads in it, and is very picturesque with its farms and trees and quaint little brick manor-house standing near the church at the three cross ways.

Rising from the hollow, the small byway runs with here and there beautiful trees and often on the right a tall hedge or narrow strip of plantation, reminding one of the roadside “shaws” in Hampshire, while on the left there is always a view down over cornfields and beyond the tops of the Tothill oak woods right across the fertile belt of the marsh to the shining line of the distant sea. With many a twist the byway runs on through Muckton village to Belleau, where it crosses the above-mentioned Swaby or Calceby beck and looks down on the picturesque church, standing in the grassy meadows, and on the brick turret and groined archways of the old Manor-house, and so on to South Thoresby, where the broken ground and the fine trees tell of an old mansion which stood there till last century; and past Rigsby, till it meets the Spilsby and Alford highway just below Miles-cross-Hill, whence it runs on through the avenue of elms to Well. And all the way, as it has run along the top of the eastern escarpment of the Wold, it has afforded us an outlook over a wide expanse of the marsh such as none of the other roads on the high wolds can equal. True, the Lincoln cliff road gives a finer view and runs further, but I don’t think there is any prettier ten-mile stretch in the county than this ‘Middle road’ from Well to Louth.

At the entrance gate of Well Vale Hall the road divides, either route ending at Alford. Well Vale, a fine sporting estate and also a famous stronghold for foxes, the residence of Mr. Walter H. Rawnsley, is, I venture to think, the prettiest spot in the county. For a mile or more a grassy track descends from the top of Miles-Cross-Hill through a wooded valley where fine beeches stretch out their long arms, and pines and larch crown the chalky turf-clad sides, till the mouth of the Vale opens out into a park, whose rolling slopes are studded with handsome trees, and as you near the mansion, the front of which looks out across its brilliant flower-beds and quaint pinnacled gateway upon the little church flanked by branching elms on the summit of a grassy hill, you see a fine sheet of water fed by a copious chalk stream which passes the house and is then conducted to a still larger lake on the garden side, stretching with a double curve from the giant cedars on the lawn to a vanishing point, of which glimpses only are caught through the stems of the Scotch firs and oaks in the distance. The history of Well goes back to Roman times, and has been told fully by the Rev. E. H. R. Tatham, Rector of the neighbouring parish of Claxby, where the site of a Roman camp is still visible, another being at Willoughby, two miles off eastwards in the levels, where the marsh begins.

The name was derived in Saxon times from the strong spring which wells out from the chalk and feeds the lakes on either side the house. The names Burwell and Belleau in the immediate neighbourhood are of similar origin, though the latter is a Norman name. At the time of the Conquest Well and Belleau were both bestowed on Gilbert de Gaunt, the Conqueror’s nephew, and were let by him to one Ragener, whose family took the addition “de Welle” and lived here for four centuries. In the thirteenth century we hear of a church at Well, and William de Welle (the third of the name) in 1283 obtained a licence for a market and fair at Alford. His son Adam was summoned to Parliament as a baron in 1299. In the fifteenth century the name was changed from Welle to Welles, and Leo Lord Welles fell at Towton in 1461. The title was now combined with that of Willoughby d’Eresby, and Leo’s son, Richard, who took it jure uxoris, he having married the Willoughby heiress, was the Lord Welles who was so basely put to death in 1470 by Edward IV. for complicity in the Lincolnshire rebellion, together with his son-in-law, T. Dymoke, and his son Robert. See Chap. XXXIII.

Leo, who fell at Towton, had married for his second wife, Margaret Duchess of Somerset, and her son John joined Henry VII., and after the battle of Bosworth the king restored to him the Welles estate which had been forfeited after Robert’s execution, made him a viscount, and gave him the hand of Cicely, daughter of Edward IV. and sister to his own queen, in marriage. It is interesting to read in Mr. Tatham’s paper that “This lady carried the heir-apparent, Prince Arthur, at his baptism at Winchester in 1486.” She subsequently married one of the Kyme family of Kyme Tower near Boston. John Viscount Welles died in 1499, and the male line of the Welles became extinct, but the Willoughby line went on, for Cicely, the sister of the unfortunate Richard Welles, had married Sir R. Willoughby, and her grandson William succeeded to that title as the ninth Lord Willoughby. He was the father of Catharine Duchess of Suffolk and subsequently wife of Richard Bertie, whose monument occupies so large a space in the Willoughby chapel at Spilsby. The Welles estate remained with the Willoughbys (who in 1626 were created Earls of Lindsey) till 1650, when the extortionate fines levied on Royalist families by the Parliament made it necessary for Belleau and Welle to be sold. Belleau went to Sir H. Vane, and Well to W. Wolley, who sold it about 1700 to Anthony Weltden, a man who had a romantic career in the early days of the Hon. East India Company. From him Well passed to James Bateman, one of whose sons became Lord Bateman. Another, James, succeeded to the estate and built the present house about 1725, a wing of which was pulled down about 1845. This James married Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Chaplin of Tathwell, who also came to live and die at Well. Bateman’s daughter and heiress married a Dashwood in 1744—probably it was he who planted the Vale (he died in 1825)—and in 1838 the estate was purchased by Mr. Christopher Nisbet Hamilton, whose daughter, Mrs. Hamilton Ogilvy, has just sold it to Mr. Walter H. Rawnsley.

The following lines were written on the gate at the top of Well Vale by a traveller taking his yearly tramp from Horncastle for a dip in the sea at Mablethorpe, a good twenty miles.

This is more than a mere assemblage of puns—there is some poetry in the old fellow, and the penultimate line has an added pathos from the fact that only a few months later the poet bid his final farewell to life, on November 10, in the same year, at the age of seventy-six.

Speaking of Well Vale, I think I have seen and heard more starlings collected together in a young larch plantation there than I ever came across at once elsewhere. The only multitude of birds at all comparable to it was the army of cranes I have seen covering half a mile or more of sandbank in the Nile, near Komombos, while clouds of them kept dropping from the sky. They have black wings and white bodies, so that aloft they looked black, but standing on the sandbank as close as they could pack they looked all white.

But to return to our starlings. It is a very curious thing this massing of countless thousands of these birds amongst the osiers[11] in the fenny parts of the county, or in some of the plantations in the Wolds. If you take your stand about sunset near one of these, when the wood pigeons, after much noisy flapping of their wings, have settled down to rest, a loud whirring noise will make you look up to see the sky darkened by a cloud of these birds, which will be only the advance portion of the multitudes that will quickly be converging from all sides to their roosting quarters. They have been feeding in many places, often at a considerable distance; but each night they assemble, and for a quarter of an hour or more the noise of their chattering and fluttering as each successive flight comes in will be indescribable. If a disturbing noise is made, myriads will rise with one loud rush, but nothing will prevent their return and, when the noise and movement has at length subsided, the trees will be black with their living load, which will sleep till sunrise, and then again disperse for the day in quest of food, returning every night for several weeks, till the call of spring scatters them for good.

CHAPTER XXII — FONTS.

When we talk of Anglo-Saxon art it is not to be implied that no artistic work was done before Saxon time in Britain. But if we speak of churches, though doubtless British churches were once to be found here, there are certainly none now existing, and we cannot get back beyond Saxon times. The British churches were built probably of wattle, or at the best of stones without mortar, and so were not likely to be long-lived. Still, Stonehenge is British work, and domed huts, like beehives, similar to but smaller and ruder than those to be still seen in Greece, were made by the ancient Britons. It was the Romans who first introduced architecture to our land. They had learnt it from those wonderful people, the pioneers of so much that we all value, the Greeks, who in turn had got their lessons from Egypt and Assyria. That takes us back eight thousand years, and we still profit by the art thus handed down through the centuries. When the Romans left us, all the arts at once declined in our islands, and notably the art of building.

In speaking of the churches in the south of the county, I drew attention to the number in which traces of Saxon work were still visible and spoke of the two remarkable specimens only three miles over the border at Wittering and Barnack. It is pleasant to hear so good an authority as Mr. Hamilton Thompson say that Lincolnshire is more rich than any other county in churches which, though only in few instances of a date indisputably earlier than the Conquest, yet retain traces of an architecture of a distinctly pre-Norman character. We do not vie with Kent and Northumbria, for we cannot show anything which can be referred to the first century of Anglo-Saxon Christianity associated with the name of Augustine, nor had St. Ninian, St. Kentigern, St. Oswald, St. Cuthbert, or St. Wilfrid any work to do in Lincolnshire. St. Paulinus alone, by his visit to Lincoln, connected the province of Lindsey, which was part of his diocese of York, with the religious life of Northumbria. But the only existing trace of this is the dedication of the church in Lincoln to St. Paul, i.e., St. Paulinus.

Still, Saxon architecture was a real thing in the two centuries preceding the Norman invasion, and we have in Lincolnshire an unusually large number of churches (I can mention no less than thirty-eight at once), which represent a late state of Saxon architecture carried out probably by Saxon workmen for Norman employers and bearing traces of Norman influence. At Stow, near Lincoln, is some very fine Saxon work, but there the Norman overlies the Saxon more decidedly than it does in the notable church of Barton-on-Humber; both of these have been discussed in previous chapters. But we may here draw attention to the less magnificent Saxon remains in the county, and notice how often the churches with Saxon work still visible, lie in groups. Thus, quite in the north we have Barton, Winterton, and Alkborough, with Worlaby not far off. Then in the course of ten miles along the road from Caistor to Grimsby we have Caistor, Cabourn, Nettleton, Rothwell, Cuxwold, Swallow, Laceby, Scartho, and Clee; with Holton-le-Clay and Waith just to the south on the road to Louth. On the west, near Gainsborough, we have a group of five close together at Corringham, Springthorpe, Harpswell, Heapham, and Glentworth; and Marton and Stow are not far away, one by the Trent and the other on the central road between the Trent and the ‘Cliff.’

Lincoln has its two famous church towers of St. Mary-le-Wigfords and St. Peters-at-Gowts. Near it, to the south, are Bracebridge, Bramston, Harmston and Coleby, the two latter close together, and all with traces of “Long-and-Short” work; and if we continue our way southwards, we shall pass Hough-on-the-Hill between Grantham and Newark, with its interesting pre-Conquest stair turret, and so finish our Saxon tour by visiting three churches on or near the river Glen, at Boothby-Pagnell, Little Bytham and Thurlby. This is not an exhaustive list, for Great Hale near Heckington must be included, and Cranwell near Sleaford and Ropsley near Grantham, both show “Long-and-Short” work. But the more closely the churches mentioned are examined, the more clear it becomes that, though the dates of the building, when we can get at them, mostly point us to the eleventh century, the art is of a pre-Conquest type, and could only have been executed before the general spread of Norman influence which that century witnessed. We are therefore quite justified in speaking of this work as Saxon.

Here, perhaps, the term “Long-and-Short” work should be explained.

It is often said that the Saxon architecture was the development in stone of the building which had previously been done in timber and wattle, and thus in Barnack, and Barton, and at Stow, but nowhere else in Lincolnshire, parallel strips of stone run up the tower at intervals of a couple of feet, as if representing the upright timbers. This theory, perhaps, will not bear pressing; still, though the arch over a window is often triangular, made by leaning two slabs one against another, not unfrequently a square-ended stone projects from the top of a rounded arch, which seems to be a reminiscence in stone of the end of a wooden beam. This may be seen at Barnack on the south side of the tower. The towers have no buttresses, and though the stones between the upright strips are small and rubbley, the stones at the angles of the tower are fairly large and squared. When these are long-shaped, but set alternately perpendicular and horizontal, this is called “Long-and-Short” work, and is definitely “Saxon,” even though built by Norman hands. The herring-bone work, as seen at Marton, is Romanesque and a sign of Norman builders. They also copied the Romans in facing a rubble core with dressed stone, whereas the Saxons only used dressed stones at the angles.

Ancient Saxon Ornament found in 1826 in cleaning out the Witham, near the village of Fiskerton, four miles east of Lincoln.

The enormous activity of the Norman builders in every part of the kingdom has thrown previous architectural efforts into the shade; but the Normans found in England a by no means barbarous people. Anglo-Saxon or Anglian art had exhibited developments in many directions, in metal work and jewellery, in illumination of MSS., in needlework, in stone-carving, as well as in architecture; and when Augustine landed in 597 it was not to a nation of barbarous savages, but to people quite equal in many ways to those he had lived among in Italy or conversed with in Gaul, that he had to preach the tenets of Christianity. As proof of this we can point to the beautiful carved stonework of the Anglians of Northumbria on the great crosses of Bewcastle and Ruthwell, and the cross of Bishop Acca of Hexham, now in the Durham library, all of the seventh century; and to the Lindisfarne Gospels of St. Wilfred’s time which was only some fifty years later; whilst to show the continuity of Anglo-Saxon art we have the St. Cuthbert stole in the Durham Cathedral library, a triumph of needlework by the nuns of Winchester in the days of Athelstan; and, besides the celebrated Alfred Jewel, a silver trefoil brooch[12] found at Kirkoswald in Cumberland, which, for purity of design, richness of ornamentation and beauty of execution, it would be difficult to match in any age or country, and the cloak chain, found at Fiskerton, described in Chapter XIV.; all these are quite first-rate in their different lines, and should make us speak with respect of our Saxon ancestors.

Having already noted the Gainsborough group (Chap. XVII.) and the Caistor group (Chap. XX.), we will now make our way towards a third group of pre-Norman towers to be seen on the Louth and Grimsby road.

In Norman times strongholds and churches were built all over the country, and doubtless many domestic houses which did not aspire to be more than ordinary dwelling-places. It is curious how almost entirely these have vanished; one at Boothby Pagnell and three in Lincoln are among the very few left. In Lincoln ‘The Jews’ House,’ ‘Aaron’s House,’ and ‘John of Gaunt’s Stables’ or ‘St. Mary’s Guild’ go back to the beginning of the twelfth century. They none of them would satisfy our modern notions of comfort, but neither do the much later houses, such as the mediæval merchant’s house called “Strangers’ Hall,” in Norwich, which is so interesting and so obviously uncomfortable. When King John of France was confined at Somerby Castle in the fourteenth century he had to import furniture from France to take the place of the benches and trestles which was all that the castle boasted, and to hang draperies and tapestries on the bare walls; and though some of these were supplied him by his captor, comfortable furniture seems to have been not even dreamt of at that time in England.

For the churches the Normans did surprisingly well, as far as the building and stonework went, but the beautiful woodwork, which is the glory of our Lincolnshire marsh churches, is mostly the work of the men of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. We see this mediæval workmanship sometimes in the bench ends and stalls and miserere seats, but most notably in such of the rood screens as have escaped the successive onslaughts made on them in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whilst the shameful neglect of the eighteenth and the shocking ignorance of both clergy and laity in that and the first part of the nineteenth century, have swept away much that was historically of the utmost interest, and which the better informed and more responsible guardians of the churches to-day would have preserved and treasured. This mediæval woodwork is found most frequently in the more remote parts of the country. The best rood loft I have ever seen is in a little church in Wales, near Towyn, and some of the finest rood screens with canopies are in the churches of Devon; of these, Mr. Hubert Congreve, in his paper contributed to the Worcester Archæological Society, notes that at Stoke-in-Teignhead there is one of the fourteenth century, carved in the reign of Richard II. From this the loft has been removed, and it was generally the case that when this was taken away as idolatrous, the screen itself was not objected to.

Many of these screens in the Devon churches have an extremely rich and deep cornice, and they often extend right across the nave and both the aisles. Perhaps the finest of these is in the famous parson Jack Russell’s church at Swymbridge. This is of the fifteenth century. From the same source we learn that Bovey Tracey has a similar screen, but it has had to be greatly restored since the Commonwealth destruction, and that Atherington has a lovely screen in the north aisle, with fan-shaped coving springing from figures of angels holding shields. The cornice is delicately carved, and there is some fine canopy work over the parapet, with niches which once held figures of the saints. This screen was originally in the chapel at Umberleigh Manor, and is perhaps the only screen in the county which has never been painted. When I visited lately the quaint little town of Totnes I saw what is most uncommon—a stone screen. This dates from 1479, and richly and beautifully carved, much after the pattern of the screen in the Lady Chapel at Exeter Cathedral.

All this fine mediæval work suffered terribly from the ultra-Protestant mania for iconoclasm which exhibited itself in the reign of Edward VI., in 1547, and again under Elizabeth in 1561. Finally, under the Parliament both in 1643 and 1644, was issued “An ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the utter demolishing, removing and taking away of all Monuments of superstition and idolatry.”

This Act provided specifically for the taking away of all altar rails and the levelling of the “Chancel-ground” and the removal of the Communion table from the east end, and the destruction of all stone altars, so that it is always noticeable when we find one such, either in a side chapel or in the pavement, with its five and occasionally six dedication crosses cut on the stone. Norwich has one in which a small black slab bearing the crosses is let into the large altar slab.

All images, “representative of the persons of the Trinity or of any Angell or Saint” were to be “utterly demolished,” and all vestments “defaced”; with the quaint proviso that the order should “not extend to any image, picture or coat-of-arms set up or graven onely for a Monument of any King, Prince or Nobleman, or other dead person which hath not been commonly reputed or taken for a saint.”

In our English churches the most noticeable bit of mediæval work is in many cases the font, which has often escaped when all the rest of the building inside and out has been defaced by neglect or destroyed by restoration. Much destruction followed on the Reformation, and even in Elizabeth’s reign, in spite of a royal mandate to preserve the old form of baptism “at the font and not with a bason,” attacks were constantly made on the fonts, and especially on the font-covers, which makes the preservation of the Frieston font-cover with a figure of the Virgin Mary on the top very remarkable. We have in the churchwardens’ accounts in various places this contemptuous entry:—

Parliamentarian soldiers went to greater lengths and broke up the font itself in very many churches. The bowls were often cast out or buried in the churchyard. At Ambleston in Wales the font pedestal was only ten years ago found in use by a farmer as a cheese-press, and the bowl on another farm doing duty as a pig-trough.

Still many have escaped with the loss of their carved covers, and how great the loss is can be judged when we see the beauty of such work as the cover which we still have at Ufford in Suffolk, eighteen feet high, or the similar ones at Grantham and Fosdyke and Frieston in our own county, or at Ewelme (Oxon), and Thaxted (Essex), and again in Suffolk at Sudbury St. Gregory and Hepworth, and one at Thirsk in Yorkshire which rises to the height of twenty-one feet. Sometimes the cover takes the form of a canopy, as at Swymbridge in Devon, and more beautifully in that erected by Bishop Cosin at Durham in 1663. The Sudbury font-cover has doors in it, as we see in the Jacobean cover in Burgh-le-Marsh church, and in the beautiful modern cover at Brant Broughton, both in Lincolnshire.

There were at one time many Saxon fonts, most of which were swept away and replaced in a different form by the Normans. One of the earliest we have is in St. Martin’s Church, Canterbury, the lower part of which, built of twenty-eight wedge-shaped stones, is Saxon or Romano-British, the upper part being Norman put on to heighten it, with the old Saxon rim crowning it, though by some this is called Transitional. This font was inside the church when King Ethelbert was baptised by St. Augustine in the ninth century. But we get back still further when we find runic inscriptions, as on the wonderful square tub font at Bridekirk, Cumberland, and on the little low hollowed stone at Bingley, Yorkshire, attributed to the eighth century, and having three lines of runes which are read thus:—

“Eadbert, King, ordered to hew this dipstone for us, pray you for his soul.” He reigned 737 to 758, when as Æthelred King of Mercia in 675, had done at Bardney Abbey in the previous century, he resigned the crown and took the tonsure. Mellor, in Derbyshire, has a Saxon font, but without inscription.

The remarkable font at Bag Enderby, Lincolnshire (see Chap. XXX.), with its Scandinavian myth, is unique among fonts, though it has counterparts on many of the pre-Norman crosses in Northumbria. The font at Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, is also a very early one, and covered with Celtic scroll-work, this, though of the same kind, is bigger than the usual plain little stone tubs which, as a rule, mark the Saxon period.

The Norman fonts also are mainly of tub form, but often ornamented with cable moulding and arcading, as at Silk Willoughby, Lincolnshire.

The lead fonts, twenty-nine of which are in existence, are all Norman; most of these have arcading all round and figures within the arches; perhaps the best is at Dorchester, Oxon, showing the apostles. But at Brookland, in Romney Marsh, there is a double row of arcading with the signs of the Zodiac above, and figures cleverly emblematic of the months below. At Childrey, Berks, the figures are without arcading and represent bishops with crosiers, all quaintly of the same attenuated shape, and in very high relief. Berkshire and Oxon have several of these lead fonts, and Gloucestershire exhibits six, all cast in the same mould; Lincolnshire has only one at Barnetby-le-Wold, which is noticeable, however, as being the largest of them all, thirty-two inches in diameter; that at Brookland being the deepest with sixteen inches.

The Tournai group of black marble or basalt with thick central pedestal and four corner shafts, of which that at Winchester is the best, are described under Lincoln, in Chap. XIX. This form of support is pretty general through the thirteenth century, often with much massive carving and ornamentation on bowl and shafts, until the shafts developed, in some cases, into an open arcade round the central pillar, as best seen at Barnack, Northants. The tallest fonts and finest in design are of the fifteenth century, and are mostly octagonal pedestal fonts and frequently mounted on steps as in the churches of the Marsh near Boston, e.g., Benington and Leverton. Some bowls are found with seven panels as at Hundleby, six as at Ewerby, Heckington and Sleaford, nine as at Orleton, in Herefordshire, and at Bigby, in Lincolnshire, thus giving eight panels for figures, and allowing one to be placed against a wall or pillar; and ten, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen are not unknown. In our own county we have mentioned the font in nearly every case when describing a church, and will only now recall a few instances of the best. In addition to the Tournai font at Thornton Curtis and that of lead at Barnetby, the finest specimens of Early English will be found at Thorpe St. Peter’s near Wainfleet—a very chaste design; the supporting shafts are gone, but the capitals show heads of bishop, king, and knight, and a knot of flowers supporting the bowl; and at Weston, near Spalding, where is one of singularly graceful form, standing on steps with a broad platform for the priest. At Thurlby, near Bourne, is a tub of Barnack stone which has pilasters all round it, and curious carved work dividing the panels, the whole being set on four square stone legs.

Of Decorated fonts, Ewerby is remarkable; hexagonal, with sides going straight down from the bowl, each panel representing a window with tracery, tending in design to Perpendicular, so that it probably dates from the end of the fourteenth century. The windows are filled with diaper work, and surrounded by a border of quatre-foils and flowing foliage. Other good Decorated fonts are at Strubby and Maltby-le-Marsh and Huttoft, all near Alford. The Perpendicular period is best seen at Covenham St. Mary, North Somercotes, Bourne, Pinchbeck, Leverton, and Benington.

It is on the panels of the handsome fifteenth century fonts that the seven sacraments are carved, leaving one panel for any appropriate subject, and these panels are often real pictures of the methods of the time, and form most valuable records; the pedestal usually has its panels filled with Apostolic figures.

It is curious that nearly all the thirty “seven sacrament fonts” in the kingdom are found in East Anglia; those of Walsoken, Little Walsingham, East Dereham, and Great Glenham in Norfolk, and Westall in Suffolk, are specially fine. And the churchwarden’s accounts for East Dereham show that no expense was spared on the making; the total of £12 14s. 2d., being equivalent to over £200 of our money.

The sacraments depicted are Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, The Eucharist, Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. But to return to our own county.

Utterby, near Louth, has an open channel to drain the water off from the font into the churchyard—a very uncommon feature.

Wickenby, near Wragby, retains the old bar and staple to secure the font cover, at the time when the fonts were all ordered to be locked to prevent possibility of the water being tainted by magic. “Water bewitched” is a familiar expression for weak tea. I wonder if it comes from this.

Of later fonts the quaintest is in Moulton church, near Spalding, and now disused. It represents the trunk of a tree carved in stone, the branches going round the bowl and the serpent round the trunk, with Adam and Eve, rather more than half life size, discussing the apple. It dates from 1830, and seems to be a copy of one in the church of St. James’, Piccadilly, said to have been carved in marble by Grinling Gibbons.

Mr. Francis Bond, in his charming book on porches and fonts, says that some of the fonts in our most ancient Lincolnshire churches, Cabourn, Waith, Scartho and Clee, look older than they are by reason of their coarse workmanship. He notes that the cover of the Skirbeck font belonged to a larger one destroyed by the Puritans, the present font having been put up in 1662.

The material of all the fonts described above is either stone or lead. We have very few of any other material, but of these by far the most interesting are those made of solid oak, of which specimens are extant at Dinas-Mawddwy (pronounced Mouthy) and Evenechtyd in Wales. But one might go on long enough talking about fonts, and I would only urge readers to go themselves and study them, and if they would pick out a few of the finest they should visit the fonts and font covers we have mentioned, and especially such typical fonts as are to be found at Winchester and Durham, at Walsoken in Norfolk, at Fishlake in Yorkshire, and Bridekirk in Cumberland, whenever they happen to be in those neighbourhoods.

The worst of fonts is that they are so easily removable. Even in such out-of-the-way places as Crowle the font has not remained, though the Norman south wall with its beautiful doorway is in quite good repair.

CHAPTER XXIII ROADS FROM LOUTH, NORTH AND WEST

The road from Louth to Grimsby, in its first part, is described elsewhere; but north of Ludborough it passes through a succession of small villages in each of which is a very early church tower. These are all somewhat similar to the two primitive churches in Lincoln and to the famous one at Barton-on-Humber, but they have no “Long-and-Short” work which is distinctive of the Saxon towers, and so the term Romanesque perhaps best describes them. They are certainly pre-Norman. Similar groups have been described near Caistor and Gainsborough in Chaps. XVII. and XX., and others mentioned in Chap. XXII. It was a bright and breezy morning early in June when we set out from Well to visit this remarkable group. The trees were at their best, chestnuts and may trees still in bloom, and in the wayside gardens the laburnum with its “dropping-wells of fire” was a joy to see. As we passed along the wind brought the strong scent of the mustard fields and the delicious perfume of the beans, not badly described by the Barber to his wife as “just like the very most delicious hair-oil, my dear.” The pastures were golden with buttercups, but the most wonderful sight of all was the profusion of chervil, or cow-parsley (Anthriscus), which, with its lace-like flowers, at times filled the space of grass between the road and the hedge with mile upon mile of its delicate white blossom, and in places lined every hedge, showing above the ordinary low-cut Lincolnshire fence, or, where the hedge was higher, whitening the lower half in lines of flowery loveliness. It nowhere encroached on the cultivated land, but every hedge and ditch and roadside was marked out by it in a profusion of soft white blossoms which was quite astonishing. We note that the “tender ash” is still, as our Lincolnshire poet has it, delaying ‘to clothe herself when all the woods are green,’ but a few days of such balmy sunshine will woo even her leaves from out the bud, and full summer will be with us. The red cattle are feeding in little herds, and the sheep, white from the hands of the shearer, are dotted about the fields. The labourers seem, most of them, to be at the same work, weeding the corn; but as we get further on to the heavy lands whence Holton-le-Clay so aptly gets its name, we see teams of four horses abreast harnessed to the “Drags,” by which the great clods are broken up.

The first of the group of towers we look at is Waith, a small cruciform building in a churchyard thickly planted with trees, two fine cedars among them. There are some Early English arcades to the nave, but outside, the tower alone is ancient. This originally was just the width of the nave, and has no openings in the north and south walls. It is also built, not of rubble with quoins, but of dressed stones throughout, solidly but roughly built, with a tiny opening low down; and above the invariable string course, a double light of two small round-headed arches supported by a stout mid-wall shaft with heavy impost. Coming away, we note on a tombstone the curious and possibly Roman surname ‘Porcass.’ Two miles south-west is Grainsby where, as at Clee and Scartho, the stones bear the red marks of Danish fire, and where, inside the tower, is an old boulder stone. Two miles north, on the Grimsby road, is Holton-le-Clay, where the tower of the church is of similar antiquity, all but the top storey above the string-course. The west side has only one very small window, but it has on the east side a good tall Romanesque tower-arch, and there is an Early Norman or Saxon font. The rest of the church is of the poorest in all respects.

As we proceed, the tall windmill with six sails shows above the Waltham woods on our left, and we pass a roadside inn with the sign of “The Old Pop Shop.” Three miles more and we reach Scartho, a village which is beginning to take the overflow of Grimsby and is full of new buildings. This is the only living in the north or east of England which belongs to Jesus College, Oxford. The church is very interesting on account of its tower, which is Saxon in all but the absence of “Long-and-Short” work. The stones of the tower are of all shapes and kinds, the quoins alone being of hewn stone. Below are only the tiny windows common to all Saxon towers, and above, the belfry has two-light windows with the usual mid-wall shaft. In the west of the tower is a doorway with a round head of large stones and massive imposts.

There is a deep, narrow archway from the nave into the tower, with a little window looking into the nave, and there have been originally tall arches in both the north and south walls, narrow of necessity so as to leave wall enough at each angle for the tower to stand on. A charming original font is there, but hideously placed on a modern inverted stone bowl. The tower and the font are the only things worth looking at, but both of these are of unusual interest. The parapet is Perpendicular and built of different stone, and it is easy to see from the red appearance of many calcined stones used in the tower that it has been rebuilt from the old materials after a former church had been burnt by that scourge of Lincolnshire—the Dane. The principal entrance is now through a big doorway, but in the thirteenth century was in the south wall of the tower.

Leaving Scartho we quickly reach the outskirts of Grimsby, and, turning to the right on the Cleethorpes road, we come in a couple of miles to the church of Clee. This is the best of the group we have been visiting. It is one of the earliest churches in the county, and is highly interesting, not only for the venerable antiquity of its tower, but for the fine and varied early Norman and Transition architecture in the body of the church. As a rule there is nothing left of any antiquity in these pre-Norman churches but the tower.

There is a narrow western doorway and a much taller one of similar character opening into the nave; each has Voussoirs set in double rows. Just above the belfry on the west face is a keyhole light made of top and side stones, and a circular light in the south face. Mr. Jeans, in Murray’s “Lincolnshire,” notes that they have all similar characteristics—“Rubble walling with large quoins, a bold string-course dividing them into stages, tall, narrow doorways with rude imposts and coupled belfry windows with a massive mid-wall shaft.” All this we find at Clee, and the red calcined stones in the wall tell of the Danish fire here as at Scartho. The early Norman arcade in the north of the nave has square piers with shafts at the corners, one of them twisted, like the work in Durham Cathedral. All are different in their structure and in the carving of their capitals. The south arcade has thick round columns of later Norman work with chevron, billet, and very thick cable moulding. The arches are round, and the stones of the moulding, as at Somerby, being cut by various hands and without plan or drawing, fit together, but are hardly any two of them of the same sized pattern. This is quite usual in Norman arch mouldings. I noticed it lately over the west doorway of the fine tower of New Romney, Kent. The arches at the east of each aisle which give upon the transepts are pointed, but with Norman mouldings, and the transept arches are the same; the transepts themselves and the low central tower and the chancel are all modern. The old tower is, as usual, at the west end. On the shaft of one of the south arcade pillars is a very interesting record of two notable Bishops of Lincoln. It is in Latin, cut on a small tablet of marble about six inches by eight, and let in flush with the pillar. It says that “the Church was dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity and the blessed Virgin by Hugh Bishop of Lincoln in the year 1192, in the time of King Richard and re-dedicated after restoration by Bishop Christopher Wordsworth in 1888.” 1192 was the same year in which Bishop Hugh began the choir at Lincoln, which is pure Early English, but doubtless the nave at Clee was built some years before it was dedicated. The font is a massive Norman one, and a portion of the shaft of an early cross stands just inside the door.

Clee Church.

The pathway to the church is lined on either side with tall fuschias, not a usual sight near the east coast. This church is the old parish church of Cleethorpes, which is the most crowded of the Lincolnshire watering-places, the goal of endless excursions from all the neighbouring counties, but not a place of any attraction for residents. Six miles due east across the river Humber is the revolving light of the Spurn Head lighthouse, plainly seen from the hill above Alford, thirty miles away. Between the Louth and Grimsby main road and the sea another road runs south from Clee by Humberstone and Tetney, thence to Covenham and Alvingham and so to Louth. Humberstone is a parish which goes with Holton-le-Clay, though they are about three miles apart. It is remarkable for its fine avenues of trees, and has a good Perpendicular tower. But in this respect it is surpassed by the extremely well-built and well-designed tower at the next village of Tetney. This, unlike the body of the church, is entirely of good, hard, grey Yorkshire stone. Some “Blow Wells,” which are circular pits of very blue water 100 feet deep, are in a field half a mile to the south-east of the church. There are others at Laceby and Little Cotes, both in the valley of the Freshney river, six miles off. The water comes through faults in the limestone ridge four or five miles to the west. A stream also flows through Tetney, which comes out of the Croxby pond near Hatcliffe, the only piece of water in the neighbourhood. The roads we have been writing of are all entirely in the flat ground, but from the Louth and Grimsby main road a branch goes off to the left, after crossing a fourteenth century bridge with ribbed arches, at Utterby, which runs north along the western edge of the Wold past Brocklesby to Barrow on Humber. This, when it is opposite to Waith, has on its left a place called Ravendale, and, on its right, a little hidden away village, called Ashby-cum-Fenby. At Ravendale there was once a priory belonging to a Premonstratensian abbey in Brittany. It was seized by the Crown with other alien priories in 1337 to form part of the dowry of Joan of Navarre, Queen of Henry IV. Ashby-cum-Fenby has very pretty Early-English two-light windows in the belfry, set round with dog-tooth moulding. A Crusader effigy of 1300 is at the west end of the tower, and two fine monuments to two sisters of the Drury family are in good preservation; one to Sir F. and Lady Wray closely resembles the Irby monument at Whaplode, and, as the families are related, probably the work is by the same sculptor. That of Susannah Drury in the chancel is a good piece of sculpture, but the whole has literally been whitewashed, which does not improve it. The churchyard is for the most part deplorably neglected, and a few sheep would greatly improve it. A row of almshouses with tiny gardens, made like the Workmen’s row at Tattershall, adjoins the west side of the churchyard.

The road after this passes nothing of importance near it, till it reaches Brocklesby.

Close to the bell ropes in the tower at Tetney is a neat little brass which aptly commemorates a fine old parishioner as follows:—

Matthew Lakin
born 1801 died 1899 One of the regular bellringers of
Tetney for 84 years and sometime Clerk and Sexton.

The highway which goes out of Louth on the west, after passing Thorpe Hall, within a mile of the town, soon splits into two, the one going up the hill to the right has, at first, a north-easterly course, but after passing through South Elkington leaves North Elkington on the right and goes on due east to Market Rasen and Gainsborough, and is the great east-and-west road of North Lincolnshire: the only other roads which take that direction being the Boston-Sleaford-and-Newark and the Donington-and-Grantham roads in the southern part of the county, and the great Sutton-Holbeach-Spalding-Bourne-and-Colsterworth road. But none of these run so straight.

The other road from the foot of South Elkington hill goes on at first due west till, passing Welton-le-Wold on the right and Gayton-le-Wold on the left, it drops into the picturesque little village of Burgh-on-Bain (pronounced Bruff). So far we have had a wide Wold view, but no blue distances over fen or marsh; but Grimblethorpe and Burgh-on-Bain are in two parallel little valleys, and when the road turns here, at seven miles distance from Louth, to the south-west, a quite different type of country is entered, beginning with the woods of Girsby, the seat of Mr. J. Fox, quondam joint Master of the Southwold Hounds, and Hainton Hall and park, where the Heneage family have been seated since the time of Henry III. The church tower has some of the characteristics of the early Norman or pre-Norman groups, and both church and chantry-chapel are rich in monuments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and brasses of still earlier date. The altar tombs of 1553 and 1595 are magnificent, and the kneeling effigies of 1559 and 1610 are in excellent preservation. The helmets and spurs over the effigy of John (1559), and the gilded armour of Sir George (1595), are especially noticeable, as also are the varied spellings of the name—in 1435 Henege, in 1530 Hennage, and in 1553 Henneage.

From here a road leads to the left to South Willingham and Benniworth, but the main road runs through East and West Barkwith, with those fine grass borders, each wider than the road, which are characteristic of the Wold highways, for five miles to Wragby, eleven miles from Lincoln. Near East Barkwith Station is Mr. Turnor’s residence, Panton Hall, and from West Barkwith a road goes to the Torringtons. Here Gilbert of Sempringham was rector, and established one of his Gilbertine houses. The road on either side of the rather town-like village of Wragby is uninteresting, till suddenly, at a distance of eight miles, the towers of Lincoln Minster appear, not in front, but away to the left, and then again disappear from view. But the road turns, and after four miles, lo! again the Minster, straight in front; and as you approach from the north-east you see all three towers at the end of the long road, getting ever finer as you approach and are able to make out the details of the architecture. Only too quickly you come to the top of the hill, and gaze at the splendid upper windows of the great bell tower, now close on your right, then sweep down the curve and, passing through the Minster yard by the Potter and Exchequer gates, go out northwards by the old Roman Ermine Street. We soon reach the turn to Riseholme, where from 1830, when Buckden was given up, the bishops resided, until Bishop King built the present house in the Old Palace grounds in Lincoln, and where in the churchyard are the tombs of her much-revered Bishops Kaye and Wordsworth, though their monuments are in the cathedral. After this we pass nothing, the road running straight on for over thirty miles, and on much the same level all the way. But we will only go to the thirteenth milestone and turn to the right at Caenby Corner, where the Gainsborough and Louth road crosses the Ermine Street, and so make our way back by Market Rasen. The first village we shall come to is Glentham, which contains in chancel and chantry several monuments of the Tourney family from 1452. It is believed that the church was originally dedicated to “Our Lady of Pity,” hence, over the porch is a beautiful little carving of the Virgin holding the dead Christ, and the Tourney arms below it. A brass to Ann Tourney has the following play on words:—

“Abiit non obiit, preiit non periit.”

Till the early part of last century, a rent charge on some land in the village provided a shilling each for seven old maids every Good Friday for washing the recumbent effigy of a lady of the Tourney family which is under the gallery, with water from “The New Well.” This singular survival of the custom of washing an effigy of the dead Christ for a representation of the entombment is now abandoned, as the land was sold in 1852 without reservation of the rent charge on it. The effigy was known as “Molly Grime,” a corruption of “Malgraen,” which means in some ancient tongue or dialect the ‘Holy-Image-Washing.’ (“Lincs. Notes and Queries.” I., 125.)

The church is rather a curiosity, being seated throughout with box pens and having a gallery at the west end. Even the font is painted, and is a cheese-shaped stone on three legs placed on a round block. The door is old and has an unmistakable sanctuary ring on it, as at Durham, and the porch has a pretty little two-light window on each side.

The Tournays of Caenby are one of the genuine old county families, having held land in it certainly since 1328. John Tournay, in the sixteenth century, married a Talboys co-heiress, and was brother-in-law to Sir Christopher Willoughby and Sir Edward Dymoke.

The manor of Caenby-cum-Glentham, given in the thirteenth century to Barlings Abbey, and at the dissolution, along with so many other things, bestowed by Henry VIII. on Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was purchased by Edward Tournay in 1675, but he had inherited another manor in Caenby, or Cavenby through a long line of ancestors from the family of Thornton, of whom one Gilbert de Thornton was Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, 1289-1295. The present representative of the Tournays, or Tornys, who, to suit both spellings, have a tower for a crest and a chevron between three Bulls for their coat of arms, is Sir Arthur Middleton of Belsay Castle, Northumberland, who parted with the property at Caenby in 1871.

Three miles beyond Glentham we reach “Bishops’ Bridge” inn. Here a fourteenth century bridge crosses the stream at the junction of the River Rase with the Ancholme. Thence, after several turns, the road reaches West Rasen, where there is a most picturesque and interesting Pack Horse Bridge of the same date, with three ribbed arches, placed at right angles to the present road. The church has heavy embattled turrets and some curious carved figures in the chancel.

Going south from here, a roundabout road takes you to Buslingthorpe, passing by the two oddly-named villages of Toft-next-Newton and Newton-by-Toft, each apparently, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, leaning for support on the other. Two miles to the west, on the Normanby road, is Gibbet-posthouse. The name Gibbet-post or Gibbet-hill is not uncommon, but I doubt if a single post remains. Eighty years ago some still held their ghastly record. My uncle, Edward Rawnsley, who was born in 1815, told me once that he had passed one with a skeleton hanging in chains, as he rode from Bourne to Wisbech. The Melton Ross gallows was renewed in 1830.

Only two miles east of West Rasen we reach Middle Rasen, which has an interesting church. It once had two, one on each side of the stream; the existing one, which belonged to Tupholme Abbey, has a very fine Norman south door and Norman piers to the chancel arch, and a deeply moulded Early English arcade, on which is a singular beaded moulding. There is also a low-side window and a beautiful Perpendicular rood screen, also a fourteenth-century effigy of a priest with vestments and chalice. In the churchyard is the font of the other church.

In the days of toll-bars there were two at Middle Rasen; usually they were let to the highest bidder, and the man who took the main road gate in the year 1845 is still living, at the age of eighty-nine, in 1912. A toll-bar keeper in the days before railways, when all the corn went to market by road, had little rest at night, as waggons full or empty passed through at all hours. In his early days food was dear—tea eight shillings a pound—and wages were low, and bread and water and barley-chaff dumpling were the common fare. He is now a rate-collector and, of course, can read and write, but he never went to school, and at eight years of age he began to earn a little by “scaring crows.” At fifteen he was mowing and using the flail at his native village of Legbourne. In a field, near where the station now is, he remembers a man mowing wheat for six days on bread and water, and the crop yielded six quarters to the acre. A woman of ninety-three, now living in the Wolds, remembers when flour was 4s. 6d. a stone, and a loaf cost 11½d. instead of 2½d. They mixed rye with wheat flour and baked at home; and a labourer who earned enough to buy a stone of flour a day thought he could live well.

Only the other day I heard of a labouring family living just between the Wold and the Marsh, seven sons of a retired Crimean soldier. The clergyman used to make them a present at the christening if he might choose the name, and he gave them grand historic names for them to live up to, e.g., Washington and Wellington, and the plan certainly answered, for they all took to the land and by steadiness, hard work and good sense raised themselves first to a foreman’s position and then to that of small occupiers, with the result that the family now farms three or four hundred acres between them. Yet they, as children, had had a hard struggle, and never knew either luxury or comfort. Their cottage had but two rooms, and half the family having gone to bed with the sun, habitually got up when night was but half over and came and sat round the fire whilst the other half went to bed. The conditions of life have improved since then, but the men of to-day can’t have more of the right stuff in them.

Another instance of the same kind which goes to prove that no walk of life is without its chances, if only the man is strenuous and sober and gifted with good sense, is that of a family in the Louth neighbourhood, three grandsons of a labouring man, who in two generations have raised themselves to such purpose that they now farm between them some 10,000 acres. Of course the great factors in such successful careers are steadiness and industry, and that shrewd good sense which is so characteristic of the best Lincolnshire natives.

Not many years ago I talked with a small farmer in Hampshire, whose wages as a labourer used to be ten and sixpence a week, when a pair of boots cost eighteen shillings; but then, he said, they did wear well. The family lived, year in year out, on hot water with barley in it and a sprinkling of salt. And yet, incredible as it may seem, he and his wife had brought up a family of ten. There was some grit in those people.

From Middle Rasen it is little more than a mile to Market Rasen. Men still living there can recall the Shrove Tuesday football, when the whole male population of the village, aided by friends from outside, spent some strenuous hours in trying to get the ball into Middle Rasen. The windows were boarded up all along the road, and the struggle of hundreds of rough fellows was more concerned in pushing their opponents into the beck by the roadside than in keeping on the ball.

The town has an unusual number of schools in it. The De Aston School, founded 1401 at Spital, was set up here in 1862 as a middle-class school, and has been most successful; and the church school and still larger Wesleyan school between them can accommodate nearly 400 children.

From Market Rasen three miles of low country brings us to North Willingham. The Hall, the home of Mr. Wright, was for over a hundred years the residence of the family of Boucherett, whose former mansion stood a couple of miles to the west. The present house with its pretty bit of water faces the road. In the village we may see a blacksmith who, at the age of ninety, can still shoe a horse. We are now twelve miles from Louth; a road to the left goes to Tealby and Bayons Manor, and to the right by Sixhills to Hainton; and here, instead of going right on up the sweep of the hill, we will make the round by Tealby and come back to the high road at Ludford Parva.

Tealby is quite an ideal village, with beautiful trees, a fine and well-placed church, a stream and bridges and picturesque cottages. One road leads from it up the steep “Bully hill,” a 300 feet rise, another road takes us to Bayons Manor, the seat of the Tennyson d’Eyncourt family. Originally there was an old eleventh or twelfth century fortified dwelling about a hundred yards up the hill, traces of which may still be seen in bank or dyke. This was replaced about the sixteenth century by a fairly large house, at one time thatched; part of this remains as the nucleus of the present castellated mansion built in the romantic era of the Waverley novels and completed with drawbridge and barbican in the middle of the last century by Charles Tennyson, M.P., uncle of the poet, who, after the death of his father, George Tennyson, took the name of d’Eyncourt. His grandson, E. Tennyson d’Eyncourt, now lives there. The house has a fine open-roofed hall, and is replete with interesting mementoes of the Tennysons as well as of the ancient family of d’Eyncourt. The site is good, with a charming garden sloping to the park, in which is a fine piece of water. The name Bayons is derived from its first Norman possessor, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. He was half-brother to William the Conqueror on the mother’s side, and he was so exalted a personage that he was called “Totius Angliae Vice-dominus, sub rege.” Thus he was on occasions the king’s representative, and seems to have had as much land in Lincolnshire and elsewhere granted to him by William, as Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk had under Henry VIII., for we hear that he held seventy-six manors in the county and 463 in other parts.

It is interesting to know that Bulwer Lytton in 1848, when he was trying to recover his seat for Lincoln, wrote his historical romance “Harold” here, making good use of his friend Mr. Tennyson d’Eyncourt’s fine collection of early English chronicles.

A little north of Tealby is the temporarily disused church of Walesby, where once Robert Burton (1577-1640), author of the “Anatomy of Melancholy,” was rector, before he went to Segrave in Leicestershire. It is hoped that this church may soon be in use again.

One of the many roads across the Wolds from Rasen to Grimsby passes through Walesby to Stainton-le-Vale and Thorganby, another goes through Tealby, Kirmond-le-Mire, and Binbrook, once a market town, and near to Swinhope, the ancestral seat of the Alingtons. Both roads after this unite and pass by East Ravendale, Brigsley, Waltham and Scartho.

A clear stream flows north through a narrow valley from Kirmond top through Swinhope, Thorganby, Croxby pond, Hatcliffe, and almost to Barnoldsby, and thence east to Brigsley, and so across the marsh to Tetney Haven.

Leaving Tealby, we climb to the top of the Ludford ridge, and, turning to the right, come to the Market Rasen and Louth highway at Willingham Corner, thence, to the left, by Ludford Magna with its cruciform church on the infant ‘Bain.’ To the right we notice Wykeham Hall, further on to the left the church of Kelstern, standing solitary in a field, and soon we reach the singularly beautiful and well-wooded approach to Louth by South Elkington, the seat of Mr. W. Smyth. The church here, whose patronage goes with the Elkington estate, was given about 1250 to the convent at Ormsby, which presented to it until the dissolution, when it fell to the Crown, and was given, in 1601, by Queen Elizabeth to the famous John Bolle of Thorpe Hall. This Hall we now pass on our approach to Louth, and a splendid picture awaits us when we see that lovely spire of Louth church, standing up out of a grove of trees, and eventually presenting itself to our eyes, in its full height and beautiful proportions, as we come into the town by the west gate.

The highway from Louth to Horncastle is best traversed the reverse way. Starting from Horncastle with its little river—the Bain—its cobble-paved streets and its pretty little thatched hostel, the King’s Head, the Louth road brings us soon to West Ashby. Then, at a distance of four miles from Horncastle, we come suddenly on the unpretending buildings of the Southwold Hunt kennels. These are in the parish of Belchford, which lies half a mile to the right.

Westgate, Louth.

We now climb 300 feet up Flint Hill, a name which tells us that we are on an outlier of the chalk wolds, and a fine view opens out on the left which we can enjoy for a mile, after which the road turns to the right and discloses a totally different scene. In front lies the snug village of Scamblesby, and behind it the south-eastern portion of the South Wolds, sweeping round from Oxcombe’s wooded slope in a wide curve to Redhill, behind which the Louth and Lincoln railway emerges near Donington-on-Bain. It is a fine landscape.

We descend to the village, and passing in the wide valley the turn to Asterby and Goulceby on the left, set ourselves to climb the main ridge of the Wolds by Cawkwell. On the top of the hill we pass a cross road which runs for many miles right and left without coming to anything in the shape of a village; and naturally so, for the road like the Roman streets in the Lake District, keeps sturdily along the highest ground, and who would care to live on a wind-swept ridge?

To the right the Wold runs up to nearly 500 feet, but our road only crosses it, and after little more than a mile we see the level of the marsh and the tall spire of Louth five miles ahead of us. The road here forks, and forsaking the direct route by Raithby we will take the right-hand road and in a couple of miles find ourselves dropping to the village of Tathwell. This we circle round and arrive at the lane which leads to the church.

This little church, dedicated to St. Vedast, who was Bishop of Arras and Cambray (circa 500), was once a Norman building, but the Norman pilasters supporting the round tower-arch of the eleventh century are all that is left of that period, unless the four courses nearest the ground of large stones of a hard, grey, sandstone grit can be referred to it. Upon these now is built a structure of brick with a broad tower at the west and an apse at the east; but the charm of the place is its situation, on a steep little hill overlooking a good sheet of clear chalk-stream water. You look westwards across this to a pathway running up the slope opposite which is fringed with a fine row of beeches, and just below you at the edge of the little graveyard you see the thatched roof of a primitive cottage, whilst beyond it the ground is broken into steep little grass fields, the whole most picturesquely grouped.

We leave the secluded little village, and turning to the right, pass between the Danish camp on Orgarth Hill and the six long barrows on Bully Hill (the second hill of the name, the other being near Tealby). These are all probably of the same date; the latter in a field adjoining the road. A mile more and we turn to the left at Haugham, where is another and larger tumulus, after passing which, on the left, we soon come to the main Louth and Spilsby road.

The number six seems to have been a favourite one with the Vikings. Eleven miles to the west of Bully Hill is “Sixhills,” between Hainton and North Willingham, and another place of the same name near Stevenage in Hertfordshire shows a fine row of six tumuli close to the road side.

On October 25 there was a funeral in the Tathwell churchyard, when, in presence of her surviving grand-children and great-grandchildren Jane Chaplin was laid to rest beside the husband who had died forty years before. She was not only of a remarkable age—it is seldom that a coffin plate bears such an inscription:—

“Jane Chaplin, born 24th June, 1811, died 21st October, 1913”—

but during all that long life she was always cheerful and kindly and full of interest, and up to the very last, within two hours of her death, she was bright and happy, lively with talk and merriment, and in full possession of all her faculties. On her 102nd birthday she received her relatives and delighted them with her reminiscences of the days before they were born, telling the writer how she remembered Alfred Tennyson asking her to dance at the local ball, and adding that she was still able to read and to paint, though she had of late years given up reading by candlelight for fear of trying her eyes, and saying how thankful she was that she felt so well and had no pains and was, in fact, much better than she used to be fifty years ago. She had left Lincolnshire and lived of late years at Bournemouth and then at Cheltenham, where she literally ‘fell on sleep’ and passed from this life to the next, without any illness or struggle, in the happiest possible manner. Truly, we may say with Milton—

CHAPTER XXIV LINCOLNSHIRE BYWAYS

The Romans had a road from the sea probably by Burgh and Gunby and then on the ridge by Ulceby cross-roads to Louth, and so on the east edge of the Wold north to the Humber.

It is not a particularly interesting route, but if at Gunby we turn to the right we shall pass Willoughby with its old sandstone church in a well-kept churchyard, a somewhat rare thing on this route. The church (St. Helen’s) has some Saxon stones in the south wall of the tower, and a double arch on the north side of the chancel, a Norman arch in front of a fourteenth century one. Here, in 1579, was born the redoubtable Captain John Smith, president of Virginia and the hero of the famous Pocahontas[13] story, a man whose life was more full of adventure than perhaps any in history. The interest which Pocahontas created when she came to England is evinced by the number of inn signs of “The belle Sauvage.” The church has a singular slab with the head and shoulders of a man, name unknown, in relief cut on it at one end—his feet showing at the other, something after the fashion of a “sandwich-man.” The huge belfry ladder is also noteworthy, being made of two trees, whole, with stout, rough timber spiked to them for steps.

From Willoughby to Alford and on by Saleby, Withern, Gayton-le-Marsh, Great and Little Carlton, and Manby, the road is not remarkable; but, after crossing the main road from Horncastle to Saltfleet, which has come over the Wold viâ Scamblesby, Cawkwell and Tathwell, it arrives at Grimoldby. Here the church is noteworthy for the size and excellence of its gargoyles. Outside it has heavy battlemented parapets, a good gable-cross with pent-house over it, as on the Somersby cross, and the entire shaft of a churchyard cross. Inside, the nave is whitewashed, but the fine old roof remains, and on one of the beams is the pulley block for the rood light, as at Addlethorpe and Winthorpe. The door is old and has been enriched with carving and there is the lower part of a good rood screen with three returns, possibly for lights, projecting twelve inches westwards. This arrangement is also found in the rood screen at Thornton Curtis. In the north porch is a fine holy water stoup.

Manby.

For the next six miles churches are to be found at every mile.

South Cockerington has a little holy water stoup just inside the door. Part of a handsome rood screen is stowed away under the tower, the rest being in Manby Church. The church has had a profusion of consecration crosses—a dozen have been noticed, some of which still remain cut in the stone and filled with dark cement. Nearly all the churches about here are in two styles—Decorated and Perpendicular; and though Grimoldby exhibits only one style, it is the transition between these two. The most noticeable thing in the church is the alabaster altar tomb to Sir Adrian Scrope, with effigies of his five sons over whom is the legend ‘similis in prole resurgo,’ and two daughters and an infant, over whom is written ‘Pares et impares.’ Does this mean “Like in face but different in character,” or “Like their father but not so good-looking”? The knight is represented armed and half reclining on one elbow, with his helmet behind him and his mailed glove by his knee, the head and face very life-like, the hands and fingers extremely delicate. On a brass plate he is described as the thrice honourable Adrian Scrope, Kt., etc., and this verse follows:—

It was not easy to find the way to South Cockerington as the road to it literally forms a square, and then passes on from the churchyard gate right through a farm; but to reach North Cockerington you seem to go round at least five sides of a square or squares, then cross the Louth River, and then a bridge just above a water mill, and passing by two gates through a farmyard you arrive in a grass field, in which, devoid of any sort of fence on the north and west sides, the plain-looking church of Alvingham stands; a gate leads to the south door, near which a few yards of grass is mown, but the rest of the churchyard is a tangle of long grass and tall nettles; and amongst them, within a stone’s throw, stands a second and larger church of North Cockerington, in which no service is held. “There is some wildernesses!” was the apt remark of our driver as we reached the churchyard gate.

Two churches in one churchyard are to be found at Evesham in Worcestershire, and at Reepham in Norfolk. These I have seen; others are at Willingate in Essex, and at Trimley in Suffolk. At Evesham there is even a third tower for the bells. This is of stone, but in a few other places, as at Brookland in Romney Marsh, the bell tower is a separate timber erection. The reason for two here was that Alvingham, dedicated to St. Adelwold, is the parish church, but there was once a Gilbertine priory for monks and nuns close by, to which the other church served as a chapel. This was also the parish church of North Cockerington at a very early date, mention being made of it in a charter of about 1150.

The Alvingham Cartulary or priory book, once in possession of F. G. Ingoldby, Esq., is now in Louth Museum, and among the charters is a curious entry of an agreement between the joint occupiers of a meadow that their men should meet on a certain day at Cockerington Church and there fix a day for beginning to mow.

The next village is one which gives his title to Lord Yarborough. The church, like so many in this neighbourhood, Grimoldby and South Cockerington being honourable exceptions, is locked, but the chief point of interest is to be seen outside. This is a beautiful example of a richly carved doorway. The mouldings of the square head are good and set with little ornaments, and very bold and original carvings run round the arch of the doorway. The space between the arch and the outer square head mould is filled with shallow carved work representing on the left, the fall, with Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and much good foliage carving; and on the right the Lamb and the emblems of the Passion. An old English inscription runs round the arch of the doorway, but is only in part decipherable; the stone is a white hardish sandstone, and the surface a good deal worn, but the whole design is most elegant and unusual.

A mile more brings us to the two churches of Covenham, within a quarter of a mile of each other, and both locked. Covenham St. Mary seems to be built of a hard chalk. There are mason-marks high up on each pilaster of the porch. The other church, of St. Bartholomew, was once a cruciform building. It is made of the same white material, but the tower is now covered with Welsh slate, and one transept is gone. The fonts in both churches are good. That in St. Mary’s is, for beauty of design and boldness of execution, the best in the neighbourhood, but they do not compare for beauty and size with those in the Fen churches, which are lofty and set on wide octagonal basements of three or four steps. Here, the brass to Sir John Skipwyth, who died at, or in the year of, Agincourt, 1415, is in exceptionally good condition. He is armed and has both the long dagger and sword, the latter suspended from his left arm by a strap. The tail of the lion on which he stands is erect between the leg of the knight and his sword.

The rest of the route by Fulston, Tetney and Humberston to Grimsby is not of any interest until we come to Clee, which, with its interesting Saxon church tower, we have already described.

In the Wold country the main roads usually run along the ridges of the Wolds and afford views on either side. One of the best of these, “Hog’s Back” views is obtained from one of the byways which starts from the Spilsby and Alford road at the top of Milescross hill, and runs south till it reaches Gunby. It skirts the wooded belt of the Well Vale estate, and drops into the village of Ulceby which, like most of the tiny Wold villages, lies on the bank of a small stream in a wooded hollow, where the church and farm and a few cottages form a pleasing picture of rural retirement.

Mounting again, the road turns to the left and goes straight ahead on what is evidently a portion of a Roman “street,” giving on the left a view of the “Marsh” towards Mablethorpe, with its grey shimmering line which denotes “the bounding main,” and on the right a still more distant prospect over the flat “fen” lands in the direction of Boston, whose columnar tower rises far up into the sky. The blue haze of the marsh, the purple distance over the fens, with, in the autumn, the long, drifting lines of grey smoke from the burning “quitch,” or “twitch” as they usually call it here, make a delightful impression; and then if we turn fenwards we drop into the leafy hollow of Skendleby village, where once the Conqueror’s friend, Gilbert de Gaunt, resided, and to which William of Waynfleet, the famous Bishop of Winchester, was presented as vicar by the convent of Bardney in 1430. It is a pretty village with its church and manor-house, and thatched, white-washed cottages bright with flowers, and its well-stocked farm. A tall windmill crowns the next height; this is Grebby Mill, and it is interesting to find that there has been a windmill there for 600 years.

For Grebby is old enough to be mentioned in Domesday Book, and in 1317 we have mention of a windmill there belonging to Robert de Willoughby and Margaret his wife.

From the windmill one looks down to the old brick tower of Scremby church, which is the last building on the edge of the slope from which the endless levels of the fen begin and run south till they reach Crowland and Peterborough. From whence the great cathedral, with its splendid west front, looked out in the disastrous August of 1912 over miles and miles of corn-land where the tall sheaves stood up out of a vast expanse of water, the result of the abnormal rains and the burst dyke which made Whittlesea Mere once more resume its ancient appearance.

Below Scremby the road runs to the left to Candlesby, and so rejoins that starting-place of so many byways—Gunby.

There was a church at Scremby in Norman times; at the dissolution the manor came to the all-acquiring Duke of Suffolk. Now-a-days the handbook dismisses it as “of no special interest,” but eighty-five years ago it was thought worth while to mention that “at the west end of the nave is a neat and commodious singing-gallery.”

Those who wish to see the beauties of the country must leave the high ridge every here and there and make a round into the little villages which lie at the foot of the Wolds, mostly on the western slopes where they escape the strong sea winds.

From the Spilsby-and-Louth road a byway branches westwards, close to Walmsgate, which will illustrate this, for it quickly drops into the pretty village of South Ormsby, and, skirting the park on two sides, runs on to the village of Tetford with its red roofs and grey-green church tower nestling under the hill. Thence the white line of road goes north over Tetford hill to Buckland and Haugham, and so rejoins the main road again about four miles north of Walmsgate.

But before leaving Tetford we should take a look at the fine grassy eminence of “Nab hill” with its entrenched camp, behind which lie the kennels of the Southwold hounds at Belchford.

The road from Alford to Louth, by Belleau and Cawthorpe, which runs along the eastern edge of the South Wold and gives such a fine view over the marsh, is interrupted at Louth, and you must go out for the first four miles on the Louth and Grimsby main road, but on reaching Utterby a turn to the left will bring you to a road which goes all the way to Brocklesby without passing through any village but Keelby in the whole sixteen miles. This solitary road begins better than it ends for when it gets opposite to Barnoldby-le-Beck, which is just half way, it sinks to the level of the marsh.

There are plenty of roads between Louth and Caistor, to the north-west, along the Wolds, which are here some eight miles wide; and it would be well worth while for the sake of the view over the marsh to take a little round from Louth, starting out on the Lincoln road by Thorpe Hall, the interesting home of the Bolles family, the ffytches, and, later, of some of the Tennysons. By this route you soon come to the parting of the ways to Wragby and Market Rasen, and taking the right hand road by South Elkington, the charming residence of Mr. W. Smyth, you climb up to a height of 400 feet, and taking the road to the right by North Elkington—whose church has a fine pulpit copied from one still to be seen at Tupholme Abbey, near Bardney—reach Fotherby top, from which for a couple of miles you can command as fine a view of the marsh from Grimsby to Mablethorpe as you can desire. Then leaving the height you can go eastward by North Ormsby, and, joining the Grimsby-and-Louth road at Utterby, run back to Louth. All approaches to Louth are rendered beautiful by the splendid views you get of that marvellous spire; and as the road drops steeply into the town you will hardly know whether the approach from this northern side or from Kenwick on the south forms the most striking picture.

CHAPTER XXV THE BOLLES FAMILY

The byway which runs west from the Spilsby and Alford road, at the foot of Milescross hill near Alford station, after passing Rigsby, comes to a farm with an old manor-house and tiny church in a green hollow to the left. A deep sort of cutting on this side of the church has, along its steep grassy brow, a line of very old yew trees, not now leading to anything. This is all there is of the hamlet from which an ancient and notable family derived its title, the Bolles of Haugh.

Haugh church is a small barn-like building of chalk; the nave twenty-four feet, and the chancel twenty-one feet long, with an enormously thick, small, round-headed arch between them. The chancel is floored with old sepulchral slabs and stone coffin tops, several with Lombardic lettering, and all apparently of the Bolle or Bolles family who lived partly at Haugh in the old manor close to the church, and partly at Thorpe Hall, Louth.

The family of Bolle seemed to have lived at Bolle Hall, Swineshead, from the thirteenth century till the close of the reign of Edward IV., 1483, when, by an intermarriage with the heiress of the Hough family, the elder branch became settled at Hough or Haugh, near Alford, and one of the younger branches settled at Gosberkirke (Gosberton) and spelt their name Bolles. The men of both branches were active both in civil and military positions. Sir George of Gosberton succeeded to the manor of Scampton, near Lincoln, from his father-in-law, Sir John Hart, Lord Mayor of London, 1590. He too became Lord Mayor in 1617, both men being members of the Grocers’ Company. He was knighted by James I., after withstanding his majesty in the matter of travelling through the city of London on a Sunday, on which occasion his conduct somewhat recalls that of Judge Gascoigne in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV.” He died in 1621, and his monument is in St. Swithin’s church, London. His son John was made a baronet by Charles I., and his son George is commemorated on a monument opposite to that of his grandfather, in a pretty Latin inscription beginning—

We hear of a Sir George Bolle being killed at Winceby in 1643, fighting against Cromwell; certainly George’s brother, Sir Robert of Scampton, was one of the jury in 1660 for trying the regicides, and at the death of his son, Sir John, in 1714 the title became extinct. The distinctions of the elder branch, who settled at Haugh, were more military than civil. Their name also has passed away, their lineal descendants being named Bush, Ingilby, Bosville and Towne. The earliest monument to this branch is on a brass plate in Boston Church to Richard Bolle of Haugh, 1591, son of Richard Bolle of Haugh and Maria, daughter and heiress of John Fitzwilliams of Mablethorpe. He was thrice married, and his only son Charles died a year before him, 1590, and is commemorated at Haugh. His daughter Anne married Leonard Cracroft, the others married John and Leonard Kirkman of Keel. His son Charles, whose mother was a Skipworth of South Ormsby, had four wives, his first wife a daughter of Ed. Dymoke of Scrivelsby, and his fourth a daughter of Thomas Dymoke of Friskney. His only son, John, was the son of number two, Brigitt Fane; and his daughter Elizabeth of number three, Mary Powtrell. To this son John, there is also in Haugh Church a well-preserved monument, which shows him kneeling with his wife, attended by their three sons and five daughters, in the usual Jacobean style; date 1606, Aet. suæ 46. Sir John built Thorpe Hall, and was a famous Elizabethan captain. He was at the siege of Cadiz under Essex, 1596, and had custody of the young lady of high position who goes by the title of the Spanish Lady or the Green Lady, and whose story is told in Percy’s “Reliques” in the ballad of “The Spanish Lady’s love for an Englishman.” Sir John Bolle is the hero of the story. The lady fell in love with him, but on hearing that he had a wife at home, she retired to a nunnery and sent rich presents to his wife of tapestry, plate and jewels, and her picture in a green dress. The jewels are now in the hands of many of Lady Bolle’s descendants, the necklet of 298 pearls being, it is said, in the Bosvile family at Ravensfield Park, Yorkshire. The last warden of Winchester College was called Godfrey Bolles Lee, and was related to the Bosviles; and, curiously enough, in the Cathedral of Winchester is a brass plate giving an account of the death of Colonel John Bolles. It seems that Charles, the elder of the three sons whose effigies are on Sir John’s monument in the quaint little church of Haugh, was a Royalist, living at Thorpe Hall, Louth, where he raised a regiment of foot, which was commanded by his brother John, a soldier of unusual gallantry. Charles once saved his life when pursued, by hiding under the bridge at Louth. The regiment was engaged at Edgehill and other places, and finally cut to pieces in a most bloody engagement inside Alton Church in Hampshire. Clarendon tells us that Sir William Waller, finding that Lord Hopton’s troops lay quartered at too great distance from each other, had, by a night march, come suddenly upon the Royalist forces at Alton. The horse made good their escape to Winchester, and Colonel Bolles, who was in command of his own regiment of 500 men, being outnumbered, retired with some four score men into the church, hoping to defend it till succour arrived. But the enemy, as he had not had time to barricade the doors, entered with him, and some sixty of his men were killed before the rest asked for quarter; this was granted, but Colonel Bolles refused the offer, and was killed fighting. Alton is seventeen miles from Winchester, and the little brass plate on the eastern pillar of the north arcade of the nave in Winchester Cathedral, just where the steps go up to the choir, has a counterpart in Alton Church. The inscription on it was composed almost fifty years after the event by a relative who describes himself M.A., but he does no credit to the learning of the time, for it is full of errors, both of spelling and of facts; for instance, he calls the gallant Colonel, Richard instead of John, and gives the date of the fight as 1641 instead of December, 1643; but it is too quaint a thing not to be transcribed in full.

A somewhat similar bit of spelling is this from a private diary:—

“The iiii day of Sept 1551 ded my lade Admerell wyffe in Linkolneshire and ther bered.”

The third brother, Edward, died and was buried at Louth, 1680 A.D., at the age of seventy-seven. He left £600 to purchase land, the rents “to be divided among the poorest people of Louth at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide for ever, and to be disposed of ‘in other charitable and pious uses for the good of the said Toune.’” The income of the bequest is now worth £85 a year.

Sir Charles, the elder brother, had a son and a grandson called John, the last of the name. This John’s half-sister, Elizabeth, whose mother was a Vesci, married Thomas Bosvile, rector of Ufford, and was buried at Louth in 1740; their daughter Bridget also marrying a Bosvile. The children of Bridget’s elder sister Elizabeth married into the families of the Ingilbys and the Massingberds, while another sister, Margaret, married James Birch, James Birch’s daughter married a Lee, and his grandson, Captain Thos. Birch, assumed the name of Bosvile and sold Thorpe Hall. He died in 1829. Sir Charles also had a daughter Elizabeth, who married Thomas Elye of Utterby, whose granddaughter Sarah married Richard Wright of Louth, whence are descended the Wrights of Wrangle. Canon Wright, her great great grandson, has a picture of this Sarah Elye in which she is represented as wearing a ring which was one of the Spanish jewels, some of which are in possession of the Canon’s family now. The picture of the Green Lady was unfortunately sold at the Thorpe Hall sale, and it is said that another small picture of her, painted in the corner of a portrait of Sir John Bolles by Zucchero, was lost when the picture was restored and considerably cut down, in the last century.

CHAPTER XXVI THE MARSH CHURCHES OF EAST LINDSEY — THE PLAGUE-STONE

An inconspicuous little byway starts from near Alford station and runs parallel with the line about a mile northwards to Tothby, where it bends round and loses itself in a network of lanes near South Thoresby. At Tothby, under a weeping ash tree on the lawn in front of the old Manor House farm, is an interesting relic of bygone days. It is a stone about a yard square and half a yard thick, once shaped at the corners and with a socket in it. Evidently it is the base of an old churchyard, wayside, or market cross of pre-reformation times. And it has been put to use later as a plague-stone, having been for that purpose placed on its edge and half buried probably, and a hole seven inches by five, and two and a half inches deep, cut in the upper side. This was to hold vinegar into which the townspeople put the money they gave for the farm produce brought from the country in times of plague.

The great desire was to avoid contact with possibly plague-stricken people. So the country folk brought their poultry, eggs, etc., laid them out at fixed prices near the stone and then retired. Then the town caterer came out and took what was wanted, placing the money in the vinegar, and on his retiring in turn, the vendors came and took their money, which was disinfected by its vinegar bath. The buyers, of course, had to pay honestly or the country folk would cut off the supplies, and they probably appointed one of their number as salesman.

On the whole the plan is said to have answered well enough, and the stone is an interesting relic of the time. There is one in situ at Winchester, not so big as this, and now built in as part of the basis to the Plague Monument outside the West Gate of the city. It is, I believe, plain to distinguish, being of a darker colour than the rest of the monument; but you cannot now see the hole in it any more. That stone was used in 1666, the year after the great plague in London. The Croft register speaks of 1630 as the plague year, but a plague seems to have visited Partney in 1616; at Louth 754 people died in eight months in 1631. At Alford the plague year was 1630. On the 2nd of July in that year the vicar, opposite the entry of Maria Brown’s burial has written “Incipit pestis” (the plague begins), and between this date and the end of February, 1631, 132 out of a population of about 1,000, died, the average number of burials for Alford being 19 per annum, so that the rate was 100 above normal for the nineteen months; indeed, for the rest of 1631 only eight burials are registered in ten months. July and August were the worst months, six deaths occurring in one family in eleven days. It has been said that the stone was placed on the top of Miles-Cross hill, whence the folk from Spilsby and the villages of the Wolds, when they brought their produce, could look down on the plague-stricken town from a safe distance. But that would be a long pull for the poor Alford people, and it is more likely that it was placed near where the railway now crosses the high road; certainly the Winchester stone was barely 100 yards from the Gate.

We can now go back to Alford and start again on the Louth road. To get to the fine Marsh churches of the east Lindsey district, four miles out we turn off to the right near Withern, and pass two little churches on the border of the district called Strubby and Maltby-le-Marsh. Each of these has, like Huttoft, a remarkable font, but that at Maltby is extraordinarily good—angels at each corner are holding open books, and their wings join and cover the bowl of the font, below an apostle guards each corner of a square base. There is in this church, too, a cross-legged effigy of a knight. In Strubby are some good poppy-head bench ends and a fourteenth century effigy without a head, and on the south wall near the door a curious inscription in old English letters hard to decipher. There is also a small re-painted Jacobean monument with effigies of Alderman W. Bailett, aged ninety-nine, his two wives and nine children.

Mablethorpe Church.

The whole of the region between the Alford-and-Louth road and the coast is a network of roads with dykes on either side, which never go straight to any place, but turn repeatedly at right angles, so that you often have to go right away from the point you are aiming at. That point is always a church steeple standing up with its cluster of trees from the wide extent of surrounding pasture-land. The only direct road in the district is that which runs north-east to Mablethorpe, close on the sea. This is quite a frequented watering-place. Here, as at Trusthorpe and Sutton, the sea has swallowed up the original church, but the present one, half a mile inland, has some sixteenth century tombs and brasses; one notable one of Elizabeth Fitzwilliam, 1522, which represents her with long, flowing hair as in that of Lady Willoughby in Tattershall Church, and Sir Robert Dymoke at Scrivelsby. There is here a seaside open-air school for invalid children.

Three miles north is West Theddlethorpe (All Saints), one of the largest and finest of all the Marsh churches. Here, as elsewhere, the green-sand, patched with brick, on which the sea air favours the growth of grey lichen, gives a delightful colour to the tower. The battlemented parapets are of Ancaster stone, and were once surmounted at short intervals by carved pinnacles, and the nave gable, as at Louth, is beautifully pierced and worked, with carved bosses and rosettes set in the lower moulding. There are five two-light clerestory windows on either side, and inside are many good bench ends, both old and new, and a Perpendicular chancel screen with doors, and two chantries, each still keeping its altar slab in position, and having good oak screens ornamented with rich and unusual Renaissance carved open-work panels. In one of these chantries is a shallow recess with a beautiful carved stone canopy which once held a memorial tablet. A list of the vicars from 1241 to 1403 gives first the name of William Le Moyne (the monk), and in 1349 we have Nicholas de Spaigne on the nomination of Edward III. An important little brass of Robert Hayton, 1424, shows, as Mr. Jeans tells us, the latest instance of “Mail Camail.” In the churchyard is a most singular tombstone to Rebecca French, 1862, the stump of a willow carved in stone about four feet high with broken branches and—symbol of decay—a large toadstool growing from the trunk.

Three miles further north, and still close by the sea bank, we come to the church of Saltfleetby-All-Saints. A most provoking habit prevails, possibly with reason, but none the less trying to those who come to see the churches, of keeping the keys of the locked-up church at some distance off, even when there is a cottage close at hand. The church is in a sadly ruinous condition, and the picturesque porch literally falling to bits. On it is a shield bearing a crucifixion. The tower, which leans badly to the north-west, has two Early English lancet lights to the west and double two-light windows above. The gargoyles are very fine, and cut, as usual, in Ancaster stone. In the north aisle are two beautiful three-light windows with square heads and embattled transoms. There are some Norman pillars and capitals, also a good rood screen and a handsome Decorated font set on a reversed later font. This church, like so many in the Marsh, is only half seated, though even so it is too big for the population, as probably it always has been.

Within a mile to the north-east we pass Saltfleetby-St.-Clements, a church which has been moved from a site two fields off, and very carefully rebuilt in 1885, and shows an arcade of five small arches beautifully moulded resting on massive circular columns. It has also a good font on a central shaft with clustered columns round it, and in the vestry, part of a very early cross shaft. Hence we soon reach the sea at Saltfleet on a tidal channel, as the name indicates. Here is a remarkable old manor-house.

The parish church of Saltfleet is at Skidbroke, which stands in the fields a mile inland. In the churchyard is a tall granite cross in memory of Canon Overton of Peterborough. The church is of Ancaster stone which has a much longer life than the green-sand, but the parapets of the nave are of brick now, with stone coping. The belfry of all these churches is approached by rough and massive ladders. In the west of the tower is a good doorway. The chancel is a poor one.

Two miles through the rich meadows brings us to South Somercotes, remarkable as having a spire, but of later date than the tower. Here the chancel is absolutely bare, with painted dado and red tiled floor and no fittings of any kind. It looks something like a G.N.R. waiting-room, without the table. There is a very elegant rood screen, and an exceptionally tall belfry ladder or “stee,” also, as in the two churches just visited, ancient tablets in memory of the family of Freshney. The family still flourishes; and at the Alford foal show, September 1912, a Freshney of South Somercotes carried off several prizes. Unlike Skidbrooke, the church has houses and even shops close to it. We saw here a fell-monger’s trolley drive up with a strange assorted cargo from the station of Saltfleetby-St.-Peters. There were several packages and, sitting amongst them, several people all huddled together. It stopped at the village corner to deliver a long parcel draped in sacking—it was a coffin.

A few miles north is Grainthorpe, the old roof lately renovated. The whole church well cared for, and in the chancel a mutilated but once very beautiful brass, with a foliated cross, probably in memory of Stephen-le-See, who was the vicar about 1400. The stem is gone, the head shows some very delicate work, and the base stands on a rock in the sea with five various fishes depicted swimming. It was once seven feet high; and, if perfect, would be the most beautiful brass cross extant.

Three miles north we reach the fine church of Marsh Chapel. This was once a hamlet of Fulstow, four miles to the west on the road to Ludborough. It is Perpendicular from the foundation. Here, as at Grainthorpe, is a rood screen partly coloured, the lower part being new. The church is seated throughout in oak, and evidently used by a large congregation. The capitals of both arcades are battlemented. On the chancel wall is an exquisite little alabaster tablet put up in 1628, representing Sir Walter Harpham, his wife and little daughter—quite a gem of monumental sculpture. The parents died in 1607 and 1617. The lofty tower has a turret staircase with a spirelet—a rare feature in Lincolnshire, though common in Somersetshire—and the church is all built of Ancaster stone.

Going north we reach North Cotes and Tetney lock, where we can see part of the Roman sea bank, though Tetney haven now is almost two miles distant. The Louth river, which is cut straight and turned into the Louth Navigation Canal, runs out here.

The by-road we have been following from the south ends here; but a branch running due west passes to Tetney village and thence joins the Louth and Grimsby highway at Holton-le-Clay.

CHAPTER XXVII LINCOLNSHIRE FOLKSONG

There is no great quantity of native verse in this county, and children’s songs of any antiquity are by no means so common with us as they are in Northumbria, but there is The Lincolnshire Poacher with its refrain, “For ’tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year,” the marching tune of the Lincolnshire Regiment; and there is an old quatrain here and there connected with some town, such as that of Boston, and that is all.

It was my luck, however, to know, fifty years ago, a man who wrote genuine ballad verses, some of which I took down from his lips. They have never been printed before, but seem to me to be full of interest, for the man who wrote them was a typical east-coast native, a manifest Dane, as so many of these men are—unusually tall, upright, with long nose and grey eyes, and a most independent, almost proud, bearing. He was a solitary man, and made his living, as his earliest forefathers might have done, by taking fish and wild fowl as best he could; and, for recreation, drinking and singing and playing his beloved fiddle. It seemed as if the runes of his Scandinavian ancestors were in his blood, so ardently did he enjoy music and so strongly, in spite of every difficulty, for he had had little education, did he feel the impulse to put the deeds he admired into verse.

It is something to be thankful for that, in spite of railways and Board Schools, original characters are still to be found in Lincolnshire. They were more abundant two generations ago, but they are still to be met with, and one of the most remarkable that I have personally known was this typical east-coaster, whose name was Dan Gunby. It was in September, 1874, when I was a house master at Uppingham, under the ever-famous Edward Thring, that my dear friend, R. L. Nettleship, then a fellow of Balliol, came to our house at Halton, and after a day or two there, we passed by Burgh over the marsh to Skegness, eleven miles off.

Southend, Boston.

We were making for the old thatched house by the Roman bank, for this belonged to our family, and here, with one old woman to “do” for us, and with the few supplies we had brought with us and the leg of a Lincolnshire sheep in the larder, we felt we could hold out for a week whilst we read, unmolested by even a passing tradesman. Sundays we spent at Halton, walking up on Saturday and down again on Monday, after which we took off our boots for the rest of the week.

One night about ten o’clock, as we were sitting over our books, a step was heard on the plank bridge, and a loud knock resounded through the house. I went to the door and opened it. It was pitch dark, and from the darkness above my head, for Dan was a tall man, came a voice: “Ah’ve browt ye sum dooks. Ye knaw me, Dan Gunby.” We gratefully welcomed them as a relief from the sheep, and after a talk we agreed to go over and see Dan in his home at Gibraltar Point, where the Somersby Brook, “a rivulet then a river,” runs out into Wainfleet haven. Accordingly, on the 12th of September, 1874, we set off, going along on the flat dyke top for four miles till we came to what seemed the end of the habitable world. Here the level, muddy flat stretched out far into the distant shallow sea, groups of wading shore-birds were visible here and there, and an occasional curlew flew, with his melancholy cry, overhead, or a lonely sea-gull passed us—

We came to a small river channel with steep, slimy banks; just beyond it was an old boat half roofed over, and, sitting on it, was our friend Dan mending a net. We shouted to ask how we were to get to him, and he said, “Cum along o’er, bottoms sound.” We pulled off our boots and got down without much difficulty, but to get up, “Hic labor, hoc opus est.” But Dan shouted encouragement: “Now then, stick your toäs in, and goo it.” We did ‘goo it,’ and soon landed by the old boat, and sitting on it, we asked him if he always slept there, and what he did for a living. He answered “Yees, this is my plaäce, an’ it’s snug, an all. Ye see I hev a bit of a stoäve here.”

“Is that your duck-shout (the name for a sort of canoe for duck shooting) and gun?”

“Yees, ye sees I’m a bit of a gunner, an’ a bit of a fisherman, an’ a bit of a fiddler.”

“And a bit of a poet, too, aren’t you, Dan?”

“Well, I puts things down sometimes in the winter evenings like.”

“About your shooting, isn’t it?”

“Yees, moästlins.”

“And you have got tunes to them?”

“Yees. It’s easy to maäke the tunes up o’ the fiddle, but the words is a straänge hard job oftens.”

“Well now, will you let us hear one of them?”

“To be sewer I will,” and he took his fiddle and sat on the gunwale, while we listened to the following:—

It was in the iambic metre—which befits a ballad—with occasional anapæsts.

“It’s called The Swan this ’ere un,” he said, and, with a preliminary flourish on the fiddle, he went off.

I should say that we got the words in his own writing afterwards spelt as I give them.

Dan paused for some time after he had finished the ballad, and then said with much feeling in look and voice, “Captain Rice, poor chap, he died after I’d gotten yon lines finished, and I had to alter them, ye knaw. It took me three weeks to get ’em altered.”

The captain was well remembered; he had “paid for many a galling of ale.” But the family that Dan most admired were the Halls, the old man and his three eldest sons—Jim, Bill and Tom. Young Ted he despised; he cared nothing about shooting, he would rather sit in a train!

He tells in two other short ballads of how they hunted the seal on the bar or on the long sand, and there is a poetic touch in the way he makes the seals talk, and in the description of their eyes and teeth.

But “The Swan” is Dan’s great achievement, and is a real good folk song, and has lines with the true ballad ring. “Down come the swan” is a fine expressive line, and “He was a hearty old cock, As ever sailed on the sea” has a ring in it like Sir Patrick Spens.

When Dan came to the astonishing kill of ninety-nine he never failed to make the ejaculation I have given above; the geese were Brent geese and were feeding in a creek or wet furrow. There was a big gun used in the “Gruft holes” or deep channels in the sands going seaward, where the gunner sat waiting for the “flighting” of the ducks. This was called a “raille,” and was fired from the shoulder. The gun which weighed a ton is a poetic exaggeration; but the old duck-shout guns were more than one man would care to lift, and about six to eight feet long. The man lay on a board to sight and fire this miniature cannon or demi-culverin, which was loaded to the muzzle, and the rusty piece of ordnance shot back with the recoil underneath him; had it been made fast to the canoe or duck-shout it would have torn the little boat to bits.

The ballads of the seals are as follows:—

Seals are more common on this coast than one would think. Only this autumn, 1913, great complaints have been made by the fishermen of the destruction of soles, etc., in the ‘Wash’ by the increased number of these unwelcome visitors.

Dan Gunby, in spite of his fiddling and attendance at all the dances in the neighbourhood, was not of a jovial nature. His life was hard and his outlook on it was always serious, and any humour which he had was of the dry order, which is so frequent in the northern counties. Terse remarks with a touch of humour, sly or grim, he doubtless showed at times, but a real hearty laugh he would seldom allow himself. We find this same almost unconscious habit of saying a biting thing in a sly way frequent in the counties north of Lincolnshire, as for instance, when in Westmorland a man meeting a friend says, “I hear Jock has gotten marriet” and the rejoinder, which expresses so much in so few words, both about the man in question and the subject of matrimony generally, is “Ah’m gled o’ that, ah niver liked Jock.” Another time, a man meets a ‘pal’ and for a bit of news says, “We’m gotten a chain for oor Mayor,” and the answer, “Han yo? We let yon beggar of ourn go loose” is far more funny than was ever intended. But Gunby and his likes, of whom there are more in the regions of the hills and fells than elsewhere, have not only the seriousness of those who live solitary and have leisure to do a deal o’ thinking, but dwelling apart in places where they can commune with Nature and the stars they get the poetic touch from their surroundings. The mountain shepherd goes up on to the heights and spends long hours with his dog and sheep. He marks the great clouds move by, and listens to the voice of the streams. He knows “the silence that is in the starry sky;” the great constellations are his companions; he sees the rising moon, and the splendours of the dawn and sunset. Those sights which fill us with such delight and wonder when beheld now and then in a lifetime, are before his eyes repeatedly. Now he watches the storm near at hand in all its fury, the thunder echoing round him from crag to crag; soon the clouds roll off and disclose the brilliant arch of the rainbow across the glistening valley, each perfect in its different way. At one time he must be out on the slopes sparkling with snow, at another his heart gladdens at the approach of spring, and he feels himself one with it all. And so the changing seasons of the year cannot fail to touch him more than most men, and what the heart feels the lips will strive to utter. In the same way Dan Gunby used to watch the wide sunsets across the marsh, and see the floods of golden light on the shore, and the ebbing and flowing of the far-spread tide about his anchored cabin. He saw, at one time, the ripples crested with gold by the sun’s last rays, at another the red orb rising from the sea on a clear morning; or, in the mist which closed him in, he listened to the cries of the sea-birds sweeping by invisible. At times, when the wind was up and the tide high, he heard the roar of the waves dashed on the sand; or, upon a calm night, he looked out on a gently moving water led by the changing moon. There were always some voices of the night, and usually some visions both at eve and morn; and with his observant eye and ear, and his leisure to reflect, while Nature was his one companion, how could he fail to be in some sort a poet?

I lately heard of a shepherd or crofter who was quite a case in point; but as he was not a Lincolnshire native but lived in the Scotch Lowlands, I put the account of him and his poetry, which, by the help of a Scotch lady, I have succeeded in collecting, small in quantity but some of it very good, I think, in quality, into an appendix at the end of the volume.

CHAPTER XXVIII THE MARSH CHURCHES IN SOUTH LINDSEY

Starting from Alford, a little town with several low thatched houses in the main street, and a delightful old thatched ivy-clad manor, we will first look into the church which stands on a mound in the centre of the town, to see the very fine rood screen. Before reaching the south porch with its sacristy or priests’ room above, and its good old door, we pass an excellent square-headed window. Inside, the bold foliage carving on the capitals at once arrests the eye. The pillars, as in most of these churches, are lofty, slender and octagonal. The steps to the rood loft remain, and a squint to the altar in the north aisle chapel. On the other side is a carved Jacobean pulpit of great beauty, east of which is a low-side window, and east of that again a tomb with recumbent alabaster figures of Sir Robert Christopher and his wife, date 1668, in perfect condition.

From Alford a road goes north to Louth, branching to the right three miles out, to run to Mablethorpe, the favourite seaside resort of the Tennysons when living at Somersby. But we will follow the road to Bilsby, where Professor Barnard keeps his unapproachable collection of Early English water-colours. From here we can reach Markby, a curious thatched chapel standing inside a moat, and now disused. Then we can look in at Huttoft to see the extremely fine font which resembles that at Covenham St. Mary, and Low Toynton, near Horncastle; after which, passing by Mumby, we will make for the first of the typical Marsh churches at Hogsthorpe.

Markby vicarage goes with Hannah-cum-Hagnaby rectory. Once there was an Austin or Black Friars priory at Markby, and at Hagnaby—a hamlet in Hannah or Hannay—an abbey of Premonstratensian or White Canons, which was founded in 1175 by Herbert de Orreby and dedicated to St. Thomas the Martyr.

Markby Church.

The registers at Markby are among the earliest in the kingdom, beginning in 1558, those in Hannay dating from 1559. The first year of their institution was 1838.

The Huttoft font is of the fourteenth century, and is four feet eight inches high, so it needs a step like those at Wrangle, Benington, and Frieston, and that at Skendleby. On the bowl are represented the Holy Trinity, the Virgin and Child, the Virgin holding a bunch of lilies, and the Child an apple. On six of the panels are the Apostles in pairs, as at Covenham St. Mary. The under part has angel figures all round supporting the bowl. The shaft has eight panels with figures of popes, bishops, and holy women, and at the base are symbols of the four evangelists. The string-courses show three different roofs to the nave.

Hogsthorpe, like most of the churches in the neighbourhood, is built of the soft local green-sand, which is found near the edge of the marsh where the Wolds die away into the level. The tower shows patches of brickwork which give a warm and picturesque appearance. The south porch is here, as is the rule, built of a harder stone, and is handsome and interesting. A pair of oblong stones of no great size are built in on either side above the arch with an inscription in old English letters, beginning, oddly enough, both in this church and in one at Winthorpe a few miles off, with the right hand stone and finishing on the left. The words are, “Orate pro animabus Fratrum et Sororum Guilde Sᶜᵗᵃᵉ Mariæ hujus Ecclesiæ quorum expensis et sumptibus fabricata est haec porticus.” The church has had its roof renewed in pine wood. It also has the worst coloured window glass I have ever seen, an error of local piety.[17] The registers begin in 1558.

From here the road, with countless right-angled turns, runs between the reedy dykes to the Perpendicular church of Addlethorpe (St. Nicolas). Here the south porch is unusually good, with figures of angels on the buttresses and beautiful foliage work carved on the parapet. On the apex is a well-cut crucifix and, as at Somersby, on the back is a small figure of the Virgin and Child. A large holy-water stoup stands just within the door. There is a window in the porch, also a niche and a slab with the following inscription:—

Over the buttresses of the north aisle are gargoyles holding scrolls; one has on it “Of Gods saying comes no ill,” another—

God : for : ihs : m’̅c̅y : bryng : he̅ : to : blys :
Yᵗ : ha̅ : p̅d̅ : to : ys :

Cut with a knife on the western pilaster of the porch is—

“January 1686
Praise God.”

The glory of this church is its wealth of old wood work, in which it is not surpassed by any in the county, though its neighbour, Winthorpe, runs it hard.

Addlethorpe and Ingoldmells.

The chancel here, as at the older Decorated church of Ingoldmells, which is within half a mile, has been pulled down, and the rood screen acts as a reredos. There are two extremely good parclose screens, and old benches with carved ends throughout the church. Another fine oak screen goes across the tower arch, inscribed, “Orate pro animabus Johannis Dudeck Senior et uxor̅ ejus.” The noble roof is the original one. The pulley-block for lowering the rood light is still visible on the easternmost tie-beam but one, as it is also at Winthorpe and Grimoldby. A new rafter at the west end has painted on it, “Struck by fireball June 27, 1850.”

The Boston wool trade is alluded to in the epitaph “Hic jacet Ricardus Ward qdm. Mr̅ctor Stapali Calais MCCCCXXXIII.”

A slab in the north aisle to Thomas Ely, 1783, has a singular inscription on it:—

Evidently a real good fellow though he was plain.

The following extracts from the churchwarden’s accounts between the years 1540 and 1580 are curious.

The church has six bells.

From the account of the charities left in Addlethorpe we find that in 1554 a gift of land was sold for £4 an acre, but in 1653 an acre situated in Steeping let for 15s.

The adjoining parish with its mellifluous name of Ingoldmells, (pronounced Ingomells), has had its suffix derived from the Norse melr, said to mean the curious long grass of the sandhills. It might perhaps be more correctly considered as the same suffix which we have on the Norse-settled Cumbrian coast at Eskmeals, or Meols, where it is said to mean a sandy hill or dune, a name which would well fit in with the locality here. Thus the whole name would mean the sand-dunes of Ingulf, a Norse invader of the ninth century. A farmer we met at Winthorpe, next parish to Ingoldmells, alluded to these sandhills when he said, “It is a sträange thing, wi’ all yon sand nobbut häfe a mile off, that we cant hav nowt but this mucky owd cläy hereabouts: not fit for owt.” But the Romans found the clay very useful for making their great embankment along the coast.

Ingoldmells church, though good, is not so fine as Addlethorpe; but it has a very interesting little brass, dated 1520, to “William Palmer wyth ye stylt,” a very rare instance of an infirmity being alluded to on a brass. The brass shows a crutched stick at his side. The porch has a quatrefoil opening on either side, and a niche; and a curious apse-like line of stones in the brick paving goes round all but the east side of the fine front. Round the base of the churchyard cross is a later inscription cut in 1600, J. O. Clerk. “Christus solus mihi salus,” and figures run round three sides of the base, beginning on the north 1, 2, 3; and on the east 4, 5, 6; none on the south, but on the west 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, at the corner 10; and again on the north, 11, 12. Doubtless it was a form of sundial, the cross shaft throwing its shadow in the direction of the figures. Of the four bells one has fallen and lies on the belfry floor. One has on it, according to Oldfield, “Wainfleet and the Wapentake of Candleshoe, 1829,” “Catarina vocata sum rosa pulsata mundi” (I am called Catherine, the beaten rose of the world); and on another is the rhyme—

At Partney a bell has the same Catarina legend, but with dulcata (= sweet) instead of pulsata. S and C are often interchanged, and I think the ‘p’ is really a ‘d’ upside down on the Ingoldmells bell, especially as the bell is of about the same date and was also cast by the same man—Penn of Peterborough. I must admit, however, that pulsata on a bell with a clapper has something to be said for it; still, dulcata (sweet) is the obviously proper epithet for rose.

The Roman Bank at Winthorpe.

From this church the road runs to the sea bank near Chapel, and gets quite close to it. You can walk up the sandy path amongst the tall sand-grass and the grey-leaved buckthorn, set with sharp thorns and a profusion of lovely orange berries, till from the top you look over to the long brown sands and the gleaming shore, where a retiring tide is tumbling the cream-coloured breakers of a brown sea. Returning to the road we go for some distance along the old Roman bank, which we leave before reaching Skegness in order to get to Winthorpe (St. Mary). This Decorated church was restored in 1881 by the untiring energy of “Annie Walls of Boothby,” but not so as to spoil its old woodwork, which is remarkably fine. In the body of the church all the seats have their old carved fifteenth century bench ends, and in the chancel are four elaborately carved stall-ends. In one of these, amidst a mass of foliage, St. Hubert is represented kneeling, as in Albert Dürer’s picture, before a stag who has a crucifix between his antlers, from which the Devil, who appears just behind him, in human shape but horned, is turning away. The poppyhead above this panel is exquisitely carved with oak leaves and acorns, and little birds, with manikins climbing after them. The old roof, with the rood-light pulley-block visible on one of the tie-beams, still remains, and the rood screen, too, though its doors have been foolishly transferred to another screen at the west end, and ought to be put back in their place; and at the end of each aisle, as at Addlethorpe, are good parclose screens. Within one of these, the roof of the north aisle has a painted pattern on the rafters and good carved bosses once painted and gilt.

The seventeen steps to the rood loft are all there, also an aumbrey; and we are told that one of the chantries was founded and endowed by Walter De Friskney, 1316, and dedicated to St. James.

In the south wall of the tower is a singular fireplace, originally used for baking the wafers.

In the north chantry is an altar slab with three consecration crosses on it, and a sepulchral slab to “Ricardus Arglys (Argles?), Presbyter, De Bynington” (near Boston) who died on the 20th of November, 1497; and there are, in the nave, brasses to Richard Barowe with his wife Batarick and their three children, 1505, and to Robert Palmer, 1515, doubtless a relative of “W. Palmer with ye stylt” in Ingoldmells.

The inscription on the former is “Richard Barowe sumtyme marchant of the stapyll of Calys, and Batarick his wyfe, the which Richard decissyd the XX day of Apryle the yere of owre Lord A.MCCCCC and fyve, on whose soullys Ihu̅ have mercy Amen for charitie.”

The Barrows were an old and notable family, one of them was Master of the Rolls and Keeper of the Great Seal, 1485. They were long settled at Winthorpe, and in 1670 Isaac Barrow was Bishop of St. Asaph, and his nephew was well known to history as the Master of Trinity, 1672-1677, and a celebrated divine.

One of Robert Palmer’s descendants, Elizabeth of Winthorpe, married George Sharpe, who was Archbishop of York in 1676, so Winthorpe furnished a bishop and an archbishop’s wife in the same decade.

William Palmer was apparently part donor of the south porch of Winthorpe, which is very like those at Addlethorpe and Hogsthorpe, having a gabled and crocketed parapet carved with graceful flowing foliage; and on the two stones, lettered in Early English as at Hogsthorpe, are the lines:—

Over the east gable of the nave is a sanctus bell-cot, and in the tower are four good bells, three of which are thus inscribed:—

In the west of the south aisle is the well-carved head of the churchyard cross, of which, as usual, only half of the shaft remains. On the head is a crucifixion, and on the other side the Virgin and Child. This head was found in 1910 a mile and a quarter from the church. It closely resembles that still standing intact at Somersby.

Opposite, in the west end of the north aisle, are two bases of columns belonging to a former church of the thirteenth century, which church is first mentioned in the donation of it by William de Kyme to the abbey of Bardney, 1256.

The registers of the church begin in 1551.

From the foregoing it will be seen how extremely interesting these Marsh churches are, and these four are not the only ones in this part of the Marsh, Croft and Burgh being both within three or four miles of Winthorpe. Theddlethorpe, north of these, is a finer building, as is Burgh-le-Marsh; but I doubt if any other church has such a wealth of old carved woodwork as Addlethorpe or Winthorpe. There is, cut on the south-east angle of Winthorpe tower, a deep horizontal line with the letters “H.W. 1837.” This indicates the level of high-water mark on the other side of the sea bank, and as the mark on the tower is eight feet nine inches from the ground, though the 1837 tide was an exceptionally high one, it gives some idea of what this part of the Marsh must at times have been in the days before the Romans made their great embankment. A plan for improving the drainage of the land at Winthorpe was made as early as 1367, and a rate was exacted of 1s. an acre.

Skegness, now, next to Cleethorpes, the best known and most frequented by excursion “trippers” of all the east coast places, used to be fifty years ago only a little settlement of fishermen who lived in cabins built on the strip of ground between the road and the ditches on each side. A lifeboat shed and an old sea-boat set up on its gunwale for a shelter, with a seat in it, and a flagstaff close by, used chiefly for signalling to a collier to come in, were on the sea bank. Behind it was an hotel, and one thatched house just inside the Roman bank, built by Mr. Edward Walls about 1780. This was cleverly contrived so that not an inch of space was wasted anywhere. It was only one room thick, so that from the same room you could see the sun rise over the sea and set over the Marsh. It was here that Tennyson saw those “wide-winged sunsets of the misty marsh” that he speaks of in “The Last Tournament,” and took delight in their marvellous colouring.

The house rose up from the level behind and below the bank, and the back door was on the ground floor, with a porch and hinged leaves to shut out the terrific wind from N. and E. or N. and W. as required, but on the sea front, access was obtained by a removable plank bridge from the bank top which landed you on the first floor. Here was the summer home of all our family—a children’s paradise—when you ran straight out bare-foot on to the sandy bank and so across the beautiful hard sands and through the salt-water creeks down to the sea. This at high water was close at hand with tumbling waves and seething waters, but at low tide, far as eye could reach was nothing but sand, with the fisherman’s pony and cart, and his donkey and boy at the other end of the shrimp net, moving slowly like specks in the distance along the edge of the far-retreating sea.

This enchanting desolation is now the trippers’ play ground, with stalls and donkeys and swings and sham niggers and a pier and lines of shops. It must be admitted that it has all its old health-giving breezes, and also a fine garden and a cricket field and golf links of the very best. A new line from Lincoln has just been opened (July 1st, 1913), which runs through Coningsby, New Bolingbroke and Stickney, to join the old loop line between Eastville and Steeping, and for a shilling fare will bring thousands from Lincoln, Sheffield and Retford, to have a happy day of nine hours at what the natives call “Skegsnest.”

We have seen that the Romans had a bank all along this coast to keep out the sea, and besides their five roads from Lincoln, one of which went to Horncastle, they had a road from Horncastle to Wainfleet; and a road, part of which we have noticed, from Ulceby to Burgh and Skegness. Skegness lies midway between Ingoldmells, which is the most easterly point of the county, and Gibraltar Point, from which the coast sweeps inland and forms the northern shore of the Wash. Across, on the further side of this, was the Roman camp at Brancaster (Branodunum), and here at Skegness there seems to have been a Roman fort which has now been swallowed up by the sea.

Near Ingoldmells, about fifty years ago, the sea, at low water, laid bare some Roman potteries, so called, from which the Rev. Edward Elmhirst got several specimens of what were called “thumb bricks.” These were just bits of clay the size of sausages, but twice as thick, some as much as two and a half inches thick and four inches high, which had been squeezed in the hand, the impress of the fingers and thumb being plainly visible; the extremities, being more than the hand could take, were rather bigger than the middle. They were flat enough at each end to stand, and had doubtless been used to place the pottery on when being burnt in the kiln.

It is more than probable that these potteries were pre-Roman. They are about a quarter of a mile south of the Ingoldmells outfall drain, and half way between high and low-water mark. They are only exposed now and then, and appear to be circular kilns about fifteen feet in diameter, with walls two feet thick, and now only a foot high. The reason of their existence is found in a bed of dark clay which underlies all this coast.

The only pot found has been a rough, hand-made jar with rolled edge and marks of the stick or bone with which the outside had been scraped and trimmed. Now, doubtless the Romans used the wheel. Moreover, these kilns are far outside the Roman bank, and not likely, therefore, to be for Roman use. Tree roots are found in the walls and inside the circle of the kilns, of the same sort as those of which at one time a perfect forest existed, the stumps of which are sometimes visible at low tide. At the time the Romans made their sea bank the sea must have come right over this forest, so that we may perhaps say that those thumb-bricks bear the impress of the fingers of the earliest inhabitants of Britain, and are therefore of extraordinary interest.

On the eastern side of South Lindsey the running out of the roads, from Burgh and Wainfleet, to the coast always seemed to point to the existence of some Roman terminus near Skegness. Some years after he had noted this as probable, the Rev. E. H. R. Tatham, who has made a study of Roman roads in Lincolnshire, discovered that in the court rolls of the manor of Ingoldmells, the mention is made of a piece of land called indifferently in a document dated 1345, “Chesterland,” or “Castelland”; and again in 1422, four acres of land in “Chesterland” are mentioned as being surrendered by one William Skalflete (Court Rolls, p. 248), this land is never mentioned again, and the presumption is that it was swallowed by the sea. And in 1540 Leland mentions a statement made to him, that Skegness once had a haven town with a “castle,” but that these had been “clene consumed and eaten up with the se.”

These terms “Chester” and “caster” point to a Roman fort or “castrum,” and the fact that the names “Chesterland” and “Castelland” exist in medieval documents dealing with the land in the immediate neighbourhood seems to go a long way towards confirming Mr. Tatham’s conjecture of the existence of a Roman fort near Skegness, over which the sea has now encroached.

From Skegness we will now turn inland, and after about four miles reach Croft (All Saints) by a road which keeps turning at right angles and only by slow degrees brings a traveller perceptibly nearer to the clump of big, shady trees which hide the church, parsonage and school. Large trees grow in all parts of the forlorn churchyard, and the church when opened has a musty, charnel-house smell, but one soon forgets that in amazement at the fine and spacious fourteenth century nave and clerestory, its grand tower and its large and lofty fifteenth century Perpendicular chancel and aisles. The wide ten-foot passage up the nave between the old poppy-head seats fitly corresponds to the large open space round the font, which rises from an octagonal stone platform as big as that of a market cross. There is a quantity of old woodwork besides the seats. A good rood-screen—though like all the others, minus its coved top and rood-loft—shows traces yet of its ancient colouring; birds and beasts of various kinds are carved both as crockets above and also in relief on the panels below, and two good chantry screens fill the eastern ends of the aisles. A very fine Jacobean pulpit and tester was put up by Dr. Worship, the vicar from 1599 to 1625, in memory of his wife Agnes, whom he describes in a brass on her tomb, dated 1615, as “a woman matchless both for wisdom and godlyness.” The two greatest treasures in brass are the extremely fine eagle lectern, its base supported by three small lions, which was found in the moat of the old Hall, the seat of the Browne family, flung there probably for safety and then forgotten; and a notable half-effigy, head and arms only, of a knight in banded mail, with a tunic over the hauberk, and hands joined in prayer. The legend round him is in Norman French, but his name is lost; the date is said to be 1300, so that this is, next to that at Buslingthorpe, the earliest brass in the county.

The Browne family are perpetuated in the chancel, where on the north wall are two similar monuments of kneeling figures facing each other, both erected about 1630. The first is to Valentine Browne, a man with a very aquiline nose, and his wife Elizabeth (Monson), with effigies in relief of their fifteen children. He is described as “Treasurer and Vittleter of Barwick, and Dyed Treasurer of Ireland.” Barwick is “The March town of Berwick-on-Tweed.” The tomb was erected c. 1600 by his second son John who lived at Croft, and whose effigy is on the other tomb along with his wife Cicely (Kirkman), of whom we are told “she lived with him but 20 weeks and dye without issue ætatis 21 Ano Domini 1614,” just a year before Agnes Worship, the vicar’s wife. Another monument, a marble slab eighteen inches square, has this inscription:—

“Here lyeth Willyam Bonde Gentleman, whoe dyed An̅o Dom̅ 1559 leaving two sonnes, Nicolas Docter in Divinitie, and George Docter in physicke, the elder sonne, who dyed the ____ et etatis ____ and here is buryed. THE which in remembrance of his most kynd father haith erected this lytle moniment”

The guide-books say that this was erected by Nicolas, D.D., who afterwards became president of Magdalen College, Oxford. But clearly it was by George the M.D., and he left spaces for his own death date, which were never filled; perhaps he is not buried at Croft, but he must have been near his end when he wrote the Latin lines which are all about himself, and may be thus translated—

There is a note in the church accounts to the effect that the old bell was (re-)cast at Peterborough by Henry Penn in 1706 and inscribed “prepare to die.”

This church is, for spaciousness and for the amount of good old woodwork, and for its monuments, one of the very best. As we leave it we notice carved on the door, “God save the King 1633.”

I believe that Bishop Hugh-de-Wells who was appointed Bishop of Lincoln in 1209, but who, mistrusting King John, did not take up the work of his See till 1218, when John was dead, was a native of Croft.

The parish books of Croft show “The dues and duties belonginge and appertaininge unto the office of the clarkes of Crofte. A.D. 1626.”

He collected the Easter gratuities of the neighbours in the parish; he got twenty shillings a year for looking after the clock, “to be paid by the churchwards.”

Evidently the clerks were old men and not always capable of wielding the spade and pick; and now comes an entry which lets one into the secret of why the registers were often so ill-kept. Instead of the entries being made by the parson at the time, the clerk put them down “from time to time,” and they were copied from his notes once a year. Under this system, of course, there were both mistakes and omissions, often for many months and even years together.

This is the entry:—

Possibly “from tyme to tyme” may mean on each occasion, but it sounds precarious.

His fixed salary, besides fees, was, in 1773, thirty shillings and two strikes (—4 bushels) of corn out of the two quarters (—sixteen bushels) which was given from the glebe every Easter to the poor by the parson.

The Sexton’s wages at the same date were given thus:—

The “Parish Clerk” in Lincolnshire was, as a rule, a rougher-looking individual than he appears in Gainsborough’s splendid picture in the National Gallery, but he was generally an original character, both in word and deed. I heard of one in Ireland who announced, “There will be no sarmon this afternoon as the Bishop has been providentially prevented from praching,” and many a quaint saying is recorded of those Lincolnshire clerks of the last century. Boys were their special aversion. In the old days at Spilsby the clerk kept a stick, and during the sermon would go down to the west end of the building, and the sound of his weapon on the boys’ heads quite waked up the slumberers in the seats nearer the pulpit. One hears of a clerk putting a stop to what he considered an unnecessary afternoon service and saying to the clergyman, “We ha’en’t no call to hev sarvice just for you and me, sir.” “Oh, but I thought I saw some people coming in.” “Just a parcel of boys, sir; but I soon started they.” But it is not the clerks only who show an intelligent interest in the parson and the services, though from generations of somewhat slovenly performance, the churchgoers had difficulty at first in appreciating the high-church ritual which here and there they saw for the first time. One kindly old woman on seeing in one of the Fen churches some unexpected genuflexions and bows, said afterwards, “I was sorry for poor Mr. C., he was that bad of his inside that he couldn’t howd hissen up.” And another I knew of who, when asked how they got on with the new ritualistic clergyman, and whether he hadn’t introduced some new methods, replied, “Oh, yis, he antics a bit; but we looves him soä we antics along wi’ him.”

From Croft we turn north to Burgh-le-Marsh (SS. Peter and Paul) whose fine lofty tower, with its grand peal of eight bells, stands on the extreme edge of the Wold and overlooks the marsh, and, like “Boston Stump,” is visible far out to sea, The exterior is very fine, and the church, like Croft, has retained its chancel, so ruthlessly destroyed in the case of Addlethorpe and Ingoldmells. The nave is wide and lofty, but the pillars poor. It is all Perpendicular, and has much interesting screen work which has been a good deal pulled about, even as late as 1865, the year in which similar destruction was wrought at Ingoldmells. The rood screen now stands across the tower arch, and the chancel screen is a patchwork. There are two porches, north and south, the latter of brick, a good pulpit and a canopied font-cover which opens with double doors, dated 1623. On the north aisle wall is a plain brass plate with the following dialogue in Latin hexameters:—

Quis jacet hic? Leonardus Palmerus Generosus.
Quae conjux dilecta fuit? Catherina. Quis haeres?
Christopherus (cui nupta Anna est). Quis filius alter?
Robertus. Gnatae quot erant? Tres, Elizabetha
Ac Maria, ac Helena. An superant? Superant. Ubi mens est
Defuncti? Rogitas. Dubio procul astra petivit.
obiit Die Martis octavo
Anno Domi 1610.
ætatis suæ 70.

Who lies here? Leonard Palmer, Gentleman.
Who was his beloved wife? Catherine. Who his heir?
Christopher (whose wife was Anna). Who was his second son?
Robert. How many daughters were there? Three, Elizabeth
and Mary and Helen. Are they living? Yes. Where is the spirit
of the departed? You ask. Doubtless it has sought the stars.
He died Mar. 8, 1610, aged 70.

At Burgh the straight road from Skegness to Gunby turns to the left to pass through Bratoft. This church with picturesque ivy-clad tower has a good font, a chancel and parclose screens, and the rood-loft doorway. It has been well restored in memory of C. Massingberd, Squire of Gunby, and contains a very curious painting on wood which now hangs in the tower; it was once over the chancel arch, and by its irregular shape it is clear that it was originally made to fit elsewhere. It is signed Robert Stephenson. The Armada is shown as a red dragon, between four points of land marked England, Scotland, Ireland and France with the following lines:—

Bratoft Hall, the residence of the Bratofts and Massingberds, was built in a square moated enclosure of two acres, which stood in a deer park of two hundred acres. It was taken down in 1698, and the Hall at Gunby built about the same time. The bridge over the moat of two brick arches was standing in 1830 intact.

The twisting byeways lead from here back into the Skegness, Burgh, and Spilsby road. The Hall at Gunby[22] is a fine brick mansion, the home of the Massingberds. A pretty little church stands in the park, in which are two very valuable brasses of the Massingberd family, one dated 1405, of a knight, Sir Thomas, in camail and pointed Bascinet, and his lady Johanna, in a tight dress and mantle. The other of William Lodyngton, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, in his judicial robes, 1419. The Massingberd brass has had its incised inscription beaten out, and, with a new inscription in raised letters, has been made to serve for another Thomas and Johanna Massingberd in 1552, the figures, costumed as in 1400, serving for their parsimonious descendants of 150 years later. A precisely similar case of appropriation by two Dallisons with dates 1400 and 1546 and 1549, may be seen in Laughton church near Gainsborough; and again on a stone slab of the Watson family in Lyddington, Rutland. About 1800 Elizabeth Massingberd, sole heiress of Gunby, married her neighbour, Peregrine Langton, son of Bennet Langton, the friend of Dr. Johnson, who on marriage took the name of Massingberd. Their grandson was the Algernon Massingberd, born 1828, who left England in 1852, and since June, 1855, was never again heard of. In 1862 his uncle, Charles Langton Massingberd, took possession of the estate.

From Gunby various small by-roads lead literally in all directions; you can take your choice of eight within half a mile of the park gates, and Burgh station, on the Boston and Grimsby line, is only just outside the boundary.

CHAPTER XXIX CHURCHES IN SOUTH LINDSEY

The record of the churches in the marsh land of the South Lindsey division would not be complete without some mention of Wainfleet. The Somersby brook, which, winding “with many a curve” through Partney and Halton, becomes at last “the Steeping river,” is thence cut into a straight canal as far as Wainfleet, and then, resuming its proper river-character, goes out through the flats at Wainfleet Haven, near that positive end of the world, “Gibraltar Point.”

Little Steeping has just undergone a most satisfactory restoration in memory of its once rector, Bishop Steere, who succeeded Bishop Tozer of Burgh-le-Marsh as the third missionary bishop in Central Africa, and there did a great work as a missionary, and also built the first Central African cathedral in what had previously been the greatest slave market of the world—Zanzibar. The restorers have had a most interesting find this year (1912), for the chancel step, when taken up, proved to be the back of a fine recumbent effigy of a fourteenth century rector. Doubtless the monument was taken from the arched recess in the north wall of the chancel and thus hidden to save it from destruction in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The masons who fitted it into its new bed had no scruple in knocking off the inscribed moulding on one side, and a bit of the carved stone got broken off and was found in the rectory garden.

The figure represents a robed priest, with feet curiously clothed in what look like socks. The face is good and in excellent preservation. The work was probably local, for the ear is of enormous size. The mutilated inscription read originally: “Tomas de Reding priez qe Dieu pour sa grace de sa alme eyt merci.” The letters in italics are missing. Thomas de Reding was presented to Little Steeping in 1328. There is a very good font, and the south porch outer arch is remarkable for the very unusual depth of its hollowed moulding on both of the outer porch pilasters. The canopied work over the head of the inner doorway is good, but quite of a different character, and the wide projection of the north arcade capitals is noticeable. A stone on the outer wall marked “1638 W P & R G” gives the date of a destructive restoration, when tomb slabs were cut up for window-sills and some ruthless patchwork put in on the north side of both aisle and chancel. A good rood screen with canopy has been put in, old work being used where possible, and a new churchyard cross erected on the old base, with figures of St. Andrew and the Crucifixion, under a canopy like that at Somersby. The octagonal font in rich yellow stone has figures difficult to make out, and a small niche over the north-east pier of the nave arcade is to be noted; probably it contained some relic or image. The stone brackets for the rood loft remain, but there is no trace left of the staircase. The seats and pulpit of dark stained deal are interesting, as they were all made by Bishop Steere himself. The tower is patched with the old two-inch bricks, which always look well, and with some of the larger modern kind, which seldom do.

Our best way now is to return to the Spilsby-and-Firsby road at Great Steeping, which will take us past Irby to Thorpe-St.-Peter and Wainfleet.

The hamlet of Monksthorpe in Great Steeping parish indicates by its name the fact that Bardney Abbey had an estate here. No trace now remains of the manor built by Robert de Waynflete, when he retired in 1317 from the abbey and had the proceeds of the estates in Steeping and Firsby and two cells in Partney and Skendleby assigned to him for the maintenance and clothing of himself and family. But part of the moat is visible, and one may see here in a chapel enclosure a baptist’s pool bricked and railed round on three sides with one end open and sloping to the water, for the Baptists walked into the pool and did not believe in the efficacy of infant baptism. This was doubtless one of the places which was ministered to by the famous leader of the “General Baptist Church” who suffered such shameful and repeated persecution in the days of Cromwell and Charles II., Thomas Grantham, for he was a native of Halton, where the name still exists, and throughout a long life showed himself a man of a truly religious and eminently courageous heart, of whom his native village may well be proud. He died in 1692, aged seventy-eight, at Norwich, and was buried inside the church of St. Stephen, as a memorial to him set up therein states, “to prevent the indecencies threatened to his corpse,” such as, we read on a tombstone in Croft churchyard, had been perpetrated on the body of his friend and fellow-Baptist, Robert Shalders, whose body was disinterred on the very day of his funeral by inhabitants of Croft, and dragged on a sledge and left at his own gates. Doubtless the clergyman was privy to this, so hot was the feeling for religious persecution in those days, and took credit to himself for it, for in the parish book of Croft we may read as follows:—

Two miles east of Steeping a good road to the right goes to Firsby, where is a small church built by Mr. G. E. Street to show how an entirely satisfactory building adapted to the needs of quite a small parish could be put up at a very small cost. The whole church cost under £1,000, and was built in less than six months, and opened November 5, 1857. In Thorpe we find a graceful font, a well-carved Perpendicular screen and a good Jacobean pulpit. The place belonged after the Conquest to the Kyme family. The Thorpe churchwardens’ book commences in 1545, and in 1546 contains such items as these about the rood light and the light in the Easter Sepulchre:

In the reign of Edward VI the churchwardens seem to have had a jumble sale of all the odds and ends in the church, which they called the “offalment” or rubbish.

Amongst the various items of metal and woodwork, vestments, chests, books, &c., we have:—

They were probably restoring their church, for we have two years later:—

This was in the first and second year of Queen Mary, and they were then busy putting back what they had sold in Edward’s reign, making side altars, etc., hence we find:—

Other interesting items are—

One might make quite an amusing “story of a dictionary” from the various entries in the Thorpe churchwardens’ book about an Elliott’s Dictionary which, in the middle of the sixteenth century the vicar bequeathed to his successors in perpetuo. It is described as “one boke called a dyxonary,” and evidently exercised both vicar and wardens a good deal until one vicar bethought him of the device of “delivering” it to the parish to be kept along with various volumes of homilies, and expositions and the paraphrases of Erasmus.

But it is time to leave Thorpe; and two miles will bring us to Wainfleet which, as its name declares, though now a couple of miles from the sea, was once a haven for sea-going ships, for “Fleet” means a navigable creek. This little place gave its name in the fifteenth century to a great man, William of Wainfleet, or Waynflete, Headmaster of Winchester, and first headmaster and Provost of Eton, successor to Cardinal Beaufort as Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VI. He was a great builder, for he possibly planned, and certainly completed, Tattershall Castle, built Tattershall church, and founded Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1457, the first college to admit commoners, a wise and far-seeing innovation of Waynflete’s; and in his native town erected in 1484 the Magdalen College School, a fine brick building seventy-six feet by twenty-six with its gateway flanked by polygonal towers recalling the entrance to Eton College. In the south tower is a remarkable staircase, and in the north a bell.

His adoption of St. Mary Magdalen as the patron of his school at Wainfleet and his college at Oxford may have originated in his having been appointed by Cardinal Beaufort to the mastership and chantry of St. Mary Magdalen hospital on Magdalen Down outside Winchester.

The bishop lived to the reign of Richard III., and died in 1486. He erected a monument to his father, Richard Patten. The son is called either Patten or Barbour, for he bore both names indifferently, though he soon discarded them both for the name of his birthplace, as was commonly done from the eleventh to the sixteenth century; his brother also taking the name of Waynflete. This monument was in the original church of All Saints, for the second church of St. Thomas had long been destroyed. But All Saints’ church, built cruciform and with a light wooden spire on account of the soft nature of the soil on which it stood, was destined to the same fate, for the foolish inhabitants having, in 1718, put a heavy brick tower to it, with five bells in it, the weight brought a great part of the building to ruin. Subsequently it was pulled down, and the present church was set up at some distance from the old site in 1820, when the inhabitants added vandalism to their folly and wantonly demolished this fine tomb. The broken bits were collected and placed in the Magdalen School, and later were, by the intervention of the rector of Halton Holgate, Rev. T. H. Rawnsley, obtained for the President and Fellows of the Bishop’s College at Oxford, and are now on the north side of the altar in the College Chapel. The figure has its feet resting on a bank of flowers and its head on a cushion and pillow supported by his two sons, John the Monk and William the Bishop. The face of the latter resembles the father, but is not so broad or so old as that of John. It is to be noted that Lincolnshire has produced two Bishops of Winchester, each of them the founder of a college at Oxford—Bishop Fox and Bishop Waynflete.

The town is older than Boston and existed in Roman days, possibly under the name of Vannona, and apparently a Roman road ran from Doncaster to Wainfleet, passing through Horncastle and Lusby. Certainly “Salters road,” which crosses the East Fen, was a Roman road, and the Romans made a good deal of salt from the sea-water in the immediate neighbourhood of Wainfleet. In the charter rolls of Bardney Abbey (temp. Henry III.) we read that Matthew, son of Milo de Wenflet, paid annually “to God, Saint Oswald and the Monks of Bardney 4 shillings and eighteen sextaires of salt by the old measure” for the land he held in the village of Friskney.

Later we find that (temp. Edward II.) Hugh le Despencer held lands in Wainfleet in 1327, and we know that a Robert le Despencer did so in Burgh in the time of Edward I. In the reign of Edward III. Wainfleet furnished two ships and forty seamen for the invasion of Brittany.

Wainfleet St. Mary’s lies one and a half miles to the south. The church is a massive structure with five arches on the north and four on the south of the nave.

We have now completed the round of the Marsh churches, and in so doing, on leaving Gunby, we struck into the Spilsby and Wainfleet road, just where the Somersby brook, there called the Halton river, is crossed by an iron bridge. This we did not cross, but keeping always to the left bank we followed the stream to Wainfleet. We must now go back and cross this iron bridge, and trace the road thence for four miles and a half to Spilsby. This will take us on to the Wold. We shall only pass one village, but this is one of infinite charm.

Halton Holgate stands on the very edge of the Wold, where the green-sand terminates, and looks far across the Fen to Boston. The name of the village is always properly pronounced by the natives Halton Hollygate, i.e., hollow gate or way; for the descending road has been cut through the green-sand rock, and where the cutting is deepest a pretty timber footbridge is thrown over it, leading from the rectory to the churchyard. The garden lawn has, or had, two fine old mulberry trees. These were once more common—for in the reign of James I. an order went out for the planting of mulberry trees in all rectory gardens with a view to the encouragement of the silk trade by the breeding and feeding of silkworms, whose favourite diet is the mulberry leaf. From the garden, “Boston stump” is visible eighteen miles to the south. The church is a particularly handsome one with massive well-proportioned tower, and large belfry windows, eight three-light clerestory windows on either side and a fine south porch of Ancaster stone. The rest is built of the beautifully tinted local green-sand, with quoins of harder Clipsham stone. Inside it is spacious, with lofty octagonal pillars. It is seated throughout with oak, and has several good old oak poppy-heads and some large modern ones copied from Winthorpe and carved by a Halton carpenter. Here it is worth notice that for the last hundred years Halton has never been without wood-workers of unusual talent.

Bridge over the Hollow-Gate.

South of the chancel two tall blocked arcades, leading to a Lady chapel long pulled down, were opened by the Rev. T. Sale, rector in 1894, who had reseated the chancel and filled the east window with good stained glass. The chapel, which now holds the organ, was rebuilt in memory of the two previous rectors, Rev. T. H. Rawnsley (1825-1861) and R. D. B. Rawnsley (1861-1882), and their wives Sophia Walls and Catharine Franklin. The fine effigy of a Crusader, called Henry de Halton, had been buried for safety and forgotten, like that of the priest at Little Steeping, and the sepulchral slab with Lombardic lettering, of Sir Walter Bec, of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, is the oldest monument in the neighbourhood. The inscription is: “Sire Walter Bec jist ici de ki alme Dieu ait merci.” There is a fine peal of six bells, and a “tingtang,” a thing very common in Lincolnshire, and reminiscent of the pre-Reformation Sanctus bell.

We have so often seen, owing to the negligence of church authorities, damp church walls, and wet streaming down from gutter or stack-pipe, which is blocked with growing grass or sparrows’ nests, to the great detriment of the building, that it is pleasant to record the useful activity of the Halton churchwardens, of whom one has carved, and the other put together, a fine oak screen, with the names and dates of all the known rectors, churchwardens and clerks of the parish.

Halton Church.

In the north wall of the chancel is a priest’s door, which has always been in constant use. It is a beautiful bit of Perpendicular work with an exceptionally good hood-moulding and lovely carving of waved foliage in the spandrels. These north side doors are sometimes called “Devils’ doors,” as they were not only to let the priest in but also to let the Devil out, being left open at baptisms to let him fly out when the infant renounces the Devil and all his works, and becomes the child of grace. The idea that the north was the Devil’s side had possibly something to do with the repugnance, hardly yet quite overcome, to a burial on that side of the churchyard.

An avenue of elms, planted by the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley about 1830, starting from the “Church Wongs,”[24] leads past the tower at the west to the Hollow-gate road, close to where a pit was dug by the roadside to get the sandstone for repairing the tower; and to-day, as we pass along to Spilsby, we shall see a wall of sandstone rock exposed on the right of the road, and a lot of blocks cut out and hardening in the air preparatory for use at Little Steeping, and we shall naturally be reminded of the words of Isaiah, “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.”

We have said that the restoration of Halton Holgate church was carried out by the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley about 1845, and it is remarkable that it was done so extremely well; for at that particular time the art of architectural restoration was almost at its lowest. As far as they went there were no mistakes made by the restorers at Halton, and the carved work for the seats was copied from the best models to be seen in any Lincolnshire church, and executed under the eye of the rector and his son, Drummond Rawnsley, by a Halton carpenter. That is just as it should be, and just as it used to be, but it is not often possible of attainment now.

Jesus College chapel at Cambridge underwent a much needed restoration at the same bad period, i.e., in 1849, and here too, by the genius of the architect, excellent work was done, some good old carving being preserved and very cleverly matched with new work well executed, and by a very curious coincidence, the shape of some of the poppy-heads and the plan of the panel carving is almost identical with that which was executed at Halton, after the Winthorpe pattern.

CHAPTER XXX SPILSBY AND ITS BYWAYS

Spilsby is the head of a petty-sessional division in the parts of Lindsey. The name is thought by some to be a corruption of Spellows-by, to which the name of Spellows hill in the neighbourhood gives some colour. The old gaol, built in 1825, had a really good classic portico with four fluted columns and massive pediment. Most of the buildings behind this imposing entrance were pulled down after fifty years, and all that it leads to now is the Sessions House and police station. The long market-place is interrupted in one place by a block of shops, and in another by a mean-looking Corn Exchange; but at one end of it still stands an elegant, restored market cross, and at the other a bronze statue by Noble of Sir John Franklin, the most famous of Spilsby’s sons, the discoverer of the “North West Passage.” His hand rests on an anchor, and on the pedestal are the words: “They forged the last link with their lives.” Just beyond the town a fine elm-tree avenue leads to Eresby, the seat whence the Willoughby family take their title. In Domesday Book, 1086, Spilsby and Eresby are said to belong to the Bishop of Durham. His tenant Pinco, or one of his sons, the Fitz Pincos, acquired it; and about 1166 a Pinco heiress married Walter Bec, whose grandson has a sepulchral slab in Halton church, c. 1243. In 1295 a John, the son of Walter, was created Baron Bec of Eresby, the younger brothers being Antony, Bishop of Durham, and Thomas, who was consecrated Bishop of St. David’s at Lincoln in 1280. Lord Bec died in 1302, in which year Sir William of Willoughby (near Alford), who had married his daughter and heiress Alice, obtained a charter for a market at Spilsby every Monday. Their son Robert was the first Baron Willoughby De Eresby, who died in 1316. His son John fought at Crécy 1346, and in 1348 founded the College of the Holy Trinity at Spilsby, and the chantry which, when he and his successors in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries with their huge altar tombs filled up the chancel of the old church, even blocking up the entire chancel arch with the stone screen of the Bertie monument, became eventually the chancel of the parish church. For the old church consisted of a nave and chancel into which the west door opened direct; it had probably a narrow north aisle, and certainly a large south aisle was added with the Trinity chapel at the east end of it. This aisle and chapel are now the nave and chancel of the church, which was restored in Ancaster stone in 1879, and a new south aisle added, the tower alone remaining of green-sand with lofty hard-stone pinnacles. In this the bells have just been re-hung, in December, 1913. John, second Baron Willoughby (1348), also the third (1372), who fought at Poictiers, and the fourth, with his second wife, Lady Neville, at his side (1380), have huge altar tombs with effigies in armour; he died 1389. A brass commemorates his third wife (1391), and another fine one, said to be Lincolnshire work, the fifth baron and his first wife (1410). Both these ladies being of the family of Lord Zouch. The gap between the fifth and the tenth Lord Willoughby is accounted for thus:—

The sixth Lord was created Earl of Vendome and Beaumont and died 1451. His second wife was Maud Stanhope, co-heiress of Lord Cromwell of Tattershall. The seventh and eighth, best known by their other title of Lord Welles, were both put to death for heading the Lincolnshire rebellion against Edward IV., the father by an act of bad faith on the king’s part, who had taken him, together with Dymoke the Champion, out of the Sanctuary in Westminster; and the son because, in revenge, joining Sir Thomas de la Launde, he had fought the Yorkists and been defeated at the battle of Loose-coatfield near Stamford, 1470. The ninth lord was William, who was descended from a younger son of the fifth Baron Willoughby, since Richard Hastings, whom Joan, the sister and heiress of the eighth Lord Welles, had married, left no issue. There is a monument in Ashby church near Spilsby, though in a very fragmentary condition, to William and also to Joan and Richard Hastings. William married Katherine of Aragon’s maid-of-honour, Lady Mary Salines, for his second wife, and by a will, dated Eresby 1526, desired to be buried and have a monument erected to himself and his wife at Spilsby, but this was never done. The stone screen with its supporting figures of a hermit, a crowned Saracen, and a wild man, erect, set up in 1580, is in memory of his daughter and heiress, Katherine Duchess of Suffolk, and her second husband, Richard Bertie, her first husband being that Charles Brandon who obtained so huge a share of the estates confiscated by Henry VIII. in Lincolnshire. They lived at Grimsthorpe, on the west side of the county, which the king had given to Katherine’s parents; and thenceforth that became the chief seat of the Willoughby family, and the series of monuments is continued in Edenham church. But there is one more monument, in what is now called the Willoughby chapel at Spilsby. This is to a son of the duchess, Peregrine Bertie, tenth Baron Willoughby; he died at Berwick in 1601, and was buried at Spilsby as directed in his will; his daughter, Lady Watson, died in 1610, and, as she wished to be buried near her father, Sir Lewis Watson of Rockingham erected a monument to both father and daughter, the latter reclining on her elbow, with the baby, which caused her death, in a little square cot at her feet. Peregrine was so named because he was born abroad, his parents having fled from the Marian persecutions. His wife was the Lady Mary Vere who brought the office of chamberlain into the Willoughby family. It was claimed by her son Robert, the eleventh baron, who in 1630 was made Earl of Lindsey, and thus the barony became merged in the earldom, the fourth earl being subsequently created Duke of Ancaster.

Eresby Manor was burnt down in 1769, and only the moat and garden wall and, at the end of the avenue, one tall brick-and-stone gate-pillar surmounted by a stone vase remain. At the suppression of the college and chantries the Grammar School was founded on the site of the college, just to the north of the church, Robert Latham being the first master, in 1550.

At the south-west end of the church are three tablets to three remarkable brothers born in Spilsby towards the end of the eighteenth century.

Major James Franklin, who made the first military survey of India, and contributed a paper to the Geological Society in 1828, died in 1834. Sir Willingham Franklin who, after a distinguished career at Westminster and Oxford, died, with wife and daughter, of cholera, 1824, at Madras, where he was judge of the Supreme Court. And Sir John Franklin, the famous Arctic navigator, who fought at Trafalgar and Copenhagen, and died in the Arctic regions on June 11, 1847, before the historic disaster had overtaken the crews of the Erebus and Terror. His statue stands in his native town, and also in Hobart Town, where he lived for a time as Governor of Tasmania, and is one of the two statues in London which were set up by the nation. On his monument in Westminster Abbey are the beautiful lines by his friend and neighbour, and relative by marriage, Alfred Tennyson.

The other brother, Thomas Adams Franklin, raised the Spilsby and Burgh battalion of volunteer infantry in 1801. Major Booth followed his good example and raised a company at Wainfleet to resist the invasion by Napoleon, and the men of the companies presented each of them with a handsome silver cup. Five Franklin sisters married and settled in the neighbourhood; and Catharine, the daughter of Sir Willingham, married Drummond, the son of the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley, vicar of Spilsby. Thus quite a clan was created, insomuch that forty cousins have been counted at one Spilsby ball. Drummond succeeded his father as rector of Halton, and very appropriately preached the last sermon in the old church at Spilsby at the closing service previous to its restoration, speaking from the pulpit which his father had occupied from 1813 to 1825. His sermon, a very fine one, called “The Last Time,” was from 1 St. John ii. 18, and was delivered on Trinity Sunday, 1878.

The time to visit Spilsby is on market day, when, round the butter cross, besides eggs, butter and poultry, pottery is displayed “on the stones,” stalls are set up where one may buy plants and clothes, and things hard to digest like “bull’s eyes,” as well as boots and braces, and near “the Statue” at the other end, are farm requisites, sacks, tools, and the delightful-smelling tarred twine, as well as all sorts of old iron, chains, bolts, hinges, etc., which it seems to be worth someone’s while to carry from market to market. It is here that the humours of the petty auctioneer are to be heard, and the broad Doric of the Lincolnshire peasant. In the pig market below the church hill you may hear a man trying to sell some pigs, and to the objection that they are “Stränge an’ small,” he replies, “Mebbe just now; but I tell ye them pigs ’ull be greät ’uns,” then, in a pause, comes the voice from a little old woman who is looking on without the least idea of buying, “It ’ull be a straänge long while fust,” and in a burst of laughter the chance of selling that lot is snuffed out, or, as they say at the Westmorland dog trials, “blown off.”

There is an unconscious humour about the older Lincolnshire peasants which makes it very amusing to be about among them, whether in market, field or home. My father never returned from visiting his parish without some rich instance of dialect or some humorous speech that he had heard. Finding a woman flushed with anger outside her cottage once, and asking her what was amiss, he was told “It’s them Hell-cats.” “Who do you call by such a name?” “Them Johnsons yonder.” “Why? What have they been doing?” “They’ve been calling me.” “That’s very wrong; what have they been calling you?” “They’ve bin calling me Skinny.” At another time a woman, in the most cutting tones, alluding to her next-door neighbours who had an afflicted child, said, “We may-be poor, and Wanty [her husband] says we are poor, destitutely poor, and there’s no disgraäce in being poor, but our Mary-Ann doant hev fits.” Another time, when my sister was recommending a book from the lending library describing a voyage round the world, and called “Chasing the Sun,” a little old woman looked at the title and said, “Naäy, I weänt ha’ that: I doänt howd wi sich doings. Chaäsing the Sun indeed; the A’mighty will soon let ’em know if they gets a chevying him.” In the same village I got into conversation one autumn day with a small freeholder whose cow had been ill, and asked him how he had cured her, he said, “I got haafe a pound o’ sulphur and mixed it wi’ warm watter and bottled it into her. Eh! it’s a fine thing I reckon is sulphur for owt that’s badly, cow or pig or the missis or anythink.” Then, with a serious look he went on, “There’s a straänge thing happened wi’ beans, Mr. Rownsley.” “What’s that?” “Why, the beans is turned i’ the swad” (= pod). “No!” “Yees they hev.” “How do you mean?” “Why they used to be black ends uppermost and now they’r ’tother waay on.” “Well, that’s just how they always have been.” “Naay they warn’t. It was ’81 they turned.” They do lie with the attachment of each bean to the pod, just the way you would not expect, and having noticed this he was convinced that up to then they had really lain the way he had always supposed they did, so difficult is it to separate fact from imagination. The similes used by a Lincolnshire native are often quite Homeric, as when an old fellow, who was cutting his crop of beans, the haulm of which is notoriously tough, resting on his scythe said, “I’d rayther plow wi two dogs nor haulm beans.” Then they have often a quiet, slow way of saying things, which is in itself humorous. I remember a labourer who was very deaf, but he had been much annoyed by the mother of a man whose place he had succeeded to. He was working alongside of his master and apropos of nothing but his own thoughts, he said, “Scriptur saäys we should forgive one another; but I doänt knoä. If yon owd ’ooman fell i’ the dyke I doänt think I should pull her out. I mowt tell some ’un on her, but I doänt think I should pull her out howiver.” There is some kindliness in that, though in quantity it is rather like the Irishman’s news: “I’ve come to tell you that I have nothing to tell you, and there’s some news in that.” But the Lincolnshire native is a trifle stern; even the mother’s hand is more apt to be punitive than caressing. “I’ll leather you well when I gets you home, my lad,” I have heard a mother say to a very small boy, and I have heard tell of a mother who, when informed that her little girl had fallen down the well, angrily exclaimed, “Drat the children, they’re allus i’ mischief; and now she’s bin and drownded hersen I suppose.”

In Westmorland it is the husband who will take too much at market on whom the vials of the wrath of the missis are outpoured, and they generally know how to “sarve” him. One good lady, on being asked “However did you get him ower t’wall, Betty?” replied “I didna get him ower at a’—I just threshed him through th’ hog-hole” (the hole in the wall for the sheep, or hoggetts, to pass through).

Speaking of tippling, there is no more delightful story than this from Westmorland, of a mouse which had fallen into a beer vat and was swimming round in despair, when a cat looked over, and the mouse cried out, “If ye’ll git me oot o’ this ye may hev me.” The cat let down her tail and the mouse climbed up, and shaking herself on the edge of the vat, jumped off and went down her hole, and on being reproached by the cat as not being a mouse of her word, answered, “Eh! but ivry body knaws folks will say owt when they’re i’ drink.”

There are several pretty little bits of country near Spilsby, but the most interesting of the by-ways leads off from the Horncastle road at Mavis Enderby, and, going down a steep hill, brings us to Old Bolingbroke, a picturesque village with a labyrinth of lanes circling about the mounded ruins of the castle, where, in 1366, Henry IV. “of Bolingbroke” was born. It was built in 1140 by William de Romara, first Earl of Lincoln, and was, till 1643, when Winceby battle took place, a moated square of embattled walls, with a round tower at each corner. Here Chaucer used to visit John of Gaunt and the Duchess Blanche of Lancaster, on whose death, in 1369, he wrote his “Book of the Duchess.” The castle, after the Civil Wars, sank into decay, and the gate-house, the last of the masonry, fell in 1815. The road onwards comes out opposite Hagnaby Priory. William de Romara, who three years later founded Revesby Abbey, had for his wife the second Lady Lucia, the heiress of the Saxon Thorolds, an honoured name among Lincolnshire families. She brought him, among other possessions, the manor of Bolingbroke. Her second husband was the Norman noble, Ranulph, afterwards earl of Chester. The Thorolds were descended from Turold, brother of the Lady Godiva. There apparently were two Lady Lucias, whose histories are rather mixed up by the ancient chroniclers. The earlier of the two was, it seems, the sister of the Saxon nobles, Edwin and Morcar, and of King Harold’s queen Ealdgyth. Her hand was bestowed by the conqueror upon his nephew, Ivo de Taillebois (= Underwood), who became, according to Ingulphus and others, a monster of cruelty, and died in 1114.

There are several by-ways to the north-west of Spilsby, which all converge on Harrington. Here the church contains several monuments of interest. At the east end of the nave, a knight in chain armour with crossed legs and shield is said to be Sir John Harrington (circa 1300); and against the chancel wall, but formerly on the pavement, is the brass of Margaret Copledike (1480). Her husband’s effigy is missing. Under the tower window is the monument to Sir John Copledike (1557), and in the chancel south wall a canopied tomb with a brass of Sir John Copledike (1585). Opposite is a Jacobean monument, which testifies to the illiteracy of the age with regard to spelling, to Francis Kopaldyk, his wife and two children (1599). In the time of Henry III. it was spelt Cuppeldick. A Perpendicular font with the Copledike arms stands against the tower arch.

Close to the church is Harrington Hall, with its fine old brick front and projecting porch. Hanging over the doorway is a large dial with the Amcotts arms, a curiously shaped indicator, and the date 1681. On either side of the porch which runs up the whole height of the house, are twelve windows, under deep, projecting, corbelled eaves. Inside is an old oak-panelled room, most richly carved. The house is the property of the Ingilby family, and at present the residence of E. P. Rawnsley, Esq., who has been for many years Master of the Southwold Hunt.

Somersby is but two miles off, and we may without hesitation turn our thoughts to the terraced garden of this delightful old hall when we read in Tennyson’s “Maud”:—

The poet loved to tell how, when he was reading this and paused to ask, “Do you know what birds those were?” a lady, clasping her hands, said, “Oh, Mr. Tennyson, was it the nightingale?” though in reading it he had carefully given the harsh caw of the rooks.

To get from here to Somersby you pass through Bag Enderby, where there is a fine church, now in a very ruinous state. The very interesting old font, which stands on two broken Enderby tombstones, has some unusual devices carved on it, such as David with a viol, and the Virgin with the dead Christ. One, the most remarkable of all, is a running hart turning back its head to lick off with its long tongue some leaves from the tree of life growing from its back. This symbolism is purely Scandinavian; and that it could be used on a Christian font shows how thoroughly the two peoples and their two religions were commingling.[25] The large number of villages about here ending in “by”—Danish for hamlet—is sufficient evidence of the number of settlers from over the North Sea who had taken up their abode in this part of the county.

Somersby Church.

The green-sand, which underlies the chalk, and of which almost all the churches are built, crops out by the roadside in fine masses both here and at Somersby and Salmonby, as it does too at Raithby, Halton, Keal, all in the immediate neighbourhood of the chalk wolds. Inside the church, slabs on the floor of the chancel retain their brass inscriptions to Thomas and Agnes Enderby (1390), and Albinus de Enderby, builder of the tower (1407); and on the wall is a monument to John and Andrew Gedney (1533 and 1591). The latter represented in armour and with his wife and family of two sons and two daughters. The wife, whose name is spelt first Dorithe, then Dorathe, “died the 7th of June 1591 and Andrew ____” the blank being left unfilled.

The knives and scourges of Crowland Abbey (see Chap. XLI.) are seen in the old glass. The custom of giving little knives to all comers at Crowland on St. Bartholomew’s Day was abolished by Abbot John de Wisbeche in the reign of Edward IV. In the tower is a fine peal of disused bells.

Dr. Tennyson held this living with Somersby. This is a smaller building, but it retains in the churchyard a remarkable and perfect cross, a tall, slender shaft with pedimented tabernacle, under which are figures, as on the gable cross at Addlethorpe and on the head of the broken churchyard cross at Winthorpe—the Crucifixion is on one side and the Virgin and Child on the other.

From Somersby there are two roads to Horncastle—each passes over the brook immortalised in “In Memoriam” and in the lovely little lyric, “Flow down cold rivulet to the sea,” and branching to the left, one passes through Salmonby, where Bishop William of Waynflete is said to have been rector. This is doubtful, but probably he was presented to the vicarage of Skendleby by the Prior of Bardney in 1430. The other and prettier road goes by Ashby Puerorum and Greetham, and both run out into the Spilsby and Horncastle road near High Toynton. Ashby Puerorum (or Boys’ Ashby) gets its name from an estate here bequeathed to support the Lincoln Minster choir boys. At this place, and again close by Somersby, the hollows in the Wold which this road passes through are among the prettiest bits of Lincolnshire.

CHAPTER XXXI SOMERSBY AND THE TENNYSONS

This little quiet village, tucked away in a fold of the hills, with the eastern ridge of the Wolds at its back and the broad meadow valley stretching away in front of it and disappearing eastwards in the direction of the sea, had no history till now. It was only in 1808 that Dr. George Clayton Tennyson came to Somersby as rector of Somersby and Bag Enderby, incumbent of Beniworth and Vicar of Great Grimsby. He came as a disappointed man, for his father, not approving, it is said, of his marriage with Miss ffytche of Louth (a reason most unreasonable if it was so) had disinherited him in favour of his younger brother Charles, who became accordingly Charles Tennyson d’Eyncourt of Bayons Manor near Tealby.

Dr. Tennyson’s eldest son George was born in the parsonage at Tealby, in 1806, but died an infant. Frederick was born at Louth in 1807, and the other ten children at Somersby. Of these, the first two were Charles (1808) and Alfred (1809).

They were a family of poets; their father wrote good verse, and their grandmother, once Mary Turner of Caister, always claimed that Alfred got all his poetry through her. Her husband George was a member of Parliament and lived in the old house at Bayons Manor.

From the fourteenth century the Tennysons, like their neighbours the Rawnsleys, had lived in Yorkshire; but Dr. Tennyson’s great-grandfather, Ralph, had come south of the Humber about 1700 to Barton and Wrawby near Brigg, and each succeeding generation moved south again. Thus, Michael, who married Elizabeth Clayton, lived at Lincoln, and was the father of George, the first Tennyson occupant of Bayons Manor. He had four children: George Clayton, the poet’s father; Charles, who took the name of Tennyson d’Eyncourt; Elizabeth, the “Aunt Russell” that the poet and his brothers and sisters were so fond of; and Mary, the wife of John Bourne of Dalby, of whom, though she lived so near to them, the Somersby children were content to see very little, for she was a rigid Calvinist, and once said to her nephew, “Alfred, when I look at you I think of the words of Holy Scripture, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’” At Somersby, then, the poet and all the children after Frederick were born in this order: Charles, Alfred, Mary, Emilia, Edward, Arthur, Septimus, Matilda, Cecilia, Horatio. They were a singularly fine family, tall and handsome, taking after their father in stature (he was six feet two inches) and after their mother (a small and gentle person, whose good looks had secured her no less than twenty-five offers of marriage) in their dark eyes and Spanish colouring. She was idolised by her eight tall sons and her three handsome daughters, of whom Mary, who became Mrs. Ker, was a wonderfully beautiful woman. Frederick, who outlived all his brothers, dying at the age of ninety-one after publishing a volume of poems in his ninetieth year, alone of the family had fair hair and blue eyes. Matilda is alive still at the age of ninety-eight.

The three elder sons all went to the Grammar School at Louth in 1813, when Alfred was but seven. Frederick went thence to Eton in 1817, and to St. John’s, Cambridge, in 1826; Charles and Alfred stayed at Louth till 1820, and they left it with pleasure for home teaching. Few could have been better qualified to teach than the Doctor. He had a good library and he was a classical scholar; could read Hebrew and was not without a knowledge of mathematics, natural science and modern languages; also he was a rigid disciplinarian, and, like all good schoolmasters, was held in considerable awe by his pupils. I should like to have heard him had anyone in his day outlined to him as the method of the future the Montessori system. This power of terrifying a whole class and causing each one of a set of ordinarily plucky English lads to feel for the space of half an hour that his heart was either in his mouth or in his shoes, would be incredible, were it not that there are so many English gentlemen now living who have experience of it. How well I remember the terrible, if irrational, state of funk which the whole of any class below the upper sixth was always in, when going up for their weekly lesson to that really most genial of men, Edward Thring, and it was the same elsewhere, and given the same sort of circumstances, the grown-up man could feel as frightened as the boy; witness this delightful story of the Iron Duke. No one could call him a coward, but on his return from Waterloo he went down on the fourth of June to Eton, and first told some one in his club that he meant to confess to Keate that he was the boy who had painted the Founder’s Statue or some such iniquity, the perpetrator of which Keate had been unable to discover. His friend extracted a promise that after his interview he would come and report at the club. He came, and being questioned by a group of deeply interested old Etonians, he said, “Well, it was all different, not at all like what I expected. I seized the opportunity when Keate came to speak with me by the window and said, “You remember the Founder’s Statue being defaced, sir?” “Certainly. Do you know anything about it?” he said sharply. “No, sir.” “You don’t mean to say you said that?” “Certainly I do, and what is more, every one of you would, in the circumstances, have said just the same,” and then and there they all admitted it; so difficult is it to shake off the feelings of earlier days. And yet he was not naturally terrible, and I who write this, never having been under him, have, as a small boy, spoken to Keate without a shadow of fear.

This reminds me of a remark of Gladstone’s, who was giving us some delightful reminiscences of his days at Eton, and, speaking enthusiastically of Alfred Tennyson’s friend, Arthur Hallam, when on my saying that I had spoken with Keate, he turned half round in his chair and said, “Well, if you say you have seen Keate I must believe you, but I should not have thought it possible.” He had forgotten for the moment that Keate, after retiring from Eton, lived thirteen years at Hartley Westpall (near Strathfieldsaye), where my father was curate.

To return to Somersby. We read in the memoir of the poet an amusing account, by Arthur Tennyson, of how the Doctor’s approach when they were skylarking would make the boys scatter.

In 1828 Charles and Alfred went up to Trinity, Cambridge. Frederick was already a University prize-winner, having got the gold medal for the Greek ode, and Charles subsequently got the Bell Scholarship, and Alfred the English Verse prize. The boys’ first poetical venture was the volume “Poems by Two Brothers,” published in 1826 by Jackson of Louth, who gave them £20, more than half to be taken out in books. To this volume Frederick contributed four pieces, the rest were by Charles and Alfred. The latter used very properly to speak with impatience of it in later years as his “early rot.” And it is quite remarkable how comparatively superior is the work done by Alfred as a boy of fourteen, and how little one can trace in the two brothers’ volume of that lyrical ability which in 1830 produced Mariana and The Arabian Nights, The Merman, The Dying Swan and the Ode to Memory. The majority of these poems were written at Cambridge, but there is much reference to Somersby in at least two of them, and the song, “A Spirit haunts the year’s last hours,” was, we know, written in the garden there with its border of hollyhocks and tiger-lilies. In the Ode to Memory he invokes her to arise and come, not from vineyards, waterfalls, or purple cliffs, but to

This is reminiscent of Somersby.

Then again, Memory calls up the pictures of “the sand-built ridge of heaped hills that mound the sea” at Mablethorpe, and the view over “the waste enormous marsh.”

In 1831 Dr. Tennyson died, aged fifty-two, and his sons left Cambridge. His widow lived on for thirty-four years, dying at the age of eighty-four, in 1865. They stayed on in the Somersby home till 1837, and a new volume came out in 1832, with a whole array of poems of rare merit, showing how much the poet’s mind had matured in that last year at Cambridge. This volume, like the Louth volume, is dated for the year after that in which it was really published. It carried Alfred to the front rank at once, for in it was The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art, The Miller’s Daughter, Œnone, The May Queen, New Year’s Eve, The Lotus Eaters, A Dream of Fair Women, and the Lines to James Spedding, on the death of his brother Edward. Only think of all these wonderful poems in a thin book of 162 pages written before he was twenty-three.

To Mablethorpe and Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast we find frequent allusions in many poems, e.g., he speaks in The Last Tournament of “the wide-winged sunset of the misty marsh,” and when the Red Knight in drunken passion, trying to strike the King overbalances himself, he falls—

A most accurate picture of that flat Lincolnshire coast with its “league-long rollers,” and hard, wet sands shining in the moonlight. In another place he speaks of “The long low dune and lazy-plunging sea.”

In his volume of 1832 there are many pictures drawn from this familiar coast, e.g., in The Lotus Eaters, The Palace of Art, The Dream of Fair Women; and in his 1842 volumes he speaks of

“Locksley Hall that in the distance overlooks the sandy flats And the hollow ocean ridges roaring into cataracts.”

A relative of mine was once reading this poem to the family of one of those Marsh farmers who had known “Mr. Alfred” when a youth, and who lived in the remotest part of that coast near the sandy dunes and far-spread flats between Skegness and “Gibraltar Point”; but she had not got far when at the line—

she was stopped by the farmer’s wife. “Don’t you believe him, Miss, there’s nothing hereabouts to nourish onybody, ’cepting it be an owd rabbit, and it ain’t oftens you can get howd of them.”

In Memoriam has many cantos descriptive of Somersby, both of the happy summer evenings on the lawn, when Mary

or of the walks about home with Arthur Hallam—

Or the winter nights when

And nothing could be more full of tender feeling than this farewell to the old home in Canto CI., beginning—

And in Canto CII.—

Other sections speak of Arthur Hallam, and as each Christmas comes round, or each birthday of his friend, the poet’s feelings are voiced in such a way that, if we read it with care, the poem gives us a good deal of the author’s own life history.

Arthur Hallam died on September 15, 1833, at Vienna, and his remains were brought home at the end of the year and interred at Clevedon in Somersetshire on January 4, 1834.

Immediately after his death Tennyson had turned to work as the one solace in his overwhelming grief, although, but for those dependent on his aid, such as his sister Emily who was betrothed to Hallam, he said that he himself would have gladly died. He wrote the fine classic poem Ulysses, in which he voiced the need he felt of going forward and braving the struggle of life, and then, before it had reached England, he wrote the first section of In Memoriam No. 9 addressed to the ship with its sad burden.

At some later time, possibly many years later, for In Memoriam was sixteen years in the making, he added section 10—“I hear the noise about thy keel”—which carries on the subject, and also alludes to Somersby church

For the time he wrote no more sections, but busied himself with The Two Voices, only towards the end of 1834 he wrote section 30, which he afterwards prefaced by sections 28 and 29, all describing the sad first Christmas of 1833, the first since Arthur’s death. In 28 he hears the bells of four village steeples near Somersby rising and sinking on the wind. He had more than once wished that he might never hear the Christmas bells again, but the sound of church bells had always touched him from boyhood, just as the words “far, far away” which always set him dreaming. In section 29 he bids his sisters, after decorating the church, make one more wreath for old sake’s sake, to hang within the house.

Then section 30 tells how they wove it.

After this we hear how they made a “vain pretence”

They attempt the usual Christmas games, but they have no heart for them, and all pause and listen to the wind in the tree-tops and the rain beating on the window panes. Afterwards they sit in a circle and think of Arthur, they try to sing, but the carols only bring tears to their eyes, for only last year he, too, was singing with them. After this Alfred sits alone and watches for the dawn which rises, bringing light and hope.

Section 104 brings us to another Christmas. Four years have elapsed since that last described. The Tennysons have left Somersby, with what regret they did so is beautifully told in the four sections immediately preceding this. And now, listening as of old for the Christmas bells, he hears not “four voices of four hamlets round,” but only

The following section continues the subject. They are living at High Beech in Essex “within the stranger’s land.” He thinks of the old home and garden and his father’s grave. The flowers will bloom as usual, but there, too, are strangers,

The change of place

They put up no Christmas evergreens, they attempt no games and no charades. His sister Mary does not touch the harp and they indulge in no dancing, though it was a pastime of which they were extremely fond. But as of old Alfred looks out into the night and sees the stars rise, “The rising worlds by yonder wood,” and receives comfort. All this points to the sad year 1837, when they left the well-beloved place of his birth. And now in section 106 we have a New Year’s hymn of a very different character. It has a jubilant sound, and was certainly written some years after its predecessors. In 1837 he was in no mood to say “Ring happy bells across the snow.” But there is no allusion in this splendid hymn to Arthur Hallam at all, and in the following section they keep Arthur’s birthday, not any more in sadness, but

But to return to Somersby.

Tennyson’s Home, Somersby.

The quaint house with its narrow passages and many tiny rooms, the brothers’ own particular little western attic with its small window from which they could see the ‘golden globes’ in the dewy grass which had “dropped in the silent autumn night,” the dining-room and its tall gothic windows with carved heads and graceful gables, the low grey tower patched with brick, just across the road, (for the “noble tall towered churches” spoken of in The Memoir are not in this part of the county,) and the pre-Reformation (not “Norman”) cross near the porch, all these may still be seen much as they were one hundred years ago.

True, the church has been lately put in good repair, and a fine bronze bust of the poet placed in the chancel. This was unveiled, and the church re-opened on Sunday, April 6, 1911, being the fulfilment of the plan projected on the occasion of the centenary celebration two years previously. On that Sunday the little church was more than filled with neighbours and relatives who listened to sermons from the Bishop of Lincoln and the Rev. Canon Rawnsley. Next day was Bank Holiday, and in a field near the rectory hundreds of Lincolnshire folk of every kind—farmers, tradespeople, gentry, holiday makers—assembled to do honour to their own Lincolnshire poet, and for a couple of hours listened intently to speeches about him and laughed with a will at the humours of the “Northern Farmer” read in their own native dialect, just as the poet intended; whilst the relatives of the poet and those who were familiar with his works looked with glad interest upon a scene of rural beauty which brought to the mind the descriptions in The Lady of Shalott, seeing on the slopes before them the promise of crops soon to “clothe the wold and meet the sky,” while far away to the left stretched the valley which pointed to Horncastle, the home of the poet’s bride, and on the right was the churchyard where the stern “owd Doctor” rests, and the church where for five and twenty years he ministered. The whole was a remarkable assemblage and a remarkable tribute, and the setting was a picture of quiet English rural life, one which the poet himself must often have actually looked out upon, and such as he has himself beautifully described in The Palace of Art:—

The spirit of the poet seemed still to be a haunting presence in the place, and as then, so now and for all time his works speak to us. But three-quarters of a century have passed since a Tennyson has had his home in Somersby. They left in 1837, and though Mary went back at times to see the “beloved place,” Alfred never set eyes on it again. Charles married in that year Louisa Sellwood, whose mother was a sister of Sir John Franklin, and thirteen years later Alfred married her sister Emily. They left Somersby; but Lincolnshire still kept possession of Charles, who took the name of Turner in addition to his own, and ministered happily at Grasby near Caistor, being both vicar and patron of the living; and he and his wife both died there in the spring of 1879, at the comparatively early age, for a Tennyson, of seventy-one, for the family have been a remarkably long-lived one.

Matilda, who was born before Cecilia and Horatio, still survives. I went to see her in the summer of 1913. I found her well and full of early memories. She was a girl in the schoolroom when she first saw Arthur Hallam, an event of which she had a vivid recollection. I said, “I suppose you get out every fine day for a drive.” “Oh,” she said, “I go out for a walk every day and take the dog.” I thought that rather wonderful at her age. “Yes, I am ninety-seven,” she said, “and I mean to live to be 105.” I told her how Queen Victoria, who was always looking forward to reunion with the dear departed—but ever a ceaseless worker—used to say, “my dear, you should always act as if you were going to live for ever.”

Alfred, who succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850, was raised to the Upper House in 1884. He is buried in Westminster Abbey side by side with his great contemporary, Robert Browning, and on his grave was laid a wreath of bay-leaves from a tree derived from the bay which flourishes over Virgil’s tomb near Naples, and on the wreath were Tennyson’s own magnificent lines, written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth centenary of their poet’s death (1881).

The recent appearance (October, 1913) of a notable volume of Tennyson’s poems, introduced by a Memoir and concluding with the poet’s own notes, may well serve as the text for some remarks on his poems generally. The volume bound in green cloth is priced at 10s. 6d. The Memoir is somewhat abbreviated from the two interesting volumes published by his son in 1897, which appeared again as the first four volumes of Messrs. Macmillan’s fine twelve-volume edition of 1898. There are, however, a few additions, notably a letter from the Master of Trinity, Cambridge, telling how he once, years ago, asked Dr. Thompson, the Master, whether he could say, not from later evidence, but from his recollection of what he thought at the time, which of the two friends had the greater intellect, Hallam or Tennyson. “Oh, Tennyson,” he said at once, with strong emphasis, as if the matter was not open to doubt. This is very high praise indeed, for Gladstone said that Hallam was far ahead of anyone at Eton in his day, and Monckton Milnes thought him the only man at Cambridge to whom he “bowed in conscious inferiority in all things.” The Notes first appeared in the very pleasant “Annotated Edition” edited also by Hallam Lord Tennyson within the last five years. The present generation can never know the delight of getting each of those little green volumes which came out between ’32 and ’55, and sequels to which kept following till ’92. But for general purposes it is far more convenient to have a one-volume edition, such as we have had for some time now. This new edition, however, with its Memoir, gives us what, as the years go by, is more and more valuable, enabling us to read the poet in his verses and to know what manner of man he was, and how his environment affected him at the different stages of his life. The Notes add an interest, and though it is seldom that in any but the In Memoriam Cantos any explanation is needed to poems that are so clear and so easily intelligible, one gains information and finds oneself here and there let into the author’s secrets, which is always pleasant. The book runs to over a thousand pages, and is so beautifully bound that it lies open at any page you choose. There is an interesting appendix to the Notes, giving the music to “The Silent Voices,” composed by Lady Tennyson and arranged for four voices by Dr. Bridge for Lord Tennyson’s funeral at the Abbey, October 12, 1892. Also a previously unpublished poem of his later years, entitled “Reticence.” She is called the half-sister of Silence, and is thus beautifully described:—

Then comes a facsimile of the poet’s MS. of “Crossing the Bar,” finally, besides the usual index of first lines, the book ends with an index to In Memoriam, and, what we have always wanted, an index to the songs.

Undoubtedly in the future this new edition will be the Tennyson for the library shelf, and a very complete and compact volume it is. Personally, I like the little old green volumes, but if I were now recommending an edition not in one volume, I would say, “Have the Eversley or Annotated Edition in nine volumes, which exactly reproduces the page and type of those old original volumes with the added advantage of the Notes.” It is hardly to be expected that the spell with which Tennyson bound all English-speaking people for three generations should not in a measure be relaxed, but though we have a fuller chorus of singers than ever before, and an unusually appreciative public, the attempt so constantly made to decry Tennyson has no effect on those who have for years found in him a charm which no poet has surpassed, and, indeed, it will be long before a poet arises who has, as Sir Norman Lockyer observes, “such a wide range of knowledge and so unceasing an interest in the causes of things and the working out of Nature’s laws, combined with such accuracy of observation and exquisite felicity of language.” Let me give one more criticism, and this time by a noted scholar, Mr. A. Sidgwick, who speaks of his “inborn instinct for the subtle power of language and for musical sound; that feeling for beauty in phrase and thought, and that perfection of form which, taken all together, we call poetry.” That perfection was the result of labour as well as of instinct. He had an ear which never played him false, hence he was a master of melody and metre, and he was never in a hurry to publish until he had got each line and each word right. “I think it wisest,” he wrote to one of his American admirers, “for a man to do his work in the world as quietly and as well as he can, without much heeding the praise or dispraise.” He was a lover of the classics, and in addressing Virgil on the nineteenth centenary of his death, as quoted above, he himself alludes to this. Without being what we call a great scholar, in his classic poems he is hard to beat, while in his translations of Homer he certainly has no equal. Then in his experiments in classic metres, whether in the “Metre of Catullus” or in the Alcaics in praise of Milton, his perfect accuracy is best understood if we turn to the similar experiments by living poets, who never go far without a blunder, at least none that I have ever read do.

To the Lincolnshire folk, his dialect poems, written in the dialect which was current in his youth at Spilsby and in the country about it (and still used there, I am glad to say, though not so universally or so markedly as of yore), give genuine pleasure, and are full of humour and of character, and it is a tribute to his accurate ear and memory that, after an absence of some twenty-seven years, he should have got the Lincolnshire so correct. He did it all right, but for fear he might have forgotten and got wrong, he asked a friend to look at it and criticise; unfortunately the friend lived in the north of the county and knew not the dialect of “Spilsbyshire,” so he altered it all to that which was spoken about Brigg, which is more like Yorkshire, and it had to be put back again. But some of the northern dialect has stuck, and in “The Northern Farmer Old Style” the ‘o’ is seen in ‘moind,’ ‘doy,’ ‘almoighty,’ etc., where the Spilsby sound would be better rendered by using an ‘a.’ This ‘o’ is never found in any of his subsequent dialect poems, and in a note to the text in the “Northern Cobbler” the poet points out that the proper sound is given by ‘ai.’

One sign of the remarkable way in which our Lincolnshire poet has made himself the poet of the English-speaking race is the extraordinary number of familiar quotations which he has given us. For the last fifty years in book and newspaper, in speech and sermon, some line or some phrase of his has constantly occurred which the user felt certain that his hearer or readers would recognise, until our literature has become tessellated with Tennysonian expressions, and they have always given that satisfaction which results from feeling that in using his words we have said the thing we wished to say in a form which could not be improved upon. In this respect of “daily popularity and application,” I think Shakespeare alone excels him, though Pope and Wordsworth may run him close.

Little Steeping.

CHAPTER XXXII ROADS FROM SPILSBY

The four roads from Spilsby go north to Louth, and south to Boston, each sixteen miles; east to Wainfleet, eight miles; and west to Horncastle, ten miles. The Wainfleet one we have already described and two-thirds of that from Louth. The remaining third, starting from Spilsby, only goes through two villages—Partney and Dalby. Partney lies low in the valley of Tennyson’s “Cold rivulet,” and those who have driven across the flat meadows between the village and the mill after sundown know how piercingly cold it always seems.

The place has a very long history. Bede, who died in 725, writing twelve hundred years ago and speaking of the Christianising of Northumbria by Paulinus, who was consecrated Bishop of York in 625, and his visit to the province of Lindissi, i.e., “the parts of Lindsey” and Lincoln in particular, says that the Abbot of Peartaney (= Partney, near Spilsby, which was a cell of Bardney) spoke to him once of a man called Deda, who was afterwards, in 730, Abbot of Bardney and a very truthful man, “presbyter veracissimus,” and said that Deda told him that he had talked with an aged man who had been baptised by Bishop Paulinus in the presence of King Ædwin, in the middle of the day, and with him a multitude of people, in the River Treenta, near a city called in the language of the Angles, Tiovulfingaceaster; this was in 627. Many have taken the place to be Torksey, though that in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle is Turcesig. Green suggested it was at the ford of Farndon beyond Newark, but it was far more likely to be at Littleborough Ferry, two miles north of Torksey, where the Roman road (“Till bridge Lane”) from Lincoln crossed the river. But certainly Torksey is the nearest point of the river to Lincoln, and the Fossdyke went to it, as well as a road, so that communication was easy and inexpensive, and on the whole I should be inclined to say that Torksey was the place of baptism.

But to return to Partney. In addition to its being a ‘cell’ of Bardney Abbey, we know there was a very fine hospital at Partney, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, before 1138, and among the tombs recently uncovered at Bardney is one of Thomas Clark, rector of Partney, 1505. It appears to have been a market town when Domesday Book was compiled, at a time when Spilsby was of no account; but the Black Death in 1349 or the plague in 1631, when Louth registered 500 deaths in two months, and in the Alford neighbourhood Willoughby also suffered, severely decimated the place, and tradition has it that some clothing dug up eighty years after burial caused a fresh and violent outbreak. Whenever it happened, for no records exist, the consequence was that the glory of Partney as the next market town to Bolingbroke departed, and Spilsby grew as Partney dwindled. Of course the healthy situation of Spilsby had much to do with it. Yet Partney still retains the two sheep fairs on August 1 for fat lambs and September 19 for sheep, and they are the biggest sheep fairs in the neighbourhood. Two other fairs take place, on August 25 and at Michaelmas, and it is noticeable that three of the four are held on the eve of the festivals of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen. In 1437 we find that Matilda, wife of Thomas Chaucer, the eldest son of the poet, had a share of an eighteenth part of the Partney market tolls. Fine brasses to her and her husband exist in Ewelme church, near Oxford. On fair days sheep are penned all along the streets and in adjoining fields, and “Beast” on the second day are standing for half a mile down the Scremby road.

The church is dedicated to St. Nicolas, the most popular of all church patrons, who was Bishop of Myra in Lycia in the fourth century. As patron of fishermen he has many sea coast churches, and he is also the peculiar saint of children, who know him by his Dutch name of Santa Klaus. One of the oldest oaks in England is in the churchyard. The chiming church clock, put in in 1869, is a monument to the skill of a clever amateur, Sidney Maddison, Esq., who fitted it with “Dennison’s three-legged escapement,” which was then a new and ingenious invention of the late Lord Grimthorpe.

In 1764 Dr. Johnson walked over from Langton with his friend, Bennet Langton, to see Bennet’s Uncle Peregrine. He died two years later aged eighty-four, and the doctor wrote to his friend: “In supposing that I should be more than commonly affected by the death of Peregrine Langton you were not mistaken: he was one of those I loved at once by instinct and by reason. I have seldom indulged more hope of anything than of being able to improve our acquaintance to friendship. Many a time have I placed myself again at Langton, and imagined the pleasure with which I should walk to Partney in a summer morning, but this is no longer possible. We must now endeavour to preserve what is left us, his example of piety and economy. I hope you make what enquiries you can and write down what is told you. The little things which distinguish domestic character are soon forgotten: if you delay to enquire you will have no information: if you neglect to write, information will be in vain. His art of life certainly deserves to be known and studied. He lived in plenty and elegance upon an income which to many would appear indigent, and to most, scanty. How he lived, therefore, every man has an interest in knowing. His death I hope was peaceful: it was surely happy.”

After Partney the road goes up the hill to Dalby. Here the old house where Tennyson’s aunt, Mrs. Bourne, lived, was burnt down in 1841, and the thatched barn-like church swept away in 1862. The charm of the present house lies in its beautiful garden.

Having got on to the chalk wold a fine view opens over the wide vale to the left as far as the next ridge, which stretches from Spilsby to Hagworthingham. About a mile further on, a road goes sharply down to the left into Langton, and across a watersplash to Colonel Swan’s residence at Sausthorpe, where again we find cross-roads near the pretty little church built by Gilbert Scott, with a crocketed spire, the only spire in the neighbourhood. The roads lead back to Partney, on to Raithby over the stream, to Horncastle and to Harrington, all by-ways. But to return to our Spilsby and Louth highway. From the turn to Langton we keep rising and see some tumuli on our left, and then another left turn to Brinkhill, where, from a steep and curiously scarped hillside, roads descend right and left to Ormsby and Harrington; but we will keep on the highway for another mile till we find that the Louth road by Haugh goes off to the left, and the Roman road to Burgh to the right, and the way straight forward comes to Well Vale and Milecross hill, and so drops into Alford. The rest of the road to Louth we have described in the Louth chapter.

The other roads from Spilsby are, south to Boston and west to Horncastle. The Boston road is noticeable for the wonderful view of the fen, with the “Stump” standing far up into the sky, which you get from Keal Hill, where the green-sand ends and the road drops into a plain which is without a hill or even a rise for the next fifty or sixty miles. After Keal the road passes by Stickford, Stickney and Sibsey—the last having a very handsome transition Norman tower, and a ring of eight bells—and comes into Boston by Wide Bargate. The road is uninteresting throughout, and so monotonous that a story is told of someone driving in a coach in years gone by, when roads were deep and miry, who put his head out and asked the name of each place they came to. “What is this?” “Stickford, sir.” “And this?” “Stickney, sir.” “Stick-foot! Stick-knee! we shall come to Stick-neck next; you had better turn back.”

Sibsey.

The Horncastle road from Spilsby goes out along the green-sand by Hundleby, from the tower of which I remember a man falling to the ground and receiving no hurt at all, the nearest approach to a miracle any one need wish to experience. Much of the money for the re-building of the church was raised by the untiring industry and beautiful needlework of Mrs. Ed. Rawnsley of Raithby; for Raithby, with its pretty broken ground and ornamental water and its beautifully kept church filled with good modern glass, was for half a century the home of the Rev. Edward Rawnsley. The old stable adjoins the churchyard, and by an anomalous arrangement the loft over the stable is fitted up as a Wesleyan chapel, the use of it for that purpose having been granted in perpetuo to John Wesley by his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Carr Brackenbury. The road goes on straight from here by Hagworthingham or turns to the left to Mavis Enderby, and so strikes a parallel route, both of them unite at the top of the hill which runs down by High Toynton into Horncastle. The name Mavis was originally Malbyse, a name more characteristic than complimentary, for it means evil beast. The word byse, or bys, exists in Bison, and the name of the unpleasant one is found again in the village of Acaster Malbis, near York. There is nothing of special interest on the “Hag” road, but the Mavis Enderby road leads us to Lusby and Winceby; of these Lusby has a most interesting little church, thoroughly well restored, with a good deal of Norman work and some unmistakable Saxon work in it. There are two blocked doorways on the north-west, one with Norman zigzag moulding in green-sand showing how durable a material it is when properly laid and not exposed to wet. Some singular arcading of a very early type is seen on the west of the walls on either side of the round-headed chancel arch, which is not in the centre of the wall. It has been renewed in green-sand of various colours. This work may have been Saxon, for there was a church here when Domesday Book was written, and there is certainly a definite bit of “Long and Short” work on the right hand side of the blocked south doorway, and a fragment of a Saxon stone inside, closely resembling the Miningsby Stone, but it is difficult to speak with certainty, as the early Normans made use of Saxon ornamentation. Outside there are two courses of big basement stones running on both sides of the nave—one bevelled and set back a little. Inside is a low-side window, two or three aumbreys, two arched recesses for tombs, a niche near the chancel arch, and a very good stone head of a queen projecting from the south-east window in the nave. There is also a remarkable little “Keyhole” window high up in the north wall of the chancel. The masonry is rough and amorphous, but very solid. The old rood-screen of three arches is very handsome. Under the Communion table is a sepulchral slab with an inscription in old lettering, mostly obliterated, from which the brass tablet has been removed and put up on the wall. It is singular, being a dialogue between a deceased wife and her husband:—

Going on two miles along the Roman road to Horncastle we come to Hameringham. Here, as at Lusby, there is no tower, but a little slated bell-turret. Two large arches and one beautiful little pointed arch at the west end on small octagonal pillars divide the nave from the aisle. The western pillar is of the local green-sand, and dates from the thirteenth century. The other pillar is of whitish stone, and the small eastern respond is of the same. These date from the fourteenth century, and have boldly foliaged capitals. Close together on the abacus are two distinct marks of bullets which must have come in through the aisle window. There is a good fifteenth century font, and on the Jacobean pulpit is the original hour-glass stand, and with an old church hour-glass in it. These stands are still to be seen at Bracebridge, Leasingham, Sapperton and Belton in the Isle of Axholme. The traces of a blocked priest’s door are visible on the north side. Oddly enough the dressings of the porch, etc., are of red sandstone from Dumfries. It is a good hard stone, but there is much to be said for always, if possible, using the stone of the country.

The next village is Winceby, where “Slash Lane” commemorates the place of Cromwell’s cavalry-battle in 1643. In the south chapel of Horncastle church, some four miles on, we shall see a goodly array of scythes on long straight handles, which are said to have been used with deadly effect in this fight. This church has five three-light clerestory windows on each side of the nave, but in the chancel, six on the south and only five on the north side, the eastmost one being larger than the rest. There is an outside belfry staircase with a cone to it built against the middle of the south wall of the tower. Inside, the pilasters of the tower arch die away into the arch moulding without capitals. The brass in the north wall, to Lionel Dymoke, is remarkable (date 1519); and in the north chapel a tomb to Sir Ingram Hopton “who paid his debt to Nature and duty to his King and Country in the attempt of seizing the arch rebel in the bloody skirmish near Winceby, October 6, 1643.” This should be October 11. The arch rebel was Cromwell, who was unhorsed and nearly taken prisoner by Sir Ingram. He afterwards slept at Horncastle in a house in West Street. This battle secured Lindsey and the Wolds for Cromwell, Boston and the Fens were never Royalist. The River Bain, which rises in Kelston near the Louth and Rasen road, gave its name to the Roman station of Banovallum. It flows through Gayton-le-Wold, Biscathorpe, Donington-on-Bain and Goulceby to Horncastle, and out by Coningsby and Tattershall to the River Witham, and it makes a peninsula at Horncastle, whence the name of Hyrn-ceaster, = the camp at the horn or bend. Portions of a Roman wall still exist near the market-place, and at the south-west corner of the churchyard. The manor was sold in 1230 to the Bishop of Carlisle for the use of the see; it served as a refuge when border invasions made the diocese of Carlisle undesirable as a peaceful home, and during the fourteenth century was the usual episcopal residence.

The celebrated horse fair is not what it used to be. Lincoln fair is more accessible, and is now the more important of the two. But it still affords two or three days of wild excitement, with horses tearing about the streets. At one time the fair lasted three weeks. August was a thirsty month, and the number of beer-houses had to be increased pro. tem. to meet the need of both buyers and sellers; so five-shilling licenses were issued called bush or bough licenses, a bush being hung out for a sign, a custom once common in England and still prevalent on the Continent. Hence, the proverb, “Good wine needs no bush,” i.e., no advertisement. The Hon. Edward Stanhope of Revesby, who was Minister for War in 1868, has a statue in the market-place, near the house in which the Sellwoods lived, two of whom, Louisa and Emily, married Charles and Alfred Tennyson.

Leaving the market-place for the Lincoln road you pass what is an unusual feature in a town—an elm tree overhanging the street, and having in it several rooks’ nests. It is near the “Fighting Cocks” inn. There is a similar tree loaded with nests in the town of Staines.

When the river was used for navigation there was a high arched bridge with a towing-path under it, and the bridge, though now flat, is still called “the bow bridge.”

At that time the church was filled with box pews and lofts, and the front row of pews in the lofts were sold to different families by auction and would fetch as much as £80, the second row reaching £40. But though there were ardent churchgoers in the town, the villages around were very indifferently served, having in quite a dozen instances in that one neighbourhood no parsonage house and consequently no resident parson.

It is interesting to know that a good deal of the carving in the church was done less than fifty years ago by a carpentry class of young men who took lessons for the purpose from a clever carver called Thomas Scrivener.

But we have one other road to speak of, which is the way from Spilsby to Sleaford.

The Boston road from Spilsby, after it reaches the edge of the green-sand, where it suddenly breaks down at West Keal into the level fen, divides at the foot of the hill, and the right-hand road goes westwards by Hagnaby, East Kirkby, Revesby, Coningsby, Tattershall and Billinghay to Sleaford. This is all a level road. Hagnaby Priory, two miles from West Keal, is the residence of Mrs. Pocklington Coltman. The house is modern, in fact, there never was a priory here, but near Alford there was once an abbey of Hagnaby, so the name is suggestive of Priors.

Another two miles brings us to East Kirkby; the turn to the right takes us to the church which, having been entrusted to the capable hands of Mr. W. D. Caröe, is a model of what church restoration should be. He has put square-headed clerestory windows in the chancel with good effect. The tower has a beautiful two-light early Decorated window. The piers of the nave are remarkably slender. There is a good font, and the early Perpendicular rood screen is a very graceful one. In the north wall of the chancel is a two-light low-side window and a curious recess, possibly an Easter Sepulchre. It is covered with diaper work, and with wild geranium, oak leaves and acorns excellently carved in stone, and below this, some half-figures of the three Maries, each holding a heart-shaped casket, of spices perhaps for embalming. A basin projecting from the front is thought to have been a receptacle for the Easter offerings. A similar basin, as Mr. Jeans in Murray’s Guide points out, is attached to the tomb of Edward II. at Gloucester. A little further on is the tiny church of Miningsby, only to be approached by footpaths over grass fields. It has in it a pre-Norman slab of very uncommon character with figure-of-eight intertwined knot work and a herring-bone border. A fragment with similar figure-of-eight work is in Mavis Enderby church, on a coped stone which has been cut to make a door-step, and a smaller bit like it is in Lusby church—probably all the work of the same Saxon mason. In a house near the church is a stone with the initials “L. G., 1544,” which must refer to the Goodrich family; for East Kirkby was the birthplace of Thomas Goodrich, Bishop of Ely, 1534, Lord Chancellor, 1550, and coadjutor in the first Communion Office with Cranmer.

The next place on the Spilsby and Sleaford road is Revesby Abbey (Hon. R. Stanhope), a fine deer park with a modern house, built by J. Banks-Stanhope, Esq., 1848. The previous house had been the residence of the great naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., who died in 1820, and took part with Rennie in devising and carrying out the drainage of the East Fen. The abbey, founded in 1143 by W. de Romara, Earl of Lincoln, was colonised from Rievaulx, and was itself the parent of Cleeve Abbey in Somerset. The abbey was a quarter of a mile south-east of the present church, in which are preserved the few fragments now extant of a building which was once 120 feet long and sixty feet wide. The Hon. Edward Stanhope in 1870 discovered the tombs and bodies of the founder and his two sons. The founder, who had become a monk, had requested to be buried “before the high Altar,” and his tomb was inscribed, “Hic jacet in tumba Wiellielmus de Romare, comes Lincolniae, Fundator istius Monasterii Sancti Laurentii de Reivisbye.” The site of his re-burial is marked by a granite stone. Among the abbey deeds is one by which the Lady Lucia’s second husband, Ranulph Earl of Chester, gives to the abbey “his servant Roger son of Thorewood of Sibsey with all his property and chatells.” I don’t suppose that Roger found the abbey folk bad to work for; they certainly did much for the good of the neighbourhood, notably in keeping up the roads and bridges, which was one of the recognised duties of religious houses; but all this came to an end when in 1539, like so many other Lincolnshire estates, it was granted by Henry VIII. to his brother-in-law the Duke of Suffolk. The Duke died in 1545, and was buried at Windsor; his two sons both died in one day, July 16, 1551, in the Bishop of Lincoln’s house at Buckden.

The road past the park gates is very wide, with broad grass borders on either side, and a fine row of wych elms bordering the park, at each end of which are some model farm buildings of the best Lincolnshire kind; and, to take us more than a thousand years back, we have two large tumuli quite close to the road. There were three, but one, after being examined by Sir Joseph Banks in 1780, was levelled in 1892; later the existing two were explored and one was found to contain a clay sarcophagus, which possibly once contained the remains of a British king.

Just past the tumuli is the inn, at the four cross-roads. That to the left runs absolutely straight for eleven miles to Boston; to the right is the Horncastle road through Moorby and Scrivelsby, with the barn-like church of Wilksby in a grass field behind Moorby. Both these churches have good fonts; that at Moorby is the later of the two, having two crowned and two mitred heads at the four corners, and with very remarkable figures of the Virgin and Child learning, with open book and scourge; the sun and moon being depicted on either side looking on complacently, evidently they had never heard of the Montessori system, also there are six kneeling figures and two angels watching the dead body of the donor. A stone in the vestry, about fourteen inches by eight, exhibits two women and a man vigorously dancing hand in hand to the bagpipes, all in fifteenth century head-dresses and costumes. Moorby is in the gift of the Bishop of Manchester, it having been assigned presumably by Carlisle when the new see was carved out of parts of older ones. How Carlisle came to have patronage here may be briefly told. On St. George’s Day, April 23—a day memorable as the birth and death day of Shakespeare, and the death day of Wordsworth—in the year 1292, John-de-Halton, who may well have come of the family who gave the name to Halton Holgate near Spilsby, being then Canon of Carlisle, was elected bishop. Within a month, a fire having destroyed the cathedral and all the town, he set to work and rebuilt the cathedral, and encouraged others to rebuild the town; and by the year 1297 Robert Bruce swore fealty to the king in his presence in the newly risen pile. He was a man of mark, and was mediator between Edward I. and John of Balliol in the claim to the Scottish throne. He planned Rose Castle, the palace of the Bishops of Carlisle. In 1307 he received at his cathedral, from the sick king’s hands, the horse-litter which had brought him to the north; and within a few days saw the king, who had bravely mounted his charger at the cathedral door, borne back a dead man on the shoulders of his knights from Burgh Marsh (pronounced Berg) on the Solway shore. In 1318 he was driven from his diocese by Robert the Bruce, and came to the manor of Horncastle, which, as mentioned above, had belonged to the see since 1230, and got the Pope to attach the living of Horncastle and with it that of Moorby and probably some others to his see as a means of support for him whilst in exile and poverty, and up to the middle of last century Horncastle so remained, whilst Moorby is now in the gift of the Bishop of Manchester. John de Halton died in the year 1324.

Coningsby.

If we went west from Moorby we should pass by Wood Enderby, the only church in this neighbourhood with a spire, as Sausthorpe is in the Spilsby neighbourhood, and should reach Haltham on the road from Horncastle to Coningsby. Here the small church with its old oak seats has an early Norman doorway with a quaintly carved tympanum. Going north from Moorby we should pass Scrivelsby, but this must have a chapter to itself, so we will get back to the main road at Revesby and go through Mareham-le-fen to Coningsby, passing Tumby Wood, the home of the wild lily-of-the-valley and the rare little smilacina or Maianthemum bifolium, which also grows near Horncastle. Across the entrance to Coningsby, the Great Northern Railway Company have just built a new line from Lincoln to Skegness, by which tens of thousands of “trippers” will be taken for a shilling and turned out to enjoy the sea shore and the splendid expanse of hard sand. Skegness, once a delightful solitude, is now disfigured by all that appertains to those who cater for the hungry multitudes.

Tattershall and Coningsby.

From the bridge over the Bain at the other end of Coningsby village a pretty picture of water and willows is crowned by the view of Tattershall church and castle, both of which are described later. Coningsby church, built, like Tattershall, all of Ancaster stone, has a singular tower which stands on tall arches and allows free passage under it from three sides. In the west of this tower is a large circular window. Passing through Tattershall village with its open space and market cross, near which three roads meet, and where the Horncastle canal unites the Bain and Witham, we cross the Lincoln and Boston railway, and also the River Witham which, from the next station of Dogdyke, was cut straight by Rennie, and runs like a great dyke to Langrick, and then with only two bends to Boston. At Dogdyke is a bit of undrained swamp, the home of several good bog-plants, such as the bladderwort, water-violet, meadow-rue (Ophelia’s “Herb o’ Grace”) and the bog-stitchwort. The road on to Sleaford, across the fen for fourteen miles, is quite uninteresting, except for the very Dutch appearance of the village of Billinghay on the banks of a large drain called the Billinghay Skirth, near which, at North Kyme, we pass alongside the old Roman Carr Dyke, and, crossing it, arrive at Anwick, which has a pretty church with broach spire and good Early English doorway. Here, on our left, on the River Slea, is Haverholme Priory (Countess of Winchelsea), founded 1137 by Bishop Alexander, who afterwards moved the rheumatic Monks to Louth Park, and gave the priory to his chaplain Gilbert, founder of the order of Gilbertines, who had also a priory at Alvingham near Louth. There is nothing left of the priory, in which it is said that Archbishop Thomas à Becket once took refuge from Henry II. Four more miles bring us to Sleaford, whose spire has long been visible across the flats.

Tattershall Church.

CHAPTER XXXIII SCRIVELSBY, DRIBY, TUMBY AND TATTERSHALL — Scrivelsby. — Driby, Tumby, and Tattershall.

The manor which carried with it the title for its possessor of “Hereditary Grand Champion of England,” was a very interesting old house till the year of the Coronation of George III., when it was destroyed by fire. An arched gateway remains near the house, where once a moat, drawbridge, and portcullis protected the courtyard. The picturesque Lion Gateway at the entrance to the park from the Horncastle road, opposite to which under some trees are seen the village stocks, was set up by Robert Dimoke about 1530. It is built of rough stones but has a fine stone lion, passant and crowned, above it, and a rebus of an oak tree (Dim oak) carved at the side of the archway. The manor with this peculiar privilege attached was given by the Conqueror to his steward “Robert the Dispenser,” Lord of Fontenaye and ancestor of the De Spencers and the Marmions.

Sir Walter Scott speaks of the Marmion of his poem, though he was an imaginary character and of much later date, as—

In the Scrivelsby parish church of St. Benedict is a mutilated recumbent stone figure clad in chain-mail with sword and shield, and by his side a lady in the severe costume of the time, with muffled chin and plain head-dress. The warrior is Philip Marmion, the last of the Marmions of Scrivelsby, who died 1292, the family having acted as champions from the time of William the Conqueror to Henry III. Together with the championship, Philip Marmion had the right of free-warren and gallows at his manor at Scrivelsby.

The Lion Gate at Scrivelsby.

Philip having no son, his estates were divided among his four daughters. His second daughter, Mazera, married a Ralph Cromwell, ancestor of the Lord Cromwell who built Tattershall Castle, and the Scrivelsby estate fell to Joan, the youngest, who married Sir Thomas Ludlow. His son, Thomas, left one daughter, Margaret, who married Sir John Dymoke and brought the Championship in 1350 into the family, which has held it now for upwards of 560 years. It was probably their son John who married the daughter of Sir Thomas Friskney, whence descended the Dymokes of Friskney and Fulletby.

At the coronation of Edward II., 1307, and Edward III., 1327, the Championship appears to have been in commission, but at that of Richard II., 1377, Sir John Dymoke claimed it in right of his wife. Baldwin Freville counter-claimed as Lord of Tamworth, but the office was awarded to Sir John.

There are many Dymokes buried both in the church and churchyard, the most notable monument being an altar tomb in the chancel with a brass on it of Sir Robert Demoke. Edward IV. had beheaded his father along with Lord Welles after he had taken them under pledge of safety out of sanctuary at Westminster, and he tried to make amends by heaping favours on the son, who lived in five reigns—Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., and Henry VIII.; and acted as Champion at the coronation of the last three, in 1483, 1485, and 1509. The brass presents him in armour and spurred, but bareheaded and with short neck, long flowing hair, and a huge beard; he stands on a lion, and the inscription runs thus:—

The words “Knight and Baronet” have puzzled many, but in spite of the fact that Sir Brien Stapilton at Burton Joice, Notts., and Sir Thomas Vyner at Gautby, Lincolnshire, 1672, are described as Knight and Baronet, and though they may have been first Knights and then Baronets, in this case of Sir Robert Dymoke, of 1545, it can hardly have been so, for the title baronet was not in use until after 1603, and we must suppose that the words were originally “Knight Banneret,” a distinction which was conferred on Sir Robert by Henry VIII., and that the present wording was probably a correction by an ignorant restorer in the seventeenth century, after damage done in the civil wars. The eldest son of the Champion who had been so unjustifiably put to death by Edward IV., was Lionel, who died before his father, and whose brass in Horncastle church represents him kneeling on a cushion in full armour, holding a scroll in his hand, date 1519. The figure is kneeling in a stiff attitude, armed and spurred, and bareheaded, a scroll from his mouth says:—

“S’cta Trinitas Unus Deus Miserere nob:”

The inscription on the brass is:—

Below on either side were figures of two sons and three daughters. The sons are now missing.

Lionel’s brother Robert was only ten when he obtained the title. He was succeeded by his son Edward, who performed the office of Champion for the three children of Henry VIII. His son Robert, though never acting at any coronation, deserves mention as a martyr, in Elizabeth’s reign, to his religious convictions. This queen, always dreading a Romish reaction in favour of her rival, Mary Queen of Scots, allowed a Puritanical bishop to persecute any Catholic in his diocese, and Robert, though in feeble health, was stout of heart and kept firm to his faith and died a prisoner at Lincoln, 1580.

The mother of Edward Dymoke who was Champion to Charles II. was buried at Leverton in 1640. Sir Edward was summoned in 1660 before the Parliamentarians at Westminster and accused of “delinquency” because he bore the Royalist title of King’s Champion. He was fined £7,000, an enormous sum for the time, and he had to pay between four and five thousand. Hence the impoverishment of the Dymoke family. He lived to see the Restoration, and officiated for Charles II. in 1660, dying in 1663. He was knighted in 1661 “for his loyalty and great sufferings both in person and estate.”

A brass plate commemorates his son, Sir Charles Dymoke, who died in 1686. He officiated at the coronation of James II. in 1685, and getting off his horse in order to walk up to kiss the king’s hand he fell full length. Whereupon the queen said, “See, love, what a weak Champion you have!” He was buried at Scrivelsby, November, 1686.

Of other memorials there is a marble bust to Lewis, the Champion to George I. and II., in 1714 and 1727, who died in 1760, Ætat. 90. His widow Jane endowed a school at Hemingby “to teach the children of the poor of the parish to read, write, spin and card wool.” Finally, there is a memorial to John, Champion in 1761 to George III. Henry Dymoke who acted for his father, a clergyman, on the accession of George IV., 1821, was the last who rode into Westminster Hall in bright armour and flung down his glove and dared to mortal combat any who disputed the right and title of the king. Then, having backed a little, he turned his horse and rode out, holding in his hand the gold cup in which the king had pledged him and he had in turn drunk to the health of his majesty. Since then the quaint historic ceremony has fallen into abeyance, but the title of “the Hon. the King’s Champion” remains, and at the coronation of Edward VII. he was appointed to carry the royal banners. Sic transit gloria mundi.

The following is a description of the championship ceremony at the banquet in Westminster Hall written at the time of the coronation of George IV., 1821, and taken from Allen’s History of the County:—

The amount of work done by the Normans in England has always astonished me. Not only did they build castles and strongholds, but in every county they set up churches built of stone, and not here and there but literally everywhere. They apportioned and registered the land, measured it and settled the rent, and, though hard task masters, they showed themselves efficient guardians, nor was any title or property too small for the king and his officers to inquire into. Hence, in quite small out-of-the-way places in the county we find monuments in little and almost unknown churches which attest the activity of our Norman forefathers and which, when examined by the aid of documents from the Public Record Office or the abbey or manor rolls, old wills and all the early parchments in which the industrious bookworm revels, often unfold chapters of early history of extraordinary interest, if not for the general public, at least for students and for the local gentry who still haunt the places where once the armed heel of the knight rang and the monastery dispensed the unstinted doles of a period which would have held up both hands in astonishment at the luxury of our poor laws, the excellence of our roads and the enormity of our rates and taxes. Take, for instance, the little village of Driby in the Lincolnshire wolds, a village the early denizens of which my old friend, the late W. C. Massingberd, has taken the trouble to make acquaintance with, and to whose labours I am indebted for what little I know about it. He tells us how even in Saxon times a notable man lived at Driby, one Siward, not perhaps the great Northumbrian Thegn mentioned in Macbeth, but a later Siward who helped Hereward and his fenmen to oppose the Normans at Ely. Whoever he was, he held Scrivelsby and a large acreage in the Wolds. Next we find the great Lincolnshire Baron, Gilbert de Gaunt, succeeding Siward at Driby, holding, as Domesday Book (1086) shows, direct from the king.

Early in the next century Simon de Driby comes before us; and his son Robert—the eldest son was nearly always alternately Simon or Robert—grants some lands in Tumby to the abbey of Kirkstead. Robert’s father is called sometimes Symon de Tumbi and sometimes Simon de Driby, and it seems that he had obtained disposal of this land in Tumby by a grant from Robert, son of Hugh de Tattershall, just as his forefather had held land in Driby by the grant of Gilbert de Gaunt. On February 25, 1216, a Simon de Driby made his submission to King John at Lincoln, and Ralph de Cromwell, whose descendant of the same name eventually married the heiress of the Simon de Dribys and held the castle of Tattershall, also submitted at Stamford on the 28th and gave his own eldest daughter as a hostage for his good behaviour. The submissive Simon died in 1213, and his son, the inevitable Robert, made an agreement with Hugh, the Abbot of Kirkstead, by which the abbot was allowed to have his big cattle and sheep dogs, mastiffs they were termed, in the warren of Tumby at all times of the year, but no greyhounds or lurchers (leporarios vel alios canes preter mastivos), and if the latter turned riotous and chased game they were to be removed and others put in their place.

Robert’s son Simon obtained by marriage additional lands near Driby, at Tetford, Bag Enderby, Stainsby, and Ashby Puerorum on the wolds, as well as some of the rich marsh land at Wainfleet. Henry III. granted to Robert Tateshalle license to crenelate his house at Tateshall, “quod possit kernelare mansum suum” in 1239; and we may here note that Tattershall Castle in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and half of the fifteenth was a stone building. Just at the close of the reign of Edward I. a Robert de Driby married Joan, one of the three co-heiresses of Robert de Tateshale or Tattershall, the last male representative of the family, and Joan tried to settle the castle and manor of Tattershall on her youngest son, Robert, instead of on the rightful heir. Until the heir was of age Edward had granted them to his wife, Queen Margaret, a sign that the property was valuable. She, moreover, when a widow, had the manor of Tumby for her dower house.

When the third Edward was on the throne one of the parsons who served Driby was a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, William Merle by name, who is worthy to be remembered because he was the first Englishman to keep a diary of the weather. He was appointed in 1330, and at that time one Gilbert de Bernak was the parson at Tattershall, whose relative William de Bernak, Kt., married Alice, the daughter of Robert de Driby and Joan Tattershall, and, her three brothers dying without issue, Alice came into possession of the manor of Driby. Their son, Robert de Bernak, presented a man of the same name to Driby in 1347, who died probably of the Black Death, for he presented again two years later. Robert in some way made himself unpopular, and in 1369 we hear of his being spoiled and beaten at Driby, with many of his men grievously wounded, and his reeve and his butler both killed.

In 1374 he founded a chantry in Driby church endowed inter alia with rents from land in Driby and Friskney. His wife is called in his will Katherine de Friskney. This Robert de Bernak was the only one of the name who held the manor of Driby, for his elder brother John appears not to have done so, and to have died in 1346.

The uncle of these de Bernaks, John de Driby, shortly before his death had granted the castle of Tattershall and the manors of Tattershall and Tumby away from his sister Alice to John de Kirton, who was knighted by Edward II., and summoned to Parliament in the sixteenth year of Edward III., 1343; so none of the de Bernaks ever held Tattershall, and it was through the direct interposition of the king that the descendants in the female line of the Driby and Bernak families got the property back. The way it came into the female line was this: The John de Bernak, eldest son of William de Bernak and Alice de Driby, had married Joan, the daughter of John Marmion of Wintringham, and had two sons and a daughter Matilda, who eventually was his sole heiress. She married Ralph second Baron Cromwell, and the presentation to her uncle, Robert de Bernak’s, chantry at Driby was left to her and to her son Robert Cromwell after her.

Then, at her mother’s death in 1360, she succeeded to her mother’s property in Norfolk, Tumby Manor and Tattershall Manor and Castle reverted to her on the death of John de Kirton in 1367 and Driby Manor with Brynkyl on her uncle, Robert De Bernak’s, death in 1387; so she held Driby, Tumby, and Tattershall, as well as property in Norfolk.

In 1395 and 1399 we find her husband, Ralph Cromwell, presenting to the chantry of the Holy Trinity in the church at Driby. They were large landholders, for, in addition to the manor of Cromwell and his other lands in Notts., he and his wife held the manor of ‘Kirkeby in Bayne’ with what are called the appurtenances to those various manors, i.e., lands in many parts of the wolds and marsh.

Tattershall Church and the Bain.

Matilda died in 1419. Her son, Ralph Cromwell, was baptised on July 15, 1414, a day memorable for a very high tide on the Lincolnshire coast which inundated all the land about Huttoft. He only lived to be twenty-eight, and was succeeded by his cousin, Ralph third Baron Cromwell, the grandson of Matilda.

This Ralph Lord Cromwell had been appointed Lord High Treasurer of England under Henry VI. in 1433. He married Margaret, daughter of John fifth and last Baron d’Eyncourt, but had no issue. He it was who replaced the old castle by the splendid brick building which was, and is, the finest in England. He presented to Driby in 1449, and was the founder of the college and the almshouse at Tattershall, for which he obtained leave from the Crown to turn the parish church into a collegiate church in 1439, when he rebuilt it from the ground and endowed it with[26] several manors, Driby being one, so in 1461 and until 1543 the warden of the college of Tattershall was the patron of Driby. The almshouse has still an endowment of £30. He died in 1455, as the brass in Tattershall church records, and his nieces, the daughters of Sir Richard Stanhope, succeeded to his estates, but Driby remained with the warden of Tattershall. The nieces were Joan Lady Cromwell (for her husband Humphrey Bourchier, son of the first Earl of Essex, was summoned to Parliament as Baron Cromwell jure uxoris) and Matilda Lady Willoughby d’Eresby. One of his executors, William of Waynflete, the famous Bishop of Winchester, held the manor of Candlesby in 1477 for the use of this Lady Matilda, and soon afterwards obtained a grant of it to his newly founded college of Magdalen, Oxford, with whom it remains. Matilda Lady de Willoughby presented to Candlesby in 1494, eight years after the bishop’s death. Since then the living has been in the gift of the college.

At the dissolution of the monasteries, in 1545, Driby was granted to the Duke of Suffolk, then it passed to Sir Henry Sidney of Penshurst, who sold it to the Prescotts, a Lancashire family, about 1580, with appurtenances of lands and rents in “Brynkhill, Belchford, Orebye, Grenwyke, Ingolmells, Bagenderbie, Asbie Puerorum, ffulletsbye, West Saltfletby alias Sallaby, Sallaby Allsaints, Golderbye, Tathwell, Thorpe next Waynflet, Sutterbye and Scamlesbye.” There are two small brasses in the church to James Prescott and his wife, who was a Molineux of Lancashire. They died in 1581 and 1583. In 1636 Sir W. Prescott sold the manor of Driby to Sir John Bolles, and in 1715 it was bought by Burrell Massingberd and still goes with the Ormsby estate of that family.

A few words must be added about Tattershall. The great brick building which rises so magnificently out of the flat is one of the most impressive things in this or any country. I have walked all day partridge shooting on the estate, and however far you went you never seemed able to get away from the immediate presence of the magnificent pile; you only had to look round and it was apparently just at your shoulder all day long. Then if you enter it and go up, for even the first floor is several feet above the level of the quadrangle, you are astonished at the size of the great chambers one above the other, thirty-eight feet by twenty-two, and seventeen feet high; and finally you come on the second, third, and fourth story to the most beautiful brick vaulting and mouldings in the small rooms and galleries running round the big central rooms in the thickness of the walls. The whole is of exquisite workmanship, and finished by very deep and handsome machicolations and battlements. The bricks are apparently Flemish, thinner and of finer quality than the English bricks; similar ones were used in building Halstead Hall, Stixwould. The windows are dressed with stone, these are large and arched, having mullions and the heads filled with stone tracery like church windows. This shows how the nobleman’s castle was changing into the nobleman’s palace or mansion. The building is at one corner of a quadrangle, and is itself a parallelogram, and, including the turret bases, eighty-seven feet long by sixty-nine wide, and 112 feet high to the parapet of the angle turret. The walls, which are built on massive brick vaulting, are immensely thick, being fifteen feet above, and even more on the ground floor. The windows of the basement chambers are close on the water of the moat, for several small chambers were made in the thickness of the walls, in which, too, are the four chimneys. The spiral staircase is in the south-east turret, and has a continuous stone handrail let into the brick wall, very cleverly contrived, and giving a firm and easy grasp. Each turret is octagonal, going up all the way from the ground and being finished with a cone. In each turret is a fireplace—a comfort to the warders, and useful at a pinch for heating the supplies of oil and lead which could be poured down through the machicolations on the heads of a too assiduous foe. From turret to turret, and projecting somewhat over these machicolations, runs a loopholed gallery, and here, too, the vaulting and the rich brick mouldings are better than anything else of the kind in England, with the exception of the smaller but elaborately enriched wall surfaces of Barsham, near Walsingham in Norfolk. There are little rooms in the turrets, on each floor, and the galleries on the second and third are divided into rooms, so that in the whole building there were some forty-eight rooms. The large central rooms would be hung with tapestry, the lowest being used for an entrance-hall, meals being served in the fine banqueting hall adjoining, the second for a hall of audience or withdrawing room, and the third for the state bedroom. The fireplaces are, in the large rooms, of great width, and the restored mantelpieces, the barbarous removal of which lately caused such a stir, show a number of most interesting coats-of-arms of the families who have been connected with Tattershall down to the time of Henry VI. The treasurer’s purse figures alternately with the shields, which bear the arms of the Cromwells, Tattershalls, and d’Eyncourts, of Marmion, Driby, Bernak, and Clifton; and on the second floor one panel represents the combat between Hugh de Neville and a lion. Neville and Clifton were the second and third husbands of Matilda Lady Willoughby, which points to the fact that these mantelpieces were not carved until after the Lord Treasurer’s death, 1455, when Bishop Waynflete was in charge of the work. Sir Thomas Neville was killed at the battle of Wakefield, 1460, and Sir Gervasse Clifton at Tewkesbury in 1471.

Tattershall Church and Castle.

There are three other brick buildings, which always strike me as being worthy to rank along with Tattershall. The first, but following longo intervallo, is the Bishop of Lincoln’s palace at Buckden in Hunts., built by Bishop Hugh of Wells about 1225. Another is the beautiful old Tudor manor-house already alluded to at Barsham, near Walsingham, which Lord Hastings has just advertised for sale (November, 1913). This has more exquisite brick diaper work and mouldings on the outside of both house and gate-house than Tattershall Castle has even in the passages and vaulted rooms on the upper floor inside, and is a miracle of lovely brick building. But it is not nearly so big as Tattershall. The other bit of fine bricklaying which is of the same rather severe character as Tattershall and Magdalen School at Wainfleet, is the gate-house of Esher Place, occupied by Cardinal Wolsey October, 1529, to February, 1530. It belonged to the Bishops of Winchester, and Wolsey then held that see together with York. Waynflete, who was bishop 1447-1486, and finished Tattershall about 1456, a year after the Lord Treasurer Cromwell’s death, had partly re-built Esher Place in his inimitable brickwork, about seventy years before. He used bricks for the lintels and mouldings, and even put in the same sunk spiral handrail, which we have noticed as so clever and remarkable a device in the turret staircase at Tattershall. Waynflete’s arms, the lilies, so familiar to us at Eton and Magdalen, were found by the Rev. F. K. Floyer, F.S.A., only last year (1912), when some plaster was removed, on the keystone of the curiously contrived vaulting over the porch. It is noticeable that Henry Pelham, who bought the house in 1729, has introduced also his family badge, the Pelham buckle, which is cut on the stone capitals of the door. This badge we have spoken of in the chapter on Brocklesby. So we have two Lincolnshire families of note, each of which has left his cognisance on the gateway of the once proud Esher Place, the “Asher House” in that magnificent scene of Act III. in Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII.”

Tattershall had a double moat, the outer one reaching to the River Bain. Over both of them the entrance would probably be, as it certainly was over the inner one, protected by a drawbridge and portcullis. This was still to be seen in 1726 at the north-east corner of the quadrangle. All that is now left is this one great pile of the Lord Treasurer’s and one guard-house of the fifteenth century. The original castle was begun 200 years earlier, when Robert, the direct descendant of Hugh Fitz Eudo—founder in 1138 of the Cistercian abbey of Kirkstead, who had received the estate from William the Conqueror—obtained leave from Henry III. to build a castle there. We have seen how the castle became the property of Joan who married Sir Robert Driby, whose daughter Alice consigned it at her marriage to Sir W. Bernak, and their daughter Matilda married Lord Cromwell, whose grandson was the High Treasurer to Henry VI. He built the brick castle, but died soon after doing so, leaving his collegiate church to be finished by his executors. The college he had founded was to consist of a warden, a provost, six priests, six lay clerks, and six choristers, and the almshouse was for thirteen poor of either sex. The original building for this still exists, and is of very humble appearance, having, it is said, been put up to serve first as a lodgment for the masons engaged on the castle and church. Of these the latter is singularly well built, as any building supervised by Bishop William of Waynflete was sure to be, and evidently of very good stone; and the two buildings being close together are striking specimens of the secular and ecclesiastical architecture of the period.

The Treasurer’s wife, who was sister and coheir of William fifth Baron d’Eyncourt, died a year before her husband. They are buried in the church, and two very fine brasses once marked the spot. He was a K.G., and this shows him with the Garter and Mantle of his Order, but the brass is sadly mutilated now; while her effigy is, sad to say, lost entirely.

Two other fine brasses of this family are in the church. One, of the Treasurer’s niece, Joan Stanhope, who married first Sir Humphrey Bourchier, son of the Earl of Essex, who was made fourth Baron Cromwell in her right in 1469; and secondly, after her first husband had been slain at the battle of Barnet, 1471, Sir Robert Ratcliffe. She died in 1479, and was succeeded in the property by her sister Matilda, who had married Lord Willoughby d’Eresby. Her brass has also been a particularly fine one. She died in 1497, and ten years before this the Tattershall estate had passed to the Crown. The inscription on her brass is filled in by a later and inferior hand, and no mention is made of her two next husbands.

There is a very fine brass also of one of the last provosts or wardens of the college, probable date between 1510 and 1520. In 1487 Henry VIII. granted the manor to his mother, Margaret Countess of Richmond, and, the Duke of Richmond having no issue, Henry VIII., in 1520, granted it with many other manors in the neighbourhood to Charles Duke of Suffolk. This grant was confirmed by Edward VI. on his accession in 1547, but the duke and his two sons having died, he granted it, in 1551, to Edward Lord Clinton, afterwards Earl of Lincoln. The Clintons held it till 1692, when it passed, through a cousin Bridget, to the Fortescue family under whom both church and castle have suffered severely. Amongst other vandalisms, Lord Exeter, when living at Revesby, was allowed to remove the fine stained glass windows to his church of St. Martin’s in Stamford, in 1757. He paid £24 2s. 6d. to his steward for white glass to be put in in their stead, but the glass was not put in, and for eighty years the church was open to the wind and rain. The removal at all was a disgraceful business, and no wonder the Tattershall folk threatened to kill the glazier who was employed to take the windows out.

Tattershall Church.

The castle is now (1912) the property of Lord Curzon, who is putting it into repair. The story of its sale quite recently to a speculator, and the ruthless tearing out by his creditors of the fine historic mantelpieces is one which reflects little credit on any concerned in it. They are now replaced.

But “All’s well that ends well,” and Lincolnshire may congratulate herself that the finest old brick building in the country is in such good hands, and that the needed restoration is being carried out so admirably. It was no easy task to find oak trees to supply the beams which carry the floors, as each had to be twenty-four feet long and eighteen inches square.[27] The floors are now in, and the roof, which had been off for 250 years, reinstated. In the inner ward the ground plan of the kitchen has been laid bare; this was close outside the south-east angle of the keep and connected with it by a covered passage leading from the staircase turret. The turrets and parapets are repaired, and the floors and roof being again in place and the moat refilled with water, though not what one would call a comfortable residence, it will be a most interesting place to visit, and never again, we trust, be likely to fall into the neglect which it has suffered for the last two hundred years. Enough pottery and metal has been found to form the nucleus of a collection which will be preserved for visitors to see. But no collection will ever be half as interesting as the sight of this magnificent brick building itself, and the close examination of all its structural details.

Scrivelsby Stocks.

CHAPTER XXXIV BARDNEY ABBEY

The fens were always a difficulty to the various conquerors of England, and, probably owing to the security which they gave, they, from the earliest times, attracted the monastic bodies. Hence we find on the eastern edge of the Branston, Nocton, and Blankney fens, and just off the left bank of the Witham river when it turns to the south, an extraordinary number of abbeys. For Kirkstead, Stixwould, Tupholme and Bardney, with Stainfield and Barlings just a mile or two north of the river valley, are all within a ten mile drive. Of these, Kirkstead was Cistercian, and Stixwould and Stainfield were nunneries. They were all most ruthlessly and utterly destroyed by Thomas Cromwell at the dissolution, so it is only the history of them that we can speak about.

Kirkstead Chapel.

Stixwould and Kirkstead were originally as much in the fen as Bardney; but since the “Dales Head Dyke” was cut parallel with the Witham and about a mile to the west from “Metheringham Delph” to “Billinghay Skirth,” the land between it and the river is known as the “Dales.”

By far the oldest and the biggest and most interesting of the group was the great Benedictine Abbey of Bardney. This was founded not later than the seventh century. Some of the chronicles say by Æthelred, son of Penda, the pagan king of Mercia; but it may have been by his brother Wulfhere, who reigned before him. Æthelred’s Queen Osfrida, niece of the sainted Oswald, the Northumbrian king who had defeated Cædwalla at Hevenfield in 635 and was himself killed in battle by Penda at Maserfield in 642—had before her marriage brought the relics of her uncle in 672 to Bardney, where they became the centre of attraction for pilgrims, and St. Oswald’s name as patron was added to those of St. Peter and St. Paul to whom the abbey was dedicated. Osfrida herself having been murdered by the Danes in 697, was buried here, and Æthelred, who in 701 founded Evesham Abbey, following the example of half-a-dozen Anglian and Saxon kings, gave up his throne after a reign of thirty years and entered Bardney as a monk in 704. In the quaint words of the chronicle he “was shorn a religious,” i.e., adopted the tonsure, and died twelve years later, after ruling for four years as Abbot of Bardney. One of the frescoes in Friskney church represents him resigning his crown to become a monk. St. Oswald’s arm, which had been preserved in St. Peter’s church at Bamborough, and which never withered, was afterwards transferred to Peterborough Abbey, according to Gunton, a little before the Conquest. A monk of the period wrote the following lines about it:—

In which the monk, as usual, made a “false quantity.” In 870 Hingvar and Hubba, the Danes, in spite of its fancied security, utterly destroyed the abbey and put some 300 monks to death. They also destroyed Peterborough, Croyland, Ely, Huntingdon, Winchester, and other fine and wealthy monastic houses in the same barbarous manner. Bardney after this lay desolate for 200 years; after which, Gilbert De Gaunt, on whom the Conqueror had bestowed much land in mid-Lincolnshire, with the aid of the famous Bishop Remigius of Lincoln, restored it, and endowed it with revenues from at least a dozen different villages, amongst them Willingham, Southrey, Partney, Steeping, Firsby, Skendleby, Willoughby, Lusby, Winceby, Hagworthingham, Folkingham, and Heckington. This would be about 1080. In 1406 we read of Henry IV., our Lincolnshire king, spending a Saturday-to-Monday there, riding from Horncastle with his two sons and three captive earls of the Scots, Douglas, Fyfe, and Orkney, and a goodly company. The Bishop of Lincoln “with 24 horses” and the “venerable Lord Willoughby” came to do homage in the afternoon. The abbey stood on slightly rising ground, with a moat and deep ditch lined with brick, as at Tattershall, and enclosing twenty-four acres. It was half a mile from the present church. On the east side of the abbey is a large barrow on which was once a handsome cross in memory of King Æthelred, who is supposed to have been buried there, and it is quite possible that he was. The name of a field close by “Coney garth” is no doubt a corruption of Koenig Garth, which is much the same as the “King’s Mead fields” near Bath Abbey, immortalised in Sheridan’s “Rivals,” as the place of meeting between Captain Absolute and Bob Acres, and where Sir Lucius O’Trigger inhumanly asks Acres “In case of accident ... would you choose to be pickled and sent home? or would it be the same to you to lie here in the Abbey? I’m told there is very snug lying in the Abbey.”

The site of the abbey when excavations were begun in 1909 was apparently a grass field with a moat; but since then the whole of the great monastic church has been laid bare to the floor pavement, which was about four and a half feet below the surface. The Norman bases of the eight chancel columns and twenty pillars of the nave are now visible, and also of the four large piers which supported the tower arches; these must have been very beautiful, each nave pillar having round a solid core a cluster of twelve, and the tower piers of sixteen, columns. All down the church, which is 254 feet long and over sixty-one feet wide, tombs were found in situ, with inscriptions, the earliest being that of Johanna, wife of John Browne of Bardney, merchant, 1334, and the handsomest that of Richard Horncastel, abbot, 1508, which measures eight feet by four, is seven inches thick, and weighs three tons. This had been already moved, and it is now fixed against the south wall of Bardney church. Adjoining the south side of the nave is the cloister; and the chapter-house, parlour, dormitory, dining-hall, cellar, kitchen, well and guest-house are all contiguous. A little way off are the infirmary-hall and chapel, with three fireplaces and some tile paving. Not much statuary was found, but various carved heads and iron tools, pottery, etc., one headless figure three feet high of St. Laurence and, most interesting of all, the reverse of the abbey seal which was in use in 1348, showing St. Peter and St. Paul beneath a canopy and the half figure of an abbot with crozier below. We know that the obverse had on it a figure of St. Oswald, but that has not yet been found. It is made of bronze or latten.

The huge extent of the buildings and the beauty of the column bases and the plan of this, the earliest of English monasteries, with its moat enclosing the whole twenty-five acres, and its king’s tumulus, make a visit to the site very interesting, and the vicar, Rev. C. E. Laing, has worked hard with his four men each year since 1909, and with the help of kind friends has managed to purchase three acres, but is greatly hampered by want of funds, which at present only reach one quarter of the sum required.

Mr. Laing has published a little shilling guide to the excavations at Bardney, with photographs, which explain the work very clearly and show the tombs with their inscriptions. From this it will be noticed that Abbot Horncastel is called on his tomb “Dompnus,” i.e., Dominus, and Thomas Clark, rector of Partney, has this title “Dns.,” and also Thomas Goldburgh, soldier, has the same. This is the same name as that on the old Grimsby Corporation seal of the princess, who is said to have married Havelock the Dane (see Chap. XIX.). Dominus is a difficult title to translate, for if we call it ‘Sir,’ as the old registers often do, it is misleading, as it has no knightly significance, and it probably meant no more than “The Rev.,” or in the case of a soldier “Esq.” or “Gent.” It certainly does not imply here that the owners of the title belonged to “the lower order of clergy,” and yet that is the recognised meaning of it in many old church registers, e.g., in the list of rectors, vicars, and chantry priests of Heckington, taken from the episcopal records at Lincoln. Some of the vicars and most of the chantry priests are called “Sir,” and this generally implies a non-graduate. So also in the chapter on the clergy with the list of rectors and curates given in Miss Armitt’s interesting book, “The Church of Grasmere” (published 1912), pp. 57-60 and p. 81, we find that the tythe-taking rector is termed “Master,” and bears the suffix “Clerk”; while “Sir” is reserved for the curate, his deputy, who has not graduated at either university. This view is upheld in Dr. Cox’s “Parish Registers of England,” p. 251. The Grasmere book speaks of “Magister George Plumpton,” who was son of Sir William Plumpton, of Plumpton, Knight, and rector of Grasmere, 1438-9. In 1554 Gabriel Croft is called rector, and his three curates for the outlying hamlets are put down as—

“Dns. William Jackson, called in his will ‘late Curate of Grasmer.’”

“Dns. John Hunter.

“Dns. Hugo Walters.”

This entry is followed by—

“Sirre Thomas Benson curate” who witnesses a will in 1563; and in 1569 we have “Master John Benson Rector.” In 1645 we have a “Mr. Benson” doing the duty as rector during the Commonwealth, and in 1646 we have “Sir Christopher Rawling,” who had probably served as curate for some years, as he is, at his child’s baptism in 1641, styled “Clericus.” Clearly this word “Sir” is here the translation of the Latin “Dominus,” and the previous entries bear out the statement that the prefix ‘Sir’ here betokens the lower order of clergy who had not graduated at either university. But that this was not a plan universally followed is made quite clear from the monuments at Bardney, where we find a rector and an abbot and a soldier all called “Dominus.” Perhaps in neither of these cases is it necessary to translate the word by ‘Sir,’ why not leave it at “Dominus”? From a letter in The Times, May, 1913, I gather that this word “Dominus” is responsible for the title “Lord Mayor.” The words “Dominus Major” are first found among the City of London Records for 1486, in an order issued for the destruction of unlawful nets and coal sacks of insufficient size. The words only meant “Sir Mayor,” but in course of time they came to be translated “The Lord The Mayor,” which easily passed into “The Lord Mayor,” a title which did not come into general use till 1535.

Barlings Abbey stood a mile west of the Benedictine nunnery of Stainfield, which was founded by Henry Percy in the twelfth century. The abbey was founded about the same time by Ralph de Hoya for Premonstratensian canons. This term is derived from the “Premonstratum” Abbey in Picardy, i.e., built in a place “pointed out” by the Blessed Virgin to be the headquarters of the Order. This was in 1120, and the Order first came to England in 1140. At the dissolution they seem to have had thirty-five houses here, Tupholme Abbey being one of them. The canons lived according to the rule of St. Augustine, and wore a white robe. In the revolt against the suppression of the smaller houses, known as “the Lincolnshire Rebellion,” or “the Pilgrimage of Grace,” in 1537, the prior of Barlings, Dr. Matthew Makkerell, a D.D. of Cambridge, took a prominent part, and under the name of Captain Cobbler, for he took that disguise, he led 20,000 men. They were dispersed by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and the prior was hanged at his own gate.

The abbey is sometimes called Oxeney, because the founders removed the canons from Barling Grange to a place called Oxeney in another part of the village, but the name followed them and Oxeney became Barlings.

Barlings and Stainfield are both near Bardney to the north, and Tupholme and Stixwould just as near on the south. Tupholme, like Barlings, has a Premonstratensian house, founded 1160. A wall of the refectory with lancet window, and a beautiful stone pulpit for the reader during meals is all that is left. It is close to the road from Horncastle to Bardney.

Remains of Kirkstead Abbey Church.

Stixwould is three miles to the south, and was, like Stainfield, a nunnery. It was founded by Lucia the first, the wife of Ivo Taillebois. Nothing is left of it; but in the parish church are some stone coffins, a good parclose screen, used as a reredos, and a remarkable font, whose panels, bearing emblems of the Evangelists and of the first four months of the year, are divided by richly carved pinnacles with figures of lions and flowers. Near by is Halstead Hall (“Hawstead”), a fifteenth century moated house of the Welby family, from which Lincoln, Boston, and Heckington are all visible.

Kirkstead is three miles further south, and here is one of the most beautiful little thirteenth-century buildings in the county. It is near the ruin of the abbey, of which only a gaunt fragment remains. This chapel of St. Leonard is a real gem of Early English architecture. It is an oblong chamber with vaulted roof adorned with tooth and nail-head ornament, springing from bosses low down in the wall. The wall is arcaded all round, and the capitals exquisitely carved. Bishop Trollope speaks of the western door as “one of the most lovely doorways imaginable, its jambs being first enriched by an inner pair of pillars having caps from which spring vigorously and yet most delicately carved foliage, and then, after a little interval, two more pairs of similar pillars carrying a beautifully moulded arch, one member of which is worked with the tooth moulding. Above this lovely doorway, in which still hangs the cöeval delicately ironed oak door, is an arcade of similar work, in the centre of which is a pointed oval window of beautiful design. The inside is still more beautiful than without.”

Inside, part of a rood screen with lancet arcading is earlier than anything of the kind in England, except the plain Norman screen in the room above the altar in Compton Church, Surrey. A mutilated effigy of a knight with a cylindrical saucepan-shaped helmet and a hauberk of banded mail, shows a rare instance of thirteenth-century armour. It is thought to be Robert, second Lord of Tattershall, who died about 1212.

The ruinous state of this lovely little building, which was used for public worship until Bishop Wordsworth prohibited it, as the building was unsafe, has long been a crying scandal; the owner always refusing to allow it to be made safe by others, and doing nothing to prevent its imminent downfall himself. The present Act of 1913 has, it is devoutly hoped, come in time to enable proper and prompt measures to be taken to put it into a sound condition.[28]

Quite near to Kirkstead is the newest Lincolnshire watering-place—Woodhall Spa.

A deep boring for coal in 1811 found no coal but struck a spring or flow of water, which is more highly charged with iodine and bromine than any known spa. This has been utilised, and a fine range of baths, on the principle of those at Bath, has been set up, though the water, unlike that at Bath, or at Acqui near Genoa, does not gush out boiling hot, but has to be pumped up 400 feet and then heated. All the various kinds of baths and appliances for the treatment of rheumatism, etc., are now installed, and quite a town has arisen on what was not long ago a desolate moor. The air is fine, the soil dry and sandy, the heather is beautiful around the place, and the Scotch fir woods and the picturesque “Tower-on-the-Moor”—a watch-tower or part of a hunting-lodge built by the Cromwells of Tattershall—add a charm to the landscape, though the “greate ponde or lake brickid about,” mentioned by Leland, is gone.

Kirkstead Chapel.

The Duke of Suffolk, to whom his sovereign gave so many Lincolnshire manors, was son of Sir W. Brandon, the king’s standard-bearer who fell at Bosworth field. Henry VIII. had a great liking for him and made him Master of the Horse, a viscount, and afterwards a duke. Like his royal master, he was the husband of several wives, the third of four being Mary Queen of France, widow of Louis XII. and second sister of Henry VIII. He resembled the king, too, in being a big man; indeed he was remarkable for his bodily strength and feats of arms, and was victor in several tournaments. The pains he took to quell the Lincolnshire Rebellion greatly pleased the king, who showered rewards on him with lavish hands. He is said to have somewhat resembled him, his countenance being bluff and his beard white and cut like the king’s. He was good-tempered and fortunate in never giving offence. Hence, on his portrait at Woburn Abbey he is said to have been “Gratiose withe Henry VIII. Voide of Despyte, moste fortunate to the end, never in displeasure with his Kynge.”

CHAPTER XXXV THE FENS — Holland Fen and Fen Skating. — Fen Skating.

Primitive peoples have been always rather prone to establishing themselves on swampy ground, probably because they felt secure from attack in such places. They passed in their coracles easily from one little island of dry ground to another and found plenty of employment in taking fish and waterfowl, in cutting grass for fodder or hay, reeds for thatch and bedding, willows to make their wattled huts, and peat for fuel, all of which were close at hand and free to everyone. It was not such a bad life after all.

The earliest inhabitants of the Lincolnshire fens came from the mouths of the Meuse, Rhine, and Scheldt, so they lived by choice in low land and knew how to make the most of the situation. They clung for habitation to the islands of higher ground, and the names of many villages in the low part of the county, though no longer surrounded by water, bear witness by their termination to their insular origin, e.g., Bardney, Gedney, Friskney, Stickney, Sibsey, ey, as in the word ‘eyot’ (pronounced ait, e.g., Chiswick Eyot), meaning island. In time the knots of houses grew to village settlements, and raised causeways were made from one to another, which served also as banks to keep out the sea at high tides. And we know that they did this effectually; hence we find the churches mostly placed for safety on that side of the causeway bank which is furthest from the sea. You will see this to be the case as you go along the road from Boston to Wainfleet, where the churches are all west of the road, or from Spalding to Long Sutton, where they are all south of the road, and this explains how the Lincolnshire name for a high road is “ramper,” i.e., rampart. There are other sea banks which were thrown up purposely to keep out the sea, not necessarily as roads. These are very large and important works, fifty miles in length and at a varying distance from the sea, girdling the land with but little intermission from Norfolk to the Humber. Such large undertakings could only have been carried out by the Romans.

This bank, when made, had to be watched; for both in the earliest ages, and also in Jacobean times when the fens were drained, all embanking and draining works were violently opposed by the fen-men who lived by fishing and fowling, and had no desire to see the land brought into cultivation.

The Romans were great colonisers; they made good roads through the country wherever they went to stay, and in Lincolnshire they began the existing system of “Catchwater” drains which has been the means of converting a marshy waste into the finest agricultural land in the kingdom. The Roman Carr (or fen) dyke joined the Witham with the Welland, so making a navigable waterway from Lincoln in the centre to Market Deeping in the extreme south of the county; and by catching the water from the hills to the west it prevented the overflowing streams from flooding the low-lying lands, and discharged them into the sea.

Rennie, at the beginning of last century, used the same method in the east fen; but modern engineers have this advantage over the Romans that they are able by pumping stations to raise the water which lies below the level of the sea to a higher level from which it can run off by natural gravitation. Still the Romans did wonderfully, and when they had to leave England, after 400 years of beneficent occupation, England lost its best friends, for, not only was he a great road and dyke builder but, as the child’s “Very First History Book” says,

The Romans themselves were quite aware of the beneficial nature of their rule, as far as their colonies were concerned, and were proud of it. Who can fail to see this feeling if he reads the charming lines on Rome which Claudian wrote, about 400 A.D., when the Romans were still in Britain.

The whole country soon became a prey to the freebooters who crossed the North Sea in search of plunder. Of these, the Saxons under Cedric besieged Lincoln about 497 and, the Angles from the Elbe joining with them, made a strong settlement there which became the capital of Mercia and received a Saxon king. To these invaders, who came as plunderers but remained as colonists, we also owe much. In east Lincolnshire they certainly fostered agriculture, and like the Romans made salt-pans for getting the salt from sea water by evaporation.

Darlow’s Yard, Sleaford.

The Saxons dominated the country for about the same time as the Romans, and were then themselves ousted with much cruelty and bloodshed by the Danes or Norsemen. But during their time Christianity had been introduced at the instance of Pope Gregory I., who sent Augustine and forty monks to Britain at the end of the sixth century to convert the Anglo-Saxons, and as Bertha, wife of Æthelbert, King of Kent, was a Christian, he met with considerable success, and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He was followed early in the seventh century by Paulinus, who came from York and built the first stone church at Lincoln. When, a hundred and fifty years later, the Danes made their appearance they found in several places monasteries and cathedrals or churches which they ruthlessly pillaged and destroyed; and they too, having come for plunder, remained as indwellers, settling in the eastern counties, not only near the coast but far inland, just as the Norsemen settled and introduced industrial arts on the west coast in Cumberland. Dane and Saxon struggled long and fiercely, the Danes being beaten in Alfred’s great battle at Ethandune in Wilts, 878, but only to return in Edmund’s reign and defeat the Saxons at Assandun in Essex under King Canute, 1016, after which, by agreement, they divided the country with Edmund Ironsides, and withdrew from Wessex, the region south-west of Watling Street, but the whole country north-eastwards from the Tees to the Thames was given over to them and called the Danelagh, or country under Dane law. Thus Lincoln became a Danish burgh, and in the next year, on Edmund’s death, Canute became sole King of England. None of the Fenmen of Lincolnshire had been subdued till in 1013 Swegen, King of Denmark, invaded the county in force and pillaged and burnt St. Botolph’s town (Boston), and they appear to have maintained their independence all through the Norman times. For the dynasty of Danish kings did not last long, and both they and the kings of the restored Saxon line were effaced by the Norman invaders who, like all their predecessors, found the Fenmen a hard nut to crack. Hereward, who was not son of Leofric, but a Lincolnshire man, had many a fight for liberty, and held the Isle of Ely against the repeated attacks of the Normans, and, when at last the Fenmen were beaten, they still maintained a sort of independence, and instead of becoming Normans in manners and language they are said to have kept their own methods and their own speech, so that there may well be some truth in the boast that the ordinary speech of the East Lincolnshire men of “the Fens” and “the Marsh” is the purest English in the land.

In the Fens there were always some tracts of ground raised above the waters which at times inundated the lower levels there. These are indicated by such names as Mount Pleasant, or by the termination ‘toft,’ as in Langtoft, Fishtoft, Brothertoft, and Wigtoft in the Fens; and similarly in the Isle of Axholme, Eastoft, Sandtoft, and Beltoft. Toft is a Scandinavian word connected with top, and means a knoll of rising ground. When the staple commodities of the Fens were “feathers, wool, and wildfowl,” these knolls were centres of industry. Sheep might roam at large, but in hard weather always liked to have some higher ground to make for, and human beings have a preference for a dry site, hence a cottage or two and, if there was room, a collection of houses and possibly a church would come into existence, and the grassy knoll would be often white with the flocks of geese which were kept, not so much for eating as for plucking; and we know that the monasteries always had ‘vacheries’ or cow-pastures either on these isolated knolls or on rising ground at the edge of the fen. One of the most notable of these island villages was called at one time Goosetoft, now Brothertoft, in the Holland Fen about four miles west of Boston. Here on the 8th of July, O.S., all sheep “found in their wool,” i.e., who had not been clipped and marked, were driven up to be claimed by their owners, fourpence a head being exacted from all who had no common rights.

The custom survives in Westmorland, where in November of every year all stray Herdwick sheep are brought in to the shepherds’ meeting at the ‘Dun Bull’ at Mardale, near Hawes-Water, and after they are claimed, the men settle down to a strenuous day, or rather two nights and a day, of enjoyment; a fox hunt on foot, and a hound trail whatever the weather may be, followed by feasting and songs at night, keep them all “as merry as grigs.” But where there are ten people at the Dun Bull there were one hundred or more at Brothertoft, people coming out from Boston for the day or even for the week, and all being lodged and fed in some thirty large tents.

John Taylor, ‘the water poet,’ wrote in 1640 an account of Goosetoft which is worth preserving:—

The Fen skaters of Lincolnshire have been famous for centuries. In the Peterborough Museum you may see two bone skates made of the shin bones of an ox and a deer ground to a smooth flat surface on one side and pierced at either end with holes, or grooved, for attachment thongs. The regular fen skates, which are only now being ousted by the more convenient modern form were like the Dutch skates of Teniers’ pictures, long, projecting blades twice as long as a man’s foot, turned up high at the end and cut off square at the heel. They were called “Whittlesea runners,” and were supposed to be the best form of skate for pace straight ahead; and no man who lived at Ramsey 100 to 200 years ago or at Peterborough or Croyland was without a pair. The writer has been on Cowbit Wash (pronounced Cubbit), near Spalding, when the great frozen plain was in places black with the crowds of Lincolnshire fenmen, mostly agricultural labourers, all on skates and all thoroughly enjoying themselves, whilst ever and anon a course was cleared, and with a swish of the sounding “pattens” a couple of men came racing down the long lane bordered with spectators with both arms swinging in time to the long vigorous strokes which is the fenman’s style. The most remarkable thing about the gathering was the splendid physique of the crowd. Could they all have been taken and drilled for military service they would have made a regiment of which Peter the Great would have been proud.

The best ice fields for racing purposes are Littleport in Cambridgeshire, and Lingay Fen and Cowbit Wash in Lincolnshire. Before it was drained in 1849, Whittlesea Mere in Huntingdonshire was the great meeting ground, and the Ramsey and Whittlesea men were famous skaters. By dyke or river one could go from Cambridge to Ramsey on skates all the way. The best speed skaters—and speed was the only aim of the fen skater—for many years were the Smarts of Welney, near Littleport. “Turkey” Smart beat Southery, who won the championship in the last match on Whittlesea Mere from Watkinson of Ramsey, and after him “Fish” Smart held the record at Cowbit Wash for a whole generation from 1881 to 1912.

In 1878 and 1879 the frost was long and hard, and the prizes at the great skating match near Ramsey took the form of food and clothing for the frozen-out labourers. The course was down a road which a heavy fall of snow, followed first by a thaw and then by a frost, had made into an ideal skating course.

Whatever year you take you will find that the prize-winners for fen skating come from the same district and the same villages; Welney, Whaplode, Gedney, Cowbit, and Croyland are perpetually recurring names, the last four being all situated in the south-eastern corner of Lincolnshire which abuts on the Wash between the outfall of the Welland and the Nene.

In the severe frost of 1912, which lasted from January 29 to February 5, the thermometer on the night of February 3 going down to zero, Cowbit Wash saw the contest for both the professional and the amateur championship for Lincolnshire. The Lincolnshire professional race on Saturday, February 3, over a course of one mile and a half with one turn in it brought out two Croyland men, H. Slater first and G. Pepper second, F. Ward of Whaplode being third. The winning time was 4 minutes 50 seconds.

On Monday, February 5, W. W. Pridgeon of Whaplode won the Lincolnshire amateur championship over a mile course with a turn and a terrific wind in 3 minutes 40 seconds, two Boston men coming next. On the following day, February 6, the ice from the thaw, though wet, had a beautiful surface, and in the great “one mile straightaway” race open to amateurs and professionals alike, eight men entered, all of whom beat Fish Smart’s record of 3 minutes. F. W. Dix, the British amateur champion winning in 2 minutes 27¼ seconds, with S. Greenhall, the British professional champion, second in 2 minutes 32²⁄₁₅ seconds.

F. W. Dix showed himself to be first-rate at all distances, for besides this mile race, he won the mile and a half on February 2 at Littleport, with five turns in 4 minutes 40 seconds, and next day at the Welsh Harp he secured the prize for 220 yards in 22⅘ seconds. S. Greenhall had won the British professional championship on the previous day at Lingay Fen over a course of one and a half miles, coming in first by 170 yards in 4 minutes 44⅘ seconds.

In all these races the wind was blowing a gale, and those who won the toss, and could run close up under the lee of the line of spectators had a decided advantage, and as a matter of fact they won in every case.

Since this Dix has won in the Swiss skating matches of 1913, and here it may be of interest to add the following, which appeared in The Times of February 3, 1913:—

‘Metres’ fairly beat me, but I take it that 10,000 of them would be about six miles.

But anyone who likes to worry it out can postulate that the length of a metre is 39·37079 inches. This was originally adopted as a “Natural unit,” being one ten-millionth of the distance between a pole and the Equator. But, as an error has been found in the measurement of this distance, it is no longer a “Natural unit,” but just the length of a certain rod of platinum kept at Paris, as the yard is the length of a rod kept at Westminster.

CHAPTER XXXVI THE FEN CHURCHES—NORTHERN DIVISION

The two centres for “The parts of Holland” are Spalding and Boston. From the latter we go both north and south, from Spalding only eastwards, and in each case we shall pass few residential places of importance, but many exceptionally fine churches.

We will take the district north of Boston first.

Friskney, which is but three and a half miles south of Wainfleet, where we ended our south Lindsey excursion, is really in Lindsey. It stands between the Marsh and the Fen. The road from Wainfleet to Boston bounds the inhabited area of the parish on the east, and another from Burgh, which runs for ten miles without passing a single village till it reaches Wrangle, does the same on the west. Outside of these roads on the west is the great “East Fen,” reclaimed little more than 100 years ago, and on the east is the “Old Marsh,” along which went the Roman Bank, and east of which again is the “New Marsh,” and beyond it the huge stretch of the “Friskney flats,” over which the sea ebbs and flows for a distance of from three to four miles; the haunt of innumerable sea birds, plovers (locally pyewipes), curlew, redshanks, knots, dunlins, stints, etc., as well as duck and geese of many kinds and even, at times, the lordly swan.

Thus surrounded, Friskney stands solitary about half way between Wainfleet and Wrangle, and if only the northern boundary of Holland had been made the “Black Dyke” and “Gout” as would have been most natural, Friskney would have been the north-eastern point of Holland, instead of being the south-eastern point of Lindsey. Since their discovery by the late rector, the Rev. H. J. Cheales, the most noticeable thing in the fine Perpendicular church is the series of wall paintings above the arcades of the nave, date 1320, most of them are faint and hard to make out, but there are drawings of them, and an account was published in 1884 and 1905 in the “Archæologia,” vols. 48 and 50. The subjects are the Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection, and Ascension, and the Assumption of the Virgin, on the north arcade; on the south are the Offering of Melchizedek, the Gathering of the Manna, the Last Supper, one possibly of Pope Gregory, one of King Æthelred entering Bardney Abbey, and a most curious one of Jews stabbing the Host. There are two Norman arches in the aisle wall, and a beautiful tower arch with steps from the nave down into the tower, the lower part of which is transition Norman, the next stage Early English, and the next Perpendicular; there are six bells in it. The nave is very high, the clerestory, on which the paintings are, having been added early in the fourteenth century. The old roof has been preserved, and the chancel screen and two chantry screens, which are unusually high to match the nave. The rood stairs, as at Wrangle and Leake, are on the south side. The pulpit is dated 1659. The north chantry is entered by a half arch, and there is a squint and a curious low-side window placed oddly on the north side of the chancel arch. Some unusually fine sedilia with diaper work at the back, and a trefoiled aumbry and piscina are in the chancel, which has been nearly ruined by bad restoration with a new roof in 1849. It has large handsome windows and finely canopied niches on each buttress, with ornamentation carved in Ancaster stone. This chancel was the gift of John Mitchell of Friskney in 1566.

An effigy of a knight of the Freshney family (a local pronunciation of Friskney), of whom we have seen so many monuments in the Marsh churches at Somercoats, Saltfleetby and Skidbrooke, is at the west end, and a restored churchyard cross stands near the south door.

The family of Kyme, who had a manor near Boston and two villages called after them between Sleaford and Dogdyke, held land in Friskney through the thirteenth century and until 1339, when it passed by marriage to Gilbert Umfraville, whose son, the Earl of Angus, married Maud, daughter of Lord Lucy. She afterwards became the second wife of Henry Percy, first Earl of Northumberland, father of the famous “Hotspur,” whose wife, together with her second husband, Baron Camoys, has such a fine monument in Trotton church near Midhurst, Sussex. Hence, in the east window of the north aisle of the church at Friskney are the arms, amongst others, of Northumberland, Lucy, and Umfraville.

The Earl’s grandson, the second Earl of Northumberland, who was killed at the battle of St. Albans fighting for Henry VI., May 22, 1455, possessed no less than fifty-seven manors in Lincolnshire, many of them inherited from the Kymes.

William de Kyme, uncle of Gilbert Umfraville, left a widow Joan who married Nicolas de Cantelupe. He founded a chantry dedicated to St. Nicolas in Lincoln Cathedral, and she, one dedicated to St. Paul.

It is melancholy to hear of old-fashioned employments fading away, but it is the penalty paid by civilisation all the world over. Friskney in particular may be called the home of lost industries. For instance, “Mossberry or Cranberry Fen,” in this parish, was so named from the immense quantity of cranberries which grew on it, and of which the inhabitants made no use until a Westmorland man, knowing their excellence, taught them; and thence, until the drainage of the fens, thousands of pecks were picked and sent into Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire every year, 5s. a peck being paid to the gatherers. After the drainage they became very scarce and fetched up to 50s. a peck.

Similarly, before the enclosure of the fens there were at least ten Duck Decoys in this part of the county, of which five were in Friskney, and they sent to the London market in one season over 31,000 ducks. Eighty years ago there were still two in Friskney and one in Wainfleet St. Mary’s, and I remember one in Friskney which still maintained itself, in the sixties, though each year the wild fowl came to it in diminishing numbers.

Bryant’s large map of 1828 shows a decoy near Cowbit Wash, no less than five near the right bank of the River Glen in the angle formed by the “Horseshoe Drove” and the “Counter Drain,” and two on the left bank of the Glen, all the seven being within a two-mile square, and two more further north in the Dowsby Fen, and four in the Sempringham Fen probably made by the Gilbertines.

The decoy was a piece of water quite hidden by trees, and only to be approached by a plank across the moat which surrounded it, and with a large tract of marshy uncultivated ground extending all round it, the absence of disturbing noises being an essential, for the birds slept there during the day and only took their flight to the coast at evening for feeding. The method of taking them was as follows. The pond had half-a-dozen arms like a star-fish, but all curving to the right, over which nets were arched on bent rods; and these pipes, leading down each in a different direction and gradually narrowing, ended in a purse of netting. All along the pipes were screens, so set that the ducks could not see the man till they had passed him, and lest they should wind him he always held a bit of burning turf before his mouth. Decoy birds enticed by hemp and other floating seed flung to them over the screens kept swimming up the pipes followed by the wild birds, and a little dog was trained to enter the water and pass in and out of the reed screens. The ducks, being curious, would swim up, and the dog, who was rewarded with little bits of cheese, kept reappearing ahead of them, and so led them on to follow the decoys. At last the man showed himself, and the birds—ducks, teal, and widgeon—rushed up the pipe into the purse and were taken. The decoy was only used in November, December, and January, and it is not in use now at all. But there are still two of the woods left round the ponds at Friskney, each about twelve acres, and the water is there to some extent, but the arms are grown over with weeds and are barely traceable. Indeed it is a hundred years and rather more since the famous old decoy man, George Skelton, lived and worked here with his four sons. His great grandson was the last to follow the occupation, but when the numbers caught came to be only three and four a day, it was clear that the business had “given out.” Absolute quiet and freedom from all the little noises which arise wherever the lowliest and smallest of human habitations exist was necessary, for at least a mile all round the wood, and as cultivation spread this could not be obtained. Nothing is so shy as wild-fowl; and Skelton said that even the smell of a saucepan of burnt milk would scare all the duck away. The mode of taking birds in “flight nets” is still practised on the coast, the nets being stretched on poles at several feet above the ground, and the birds flying into them and getting entangled. Plover are taken in this way, and the smaller birds which fly low in companies along by the edge of the sea, or across the mud flats.

A decoy still exists near Croyland, and another at Ashby west of Brigg, in the lower reaches of the Trent; and formerly there were many in Deeping Fen and other parts of Holland. But wild-fowl were not the only birds the Fenmen had to rely on, and Cooper’s “Tame Villatic Fowl,” and the goose and turkey in particular, are a steady source of income, as the Christmas markets in the Fens testify.

From Friskney we run on about four miles to Wrangle. What the road used to be we may guess from the constable’s accounts for the parish of Friskney, in which the expenses for a journey to Boston are charged for two days and a night “being in the winter time.” The distance is thirteen miles. In the eighteenth century corn was still conveyed to market on the backs of horses tied in strings, head to tail, like the camels in eastern caravans. The name of Wrangle is Weranghe, or Werangle, in Domesday, said to mean the lake or mere of reeds, from “wear,” a lake, and “hangel,” a reed. A friend of mine passing Old Leake station (which was first called “Hobhole drain,” but, at the request of the Wrangle parishioners, because the name deterred visitors, was altered afterwards to Leake-and-Wrangle), observed that this name reminded him of the words of Solomon that the beginning of strife is like the letting out of water.[30] The place used to be a haven on a large sea creek, and furnished to Edward III. for the invasion of France, in 1359, one ship and eight men, Liverpool at that time being assessed at one ship and five men. The church is large, and the rectors have been for over a hundred years members of the family of Canon Wright of Coningsby, a nephew of Sir John Franklin. The outer doorway of the south porch has a beautiful trefoiled arch with tooth moulding, and curious carvings at the angles. Near this is a fine octagonal font with three steps and a raised stone, called a ‘stall,’ for the priest to stand on. This is not uncommon in all these lofty Early English fonts. The tower was once much higher, as is shown by the fine tower arch with its very singular moulding. The tracery in the clerestory windows marks a period of transition, being alternately flowing and Perpendicular. There is a good deal of old glass of the fourteenth century in the north aisle, quite two-thirds of the east window of the aisle being old, with the inscription “Thomas de Weyversty, Abbas de Waltham me fieri fecit.” There is a turret staircase for the rood-loft stair at the junction of the south aisle and chancel, hence the door to the rood loft is on that side. The pulpit is Elizabethan. The Reed family have several monuments here, and it is probable that the three first known parsons of Wrangle—William (1342), John (1378), and Nicolas (1387)—were chaplains to that family. On a large slab in the chancel pavement to “John Reed sum time Marchant of Calys and Margaret his wyfe,” date 1503, are these lines:—

Sir John Reade, the great-grandson of John and Margaret, who died in 1626, is described as “eques aureus vereque Xianus eirenarcha prudens,” etc., the last substantive meaning Justice of the Peace.

There is an old Bede-house founded 1555, which we shall pass now on our way to Leake, and we may perhaps trace the old sea-bank just behind it. There was once one also at Benington, a few miles further on, called “Benington Bede.” But before leaving so much that is old we may delight our eyes, if we are lucky enough to find Mr. Barker (the vicar) or his wife in the church, with a sight of some most exquisite modern church embroidery in the form of an altar cloth, lately made by the ladies of the rectory.

Leake Church.

Leake, little more than a mile from Wrangle, has a most massive Perpendicular tower which was fifty-seven years building and never completed; here, too, there was a seaway to the coast. The south aisle of the church and the nave have been restored, but the north aisle is still in a ruinous condition, and reflects little credit on the patrons who are, or were, the governors of Oakham and Uppingham schools. There is a magnificent clerestory of six windows with carved and canopied niches between each window, giving a very rich effect; and, as at Wrangle, there is an octagonal rood turret and spirelet at the south-east of the nave. The wavy parapet of the nave gable reminds one of the similar work round the eastern chapel at Peterborough Cathedral, and the tall nave pillars resemble those at Boston. Only a very little Norman work remains from an earlier church. A knight in alabaster, a good Jacobean pulpit, and a remarkable old alms-box made out of a solid oak stem are in the church, and round the churchyard is a moat with a very large lych-gate on the bridge across it. A mile and a half east of this are the remains of an old stone building of early date, called the Moat House.

Two of the Conington family were vicars here in the seventeenth century, and a Thomas Arnold was curate in 1794.

Leverton is but two miles from Leake, and Benington only one mile further. The churches in this district have no pinnacles. Leverton was thatched until 1884, when the present clerestory was built. The chancel has some beautiful canopied sedilia, which are spoken of by Marrat in his “History of Lincolnshire” as “three stone stalls of most exquisite workmanship, to describe the beauties of which the pen seems not to possess an adequate power.” At the back of one of these is an aumbrey, or locker. The windows are square-headed, the font is tall and handsome, but the greatest charm of the building is the sacristy or Lady chapel to the south of the chancel—a perfect gem of architecture, the carved stone work of which is rich and tasteful. Crucifixes surmount both gables of this, and also that at the chancel end, this profusion being a consequence of the church being dedicated to St. Helena. Whether she was the daughter of a Bithynian innkeeper or a British princess, she was the wife of Constantius Chlorus and mother of Constantine the Great; and the legend is that, being admonished in a dream to search for the Cross of Christ, she journeyed to Jerusalem, and, employing men to dig at Golgotha, found three crosses, and having applied each of them to a dead person, one of the crosses raised the dead to life, so she knew that that was the one she was searching for. The church of North Ormsby is also dedicated to her. At Leverton the rood-loft steps exist on the south of the chancel arch, and the churchwarden’s book, which begins in 1535, gives the bill for putting up the rood loft and also for taking it down. At the beginning of last century Mrs. A. Skeath, of Boston, made a new sea-bank three miles long, which effectually reclaimed from the sea 390 acres for this parish.

The village of Benington has a fine church with a good porch and a turret stairway to the north-east of the nave. The roof retains its old timbers with carved angels. In the chancel are the springers for a stone roof. The pillars of the nave have a very wide circular base, and in the Early English chancel are sedilia with aumbries and piscina, and also an arched recess which may have been used for an Easter sepulchre. The tall red sandstone font is singularly fine, both bowl and pedestal being richly carved with figures under canopies.

Leverton Windmill.

The practice of putting inscriptions into rhyme is exemplified in the windows of these churches.

Benington has a Latin couplet:—

Leverton one in Norman French:—

A lane here leads eastwards to Benington-Sea-End, which is close on the Roman bank. And, as the main road to Boston is devoid of interest, we will bend to the left hand, and pass through Butterwick to Frieston and so to the shore. An old register records in rhyme the planting of the fine sycamore tree in Butterwick churchyard, in 1653. The name Butterwick occurs in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and is derived probably from the Dane Buthar, as are Buttermere in Cumberland, and Butterlip-How in Grasmere. At Frieston, which, like Friskney and Firsby, is said to indicate a colony of Frieslanders, the present church is the nave of a fine old priory church of the twelfth century founded by Alan de Creon for Benedictines and attached as a cell to Croyland, where his brother was abbot. It had a central tower adjoining the east of the present building; the west piers of this tower are visible outside. Inside there are six Norman and three pointed arches, the latter leading to a massive western tower with a stone figure in a niche dating from the fifteenth century. The south aisle is now all of brick, the Norman stone corbelling being replaced above the eight large three light clerestory windows. The most remarkable thing in the church is the beautiful carved wood font-cover, at least twelve feet high, and surmounted by a figure of the Virgin. This is similar, but superior, to that at Fosdyke, but in no way equal to the beautiful and richly carved example ten feet in height at Ufford church in Suffolk. The font itself has carved panels and two kneeling-steps for priest and sponsor. The churchyard is an extremely large one. The sea once came close up to Frieston, the coast bending round to Fishtoft and towards Skirbeck; at the present time the Frieston shore is two and a half miles off. The road runs close up to the sea-bank. A long old-fashioned hostelry, with a range of stables telling of days gone by, stands under the shelter of the bank, on mounting which you find a bench on a level with the bedroom windows of the inn, whence you look out towards the sea, which forms a shining line in the far distance, for it is over two miles to ‘Boston deeps,’ far over a singular stretch of foreshore channelled with a network of deep clefts by which the retreating tide drains seaward through the glistening mud. The first part of this desolate shore is green with sea-grasses, visited daily by the salt water, and along the fringe of it there are here many rather uncommon flowers growing just below high-water mark, such as the yellow variety of the sea aster (Aster tripolium var. discoideus), and the rare Suæda fruticosa; and in the ditches leading inland the handsome marsh-mallow (Althæa officinalis) flourishes, as it does on Romney Marsh, near Rye. At high water all looks quite different; and a sunrise over the lagoon-like shallow water gives a picture of colour which is not easily forgotten.

Frieston Priory Church.

From Frieston shore one gets by a circuitous three-mile route to Fishtoft. Here once was a Norman church. The present one has two rood screens; one, at the west end, having been purchased from Frieston, which, however, retained its two aisle screens. There is a good small figure of St. Guthlac, the patron saint, over the west window of the tower, much like that at Frieston. On a tombstone in the churchyard is the following:—

He only survived her two months, and the next inscription is:—

This rhyme might do for Norfolk or Devonshire, but is not Lincolnshire.

And now two miles more bring us to Skirbeck on the outskirts of Boston. The only interesting feature of the church here is in the columns of the nave, which have four cylinders round a massive centre pillar, all four quite detached except at the bases and capitals, which last are richly carved. We shall find exactly similar ones at Weston, near Spalding. We now follow the curving line of the Haven with its grassy banks right into Boston. The splendid parish church, the sight of whose tower is a never-failing source of delight and inspiration, stands with its east end in the market-place, and its tall tower close on the bank of the river. It has no transepts as the Great Yarmouth church has, but, apart from its unapproachable steeple, it is longer and higher and greater in cubic contents than any parish church in the kingdom. The tower, 288 feet, is taller than Lincoln tower or Grantham spire, and is only exceeded in height by Louth spire, which is 300 feet. The view of it from across the river is one of the most entirely satisfying sights in the world.[31] The extreme height is so well proportioned, and each stage leads up so beautifully to the next, that one is never tired of gazing on it. Add to this that it is visible to all the dwellers in the Marsh and Fen for twenty miles round and from the distant Wolds, and again far out to sea, and is as familiar to all as their own shadow, and you can guess at the affection which stirs the hearts of all Lincolnshire men when they think or speak of the ‘Owd Stump,’ a curious title for a beloved object, but so slightly does it decrease in size as it soars upwards from basement to lantern, that in the distance it looks more like a thick mast or the headless stem of a gigantic tree than a church steeple.

Boston Church from the N.E.

There was once here a church of the type of Sibsey, said to date from 1150, of which but little has been discovered. The present building was begun in 1309, when the digging for the foundation of the tower began “on ye Monday after Palm Sunday in the 3ʳᵈ yr of Ed. II.” They went down thirty feet to a bed of stone five feet below the level of the river bed, overlying “a spring of sand,” under which again was a bed of clay of unknown thickness. The excavation was a very big job, and the “first stone” was not laid till the feast of St. John the Baptist (Midsummer Day) by Dame Margaret Tilney, and she and Sir John Truesdale, then parson of Boston, and Richard Stevenson, a Boston merchant, each laid £5 on the stone “which was all ye gifts given at that time” towards the expense which, we are told, was, for the whole tower, under £500 of the money of those days. Leland, Vol. VIII., 204, says: “Mawde Tilney who layed the first stone of the goodly steeple of the paroche chirch of Boston lyith buried under it.” The work of building up the tower was interrupted for fifty years, and the body of the church was taken in hand, the present tower arch serving as a west window. Then the tower began to rise, but it was finished without the lantern. In the middle of the fifteenth century the chancel was lengthened by two bays, and the parapets and pinnacles added to the aisles. The parapet at the east end of the north aisle is very curious and elaborate, being pierced with tracery of nearly the same design as that on the flying buttresses of Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster. There were several statues round the building on tall pedestals rising from the lowest coping of the buttresses to about the height of the nave parapets; one is conspicuous still at the south-east corner of the tower and above the south porch. The tower has three stages, arranged as in Louth church, and then the lantern above. In the first stage a very large west window rises above the west doorway, and similar ones on the north and south of the tower, and all the surface is enriched with panelling both on tower and buttresses. The next stage is lighted by a pair of windows of great height, finely canopied and divided by a transom, on each side of the tower; this forms the ringing chamber, and a gallery runs round it in the thickness of the wall communicating with the two staircases. On the door of one of these is a remarkable handle, a ring formed by two bronze lizards depending from a lion’s mouth. The clustered shafts and springers of the stone vault were built at the beginning, but the handsome groined roof with its enormous central boss 156 feet from the ground was not completed until 1852. The next story has large single-arched windows of a decidedly plain type. These are the only things one can possibly find fault with, but probably when the tower had no lantern the intention was to exhibit the light from this story, the bells being hung below and rung from the ground. Eventually the eight bells were hung in the third story, and the lantern, by far the finest in England, was added, which gives so queenly an effect to the tall tower. Before this was done four very high pinnacles finished the building, subsequently arches were turned diagonally over the angles of the tower so as to make the base of the octagonal lantern. The roof of the tower and the gutters round it are of stone and curiously contrived. The lantern has eight windows like those in the second stage of the tower, but each one pane longer, and the corners are supported by flying buttresses springing in pairs from each tower pinnacle. The whole is crowned with a lofty parapet with pierced tracery and eight pinnacles with an ornamented gable between each pair of pinnacles. Inside was a lantern lighted at night for a sea mark. The church of All Saints, York, has a very similar one, and there the hook for the lantern pulley is still to be seen.

Inside, one is struck by the ample size and height of the church and its vast proportions. The choir has five windows on each side. But the nave is spoilt by a false wooden roof which cuts off half of the clerestory windows. It is a pity this is not removed and the old open timber roof replaced. In the chancel are sixty-four stalls of good carved work, and the old and curiously designed miserere seats, often showing humorous subjects as at Lincoln, are of exceptional interest. Of the once numerous brasses most are gone, but two very fine ones are on either side the altar: one to Walter Peascod, merchant, 1390, and one to a priest in a cope, c. 1400; an incised slab of 1340 is at the west of the north aisle. The Conington tablet in memory of John Conington, Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford, on the south wall of the chancel is to be noticed, and the Bolles monument in the south aisle, and, near the south porch, the chapel which was restored by the Bostonians of the United States as a recognition of their Lincolnshire origin. Close to this is a curious epitaph painted on a wooden panel, which reads as follows:—

Boston Stump.

CHAPTER XXXVII ST. BOTOLPH’S TOWN

A not unapt parallel has been drawn between Boston and Venice for, like the Campanile, Boston steeple is a sort of Queen of the Waters, and before the draining of the Fens she often looked down on a waste of waters which stretched in all directions.

Leland, who wrote in the reign of Henry VIII., in Vol. VII. of his Itinerary, speaks of “the great Steple of Boston,” and describes the town thus: “Bosstolpstoune stondeth harde on the river Lindis (Witham). The greate and chifiest parte of the toune is on the este side of the ryver, where is a faire market place, and a crosse with a square toure. Al the buildings of this side of the toune is fayre, and Marchuntes duelle yn it; and a staple of wulle is used there. There is a bridg of wood to cum over Lindis, into this parte of the toune, and a pile of stone set yn the myddle of the ryver. The streame of yt is sumtymes as swifte as it were an arrow. On the West side of Lindis is one long strete, on the same side is the White Freies. The mayne sea ys VI miles of Boston. Dyverse good shipps and other vessells ryde there.”

Michael Drayton, who wrote in Elizabeth’s reign, was quite enthusiastic about the merits of the Witham, which runs out at Boston, and makes her speak in her own person thus:—

We have no definite information of what Boston was in Roman times, but as the Witham was the river on which their colony at Lincoln stood, it is more than probable that they had a station at Boston to defend the river-mouth, and whatever they may have called it, it is certain that it has got its name of Boston or Botolph’s town from an English saint who is said to have founded a monastery here in 654, which was destroyed by the Danes in 870. St. Botolph was buried in his monastery in 680, and his remains moved in 870, part to Ely and part to Thorney Abbey. The name as a town does not appear in Domesday Book, though “Skirbec” does, and Skirbeck covered all the ground that Boston does, and almost surrounded it. As the old distich declares—

This name for pride or conceit, whether deserved or not, seems to have stuck to Boston, for a rhyme of later day runs thus:—

And certainly Boston once had some reason to be proud, for though the town was quite an infant till the beginning of the twelfth century, in 1113 “Fergus, a brazier of St. Botolph’s town” was able, according to Ingulphus in his “Chronicles of Croyland Abbey,” “to give 2 Skillets (Skilletas) which supplied the loss of their bells and tower.” The gift, whatever it was (probably small bells), must have been of considerable value to Croyland, which had been burnt down in 1091, and argues much prosperity among Boston tradespeople. Indeed, the town and its trade rose with such rapidity during the next hundred years that when, in the reign of King John, a tax or tythe of a fifteenth was levied on merchants’ goods, Boston’s contribution was £780, being second only to the £836 of London. For the next two centuries it was a commercial port of the first rank, and merchants from Flanders and most of the great Continental towns had houses there.

Custom House Quay, Boston.

When in 1304 Edward I. granted his wife Queen Margaret the castle and manor of Tattershall to hold till the heir was of age, he added to it the manor of St. Botolph and the duties levied on the weighing of the wool there. This was set down as worth £12 a year. A wool sack was very large—one sees them now at Winchester, each large enough to fill the whole bed of a Hampshire waggon—but at 6s. 8d. a sack the duties must have been often worth more than £12, for there was no other staple in the county but at Lincoln, and that was afterwards, under Edward III. in 1370, transferred to Boston, and whether at Boston or Lincoln, when weighed and sealed by the mayor of the staple, it was from Boston that it was all exported.

When a staple of wool, leather, lead, etc., was established at any town or port it was directed that the commodities should be brought thither from all the neighbourhood and weighed, marked and sealed. Then they could be delivered to any other port, where they were again checked. In 1353, during the long reign of Edward III., the staple was appointed to be held in Newcastle, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Exeter and Bristol. Of these, York and Lincoln sent all the produce when weighed to Hull and Boston, Norwich to Yarmouth, Westminster to London Port, Canterbury to Sandwich, and Winchester (by water or road) to Southampton. In 1370 some of the inland towns—York, Lincoln and Norwich—were deprived of their staple, and Hull and Queensborough were added to the list; and, though Nottingham, Leicester and Derby petitioned to have the staple at Lincoln, which was much more convenient to them, the answer they got was that it should continue at St. Botolph’s during the king’s pleasure.

South Square, Boston.

In Henry VIII.’s time, when the king passed through Lincolnshire after “the pilgrimage of grace” and the chief towns made submission and paid a fine, Boston paid £50, while Stamford and Lincoln paid £20 and £40 respectively.

In 1288 a church of the Dominican or Black Friars which had been recently built was burnt down, and a few years later a friary was re-established, which was one of the many Lincolnshire religious houses granted by Henry VIII. to Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk. In 1301, under Edward I., a Carmelite, or White Friars, monastic house and priory was founded; and in the next reign, 1307, an Augustinian, or “Austin,” friary; and only a few years later, under Edward III., a Franciscan, or Grey Friars, friary was established. All these three were granted by Henry at the dissolution to the mayor and burgesses of Boston. He also granted the town their charter under the great Seal of England, to make amends for the losses they sustained by the destruction of the religious houses. It is a document with fifty-seven clauses, making the town a free borough with a market on Wednesday and Saturday, and two fairs annually of three days each, to which are added two “marts” for horses and cattle. The ground where the grammar school stands is still called the Mart-yard, and there you may still see the beautiful iron gate which was once part of a screen in the church, and is a very notable piece of good seventeenth-century work.

The charter also gave the corporation, among other things, “power to assess the inhabitants, as well unfree as free, with a tax for making a safeguard and defence of the borough and church there against the violence of the waters and rage of the sea.”

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there were no less than fifteen guilds in the town, six of them with charters. The hall of St. Mary’s guild still exists, the names of St. George’s Lane and Corpus Christi Lane is all that is left of the others, but the old names indicate the localities.

In 1360 we have mention on the corporation records of William de Spayne, one of a family of merchants of repute, after whom Spayne’s Place and what is now Spain Lane were named. William was an alderman of the Corpus Christi Guild, and sheriff of the county in 1378. Spain Lane had a row of great cellars, some of which were rented by the abbeys, and a quantity of wine was shipped from Bordeaux to Boston. King John of France had 140 tuns at one time, the carriage of which to Boston, and some part of it to the place of his detention at Somerton Castle (see Chap. XIII.), cost close upon £500. This large supply was sent to him from France, partly for his own consumption and partly to be sold in order to bring in money to keep up his royal state, and when we read of the silk curtains and tapestries, the French furniture for dining-hall and bedrooms which displaced the benches and trestles of an English castle, the horse trappings and stable fittings, and the enormous amount of stores and confectionery used at Somerton, we realise that his daily expenditure must have been a very large one. The cellars which stowed these large cargoes of wine were in Spain (or Spayne) Lane, and most of them were, in 1590, in accordance with Boston’s usual suicidal custom, destroyed, though the corporation still held two in 1640 which had once belonged to Kirkstead Abbey.

Spain Lane, Boston.

In the sixteenth century several trade companies—cordwainers, glovers, etc.—received charters. In this century Queen Elizabeth gave the mayor and burgesses a “Charter of Admiralty” over the whole of the “Norman Deeps” to enable them to repair and maintain the sea marks, and to levy tolls on all ships entering the port. But trade was then declining owing to the silting up of the river. This, in 1569, when the town was made a Staple town, had been in good order, and navigable for seagoing ships of some size, the tide water running up two miles inland as far as Dockdyke (now Dogdyke), and then a large trade was done in wool and woollen goods between Boston and Flanders. Hence it was that when, in the reign of Henry VII., a council was held to discuss the two great needs of the town, viz., the restraining the sea water from flooding the land, and the delivery of the inland waters speedily to the sea, it was to Flanders that the Boston men turned for an engineer, one Mahave Hall, who built them a dam and sluice in the year 1500. This is called the Old Sluice, and was effectual for a time. But in Queen Elizabeth’s reign the river below Boston was getting so silted up again that the waters of South Holland were brought by means of two “gowts” (go outs), or “clows,” one into the Witham above Boston at Langrick, and one below into the harbour at Skirbeck, to scour out the channel. The Kesteven men, from a sense of being robbed of their waters, opposed, but their objections were over-ruled by the chief justices. In 1568-9 the “Maud Foster” drain was cut and named after the owner, who gave easement over her land on very favourable terms.

In the map to the first volume of the “History of Lincolnshire,” published by Saunders in 1834, the Langrick Gowt (or gote) finds no place; but the “Holland Dyke” is probably meant for it. The Skirbeck dyke is marked very big and called “The South Forty-foot,” which, along with the North Forty-foot and Hobhole drains, and others of large size, aided by powerful steam pumps, have made the Fens into a vast agricultural garden.

But the Elizabethan expedient was only successful for a time, and in 1751 a small sloop of forty to fifty tons and drawing about six feet of water could only get up to Boston on a spring tide. To remedy this and also to keep the floods down, which, when the cutfall was choked, extended in wet seasons west of the town as far as eye could see, an Act of Parliament was passed to empower Boston to cut the Witham channel straight and set to work on a new sluice. This “Grand Sluice,” designed by Langley Edwardes, had its foundation carried down twenty feet, on to a bed of stiff clay. Here, just as, near the old Skirbeck sluice, where Hammond beck enters the haven, at a depth of sixteen feet sound gravel and soil was met with, in which trees had grown; and at Skirbeck it is said that a smith’s forge, with all its tools, horseshoes, etc., complete, was found at that depth below the surface, showing how much silt had been deposited within no great number of years. The foundation stone of the present Grand sluice was laid by Charles Amcotts, then Member of Parliament and Mayor of Boston, in 1764, and opened two years later in the presence of a concourse of some ten thousand people. He died in 1777, and the Amcotts family in the male line died with him. In Jacobean times much good embankment work under Dutch engineers had been begun, and had met with fierce opposition from the Fen men, and the same spirit was still in existence a hundred and fifty years later, for when, in 1767, an Act was passed for the enclosure of Holland, the works gave rise to the most determined and fierce riots which were carried to the most unscrupulous length of murder, cattle maiming, and destruction of valuable property, and lasted from 1770 to 1773. But at length common sense prevailed, and a very large and fertile tract of land to the south-east of Boston was acquired, which helped again to raise the fortunes of the town to prosperity. Following on this in 1802 a still larger area was reclaimed on the other side of Boston in the East, West, and Wildmore Fens. But, as in all low-lying lands near the coast which are below the level of high-water mark, constant look-out has to be kept even now, both to prevent the irruption of the sea and the flooding of the land from storm-water not getting away quickly enough.

The Louth Abbey “Chronicle,” a most interesting document, extending from 1066 to the death of Henry IV., 1413, records disastrous floods in the Marsh in 1253 and 1315, and a bad outbreak of cattle plague in 1321. From other sources we have notice of a great flood at Boston in 1285; another in ‘Holland,’ 1467; and again at Boston in 1571 a violent tempest, with rain, wind, and high tide combining, did enormous damage. Sixty vessels were wrecked between Newcastle and Boston, many thousands of sheep and cattle were drowned in the Marsh, the village of Mumby-Chapel was washed into the sea and only three cottages and the steeple of the church left standing. One “Maister Pelham had eleven hundred sheep drowned there.” At the same time “a shippe” was driven against a house in the village, and the men, saving themselves by clambering out on to the roof, were just in time to save a poor woman in the cottage from the death by drowning which overtook her husband and child. So sudden and violent was the rise of the flood that at Wansford on the Nene three arches of the bridge were washed away, and “Maister Smith at the Swanne there hadde his house, being three stories high, overflowed into the third storie,” while the walls of the stable were broken down, and the horses tied to the manger were all drowned.

At the same time the water reached half way up Bourne church tower. This shows the tremendous extent of the flood, for those two places are forty-four miles apart. This is the “High tide on the Lincolnshire Coast” sung by our Lincolnshire poetess, Jean Ingelow. She speaks of the Boston bells giving the alarm by ringing the tune called “The Brides of Mavis Enderby.”

This tune, which Miss Ingelow only imagined, was subsequently composed, and is now well known at Boston, for, besides the ring of eight bells, the tower has a set of carillons like those at Antwerp. They were set up in 1867, thirty-six in number, by Van Aerschodt, of Louvain, but not proving to be a success, were changed in 1897 for something less complex, and now can be heard at 9 a.m., and every third hour of the day playing “The Brides of Mavis Enderby.”

A violent gale is recorded on February 16, 1735, which did much damage, and in 1763-4 there was a great flood, not owing to any high tide but simply, as in 1912, from continued heavy rains, and we are told that the flood lasted for many weeks. Just lately, in 1912, this was aggravated by the bursting of a dyke in the Bedford level which flooded miles of fenland. In August, 1913, the land was parched by drought, but in 1912 it was a melancholy sight to see, in August, on both sides of the railway between Huntingdon and Spalding the corn sheaves standing up out of the water, and the farm buildings entirely surrounded, while the rain continued to fall daily. Even after three weeks of fine weather in September, though the drenched sheaves had been got away, water still covered the fields, stretching sometimes as far as eye could see. In 1779, when the reclamation of the Holland ‘Fens’ had been carried out, many vessels are said to have been driven by a violent gale nearly two miles inland on the ‘Marsh.’ This was long spoken of as “The New Year’s Gale.”

Exceptionally high tides, each four inches higher than its predecessor, in the streets of Boston are recorded for October 19, 1801, November 30, 1807, and November 10, 1810. This last accompanied by a storm of wind and rain. On this occasion the water was all over the streets of Boston and flowed up the nave of the church as far as the chancel step, being nearly a yard deep at the west end. Since then high-water marks were cut on the base of the tower showing how deep the nave was flooded in 1883 and 1896. In 1813 another high tide caused the sea-bank assessment to rise to 13s. 8d. an acre, the normal rate then, as it is now, for the drainage tax in the east fen, amounting to 3s. an acre. Even that seems to be pretty stiff, £15 a year on a hundred acre farm! Of course it is an absolute necessity, and has been recognised from the earliest times. We know that in the reign of Edward I. an assessment was levied on all who had land to keep the drains in repair. This was as long ago as 1298.

The great feature of Boston is the wonderful church tower. But the town is from many points very picturesque. The deep-cut channel of the tidal river goes right through it. Passing close up against the western side of the great steeple, it goes with houses almost overhanging its eastern bank down to the bridge, a structure of no beauty. After this it runs alongside the street. From the windows you look across and see the masts of the small sea-going craft tied up to the bank, which, with all the old weed-grown timbers of landing-stage and jetty, the natural accompaniments of a tidal river, make quaint and effective pictures. In another street the boys in their old-fashioned blue coats and brass buttons let you into the secret of Boston’s many educational charities. One is in Wormgate (or Withamsgate), one in White Friars Lane, dating from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and another in Shodfriars Lane. The very names of the streets in Boston are full of history, and the recently-restored “Shod Friars Hall,” to the south-east of the Market Place, helps, with its abundant timbers and carved gables, to take one right back to the fourteenth century, though the name was only recently bestowed on this particular building.

The Haven, Boston.

The Guildhall, Boston.

But alas, not only all the monastic buildings, but nearly all the domestic buildings which once made Boston like a medieval Dutch town are gone, though the fifteenth-century brick Guildhall remains. The citizens seem to have had a fatal mania for pulling down all that was most worth preserving of their old buildings. Gone, too, is much else which Bostonians might well have preserved. Such, for instance, as “the prodigious clock bell which could be heard many miles round, and was knocked to pieces in the year 1710.” It is but a few years ago that some of the Boston Corporation plate was sold in London for immense prices, and when astonished people asked how it came to the hammer they heard a miserable tale how the fine collection of civic plate, and it was unusually fine, had been sold in 1837 for £600, nothing approaching to its value, by the corporation itself, for the purpose of liquidating some civic debt. But any sin Boston may commit, such as the crude colouring of the interior of the much-renovated Guildhall, and painting and graining of the deal panels only last year, will be forgiven, so long as they have their uniquely glorious church tower to plead for them.

Lord Hussey’s tower and the Kyme tower are ruins, built about the end of the fifteenth century, and at the end of the eighteenth century a big house was still standing which may have been Lord Hussey’s. The brick tower stands near the school fields, not far from the Public Gardens, which are a credit to Boston, and have some first-rate salt-water baths close by, which belong to the corporation.

The Kyme tower is also called the Rochford tower, that family having held it before the Kymes. It is a massive tower, also of brick, as may be seen from the illustration. It stands about two miles outside the town to the east.

Of celebrated folk born in Boston we have, to begin with, John Fox, author of the “Book of Martyrs,” who was born there in 1517. He was sent to Brasenose, Oxford, and worked very hard, but was expelled as a heretic when he forsook the Roman Catholic religion. The Warwickshire family of Sir Thomas Lucie, a name made famous by Shakespeare, gave him shelter and employment as a tutor; and later he tutored the children of the Earl of Surrey who, in the reign of Queen Mary, helped him to escape from Bishop Gardiner’s deadly clutches. Like so many who suffered persecution for their religion, he made his home at Basle till Elizabeth’s accession allowed of his return. He then spent eleven years on his “Acts and Monuments,” and died in 1587.

At about this time the plague raged at Boston, 1585, and broke out again in 1603. Boston and Frampton had, as the Registers show, suffered an unusual mortality in 1568-9. The water was not good, and as late as 1783 a boring to a depth of 478 feet was made in a vain search for a better supply. The town was at that time supplied from the west fen through wooden pipes.

Hussey’s Tower, Boston.

Hallam, the historian, and Professor John Conington, whose monuments are in the church, were both of Boston families, as was also Jean Ingelow; and the statue near the church preserves the memory of John Ingram, Member of Parliament for the town, and founder of the Illustrated London News. Saunders tells us that Oliver Cromwell lay at Boston the night before he fought the battle of Winceby, near Horncastle, October 10, 1643. He must have been up betimes, for a crow couldn’t make the distance less than sixteen miles, and fen roads at that time were a caution.

Boston is a great centre for the fen farmers, and, as at Peterborough, you may see and hear in the market much that is original. It was at Peterborough that the “converted” sailor made his famous petition when asked to do a bit of praying in the open: “O Lord! bless this people! bless their fathers and mothers! and bless the children! O Lord bless this place! make it prosperous, send thy blessing upon it and make it—make it, O Lord! a sea-poort-town!” Boston having the Marsh farmers as well as the Fen-men meeting in her market, preserves a more racy dialect. I was once in the Boston Station waiting-room as it was getting dusk on a winter evening; three people of the sea-faring class were there—a tall, elderly man standing up, his son asleep on the floor, and the son’s wife sitting and apparently not much concerned with anything. The father, seeing me look at the sleeper, said “He’ll be all right after a bit. My owd son yon is. He’s a bit droonk now, but he’s my owd son. A strange good hand in a boat he is, I tell ye. They was out lass Friday i’ the Noorth Sea and it cam on a gale o’ wind, they puts abowt you knooa, an’ runs for poort. The seäs was monstrous high, they was, and the gale was a rum un, an’ the booat she was gaff-hallyards under. The tother men ‘She’s gooing!’ they says, ‘She’s gooing!’ But my owd son he hed the tiller. ‘She’s all right,’ he säys, and mind ye she was gaff-hallyards under, but ‘She’s all right,’ he säys, and he brings her right in. Aye he’s a rare un wi’ a booat is my owd son, noan to touch him. He’s a bit droonk now, but he’s my owd son.”

On another occasion at Boston I heard one farmer greet another with “Well, Mr. Smith, how’s pigs?” a very common inquiry, for in Lincolnshire pigs fill a large space on the agricultural horizon. Witness the reply of an aged farmer, probably a little unmanned by market-day potations, to a vegetarian who, with a cruelty hardly to be suspected in the votary of so mild a diet, had attacked him with “How will you feel at the day of Judgment when confronted by a whole row of oxen whose flesh you have eaten?” “’Taint the beasts I’d be scared on; it’s the pigs; I’ve yetten a vast o’ pigs.”

CHAPTER XXXVIII SPALDING AND THE CHURCHES NORTH OF IT — The Custs.

Three main roads enter the town of Spalding, the last town on the Welland before it runs out into Fosdyke Wash. They come from the north, south, and east. The west has none, being one huge fen which, till comparatively recent times, admitted of locomotion only by boat. The southern road comes from Peterborough and enters the county by the bridge over the Welland at Market Deeping, a pleasant-looking little town with wide market-like streets and its four-armed signpost pointing to Peterborough and Spalding ten miles, and Bourne and Stamford seven miles.

From Deeping to Spalding the road is a typical fen road—three little inns and a few farm cottages and the occasional line of white smoke on the perfectly straight Peterborough and Boston railway is all there is to see save the crops or the long potato graves which are mostly by the road side.

The Welland at Cowbit Road, Spalding.

The Welland at High Street, Spalding.

The potato trade is a very large one. Every cart or waggon we passed at Easter-time on the roads between Deeping and Kirton-in-Holland was loaded with sacks of potatoes, and all the farm hands were busy uncovering the pits and sorting the tubers. Donington and Kirton seemed to be the centres of the trade, Kirton being the home of the man who is known as the potato king, and has many thousands of acres of fenland used for this crop alone. Spalding itself is the centre of the daffodil market, and quantities of bulbs are grown here and annually exported to Holland, it is said, to find their way back to England in the autumn as Dutch bulbs. I do not vouch for the truth of this, but certainly the business, which has been for years a speciality of Holland, where the lie of the land and the soil are much the same as in the South Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire Fens, is now a large and lucrative industry here, and is each year expanding. The Channel and Scilly Islands and Cornwall can, of course, owing to their climate, get their narcissus into bloom earlier, but the conditions of soil are better in the Fens. Still, a liberal supply of manure is needed to insure fine blooms, and sixty or seventy tons to the acre is none too much, a crop of mustard or potatoes being taken off after its application before planting the bulbs. Hyacinths are still left to Holland, in one part of which, at Hillegom, near Haarlem, the soil has just that amount of sand and lime which that particular bulb demands. Tulips, however, are grown in England with great success; crocuses are seldom planted as they make such a small return on the outlay. For this outlay is very considerable, nine or ten women are needed to each plough for planting, which alone costs 45s. an acre, and then there is the constant weeding and cleaning of the ground, the picking, bunching and packing, which needs many hands at once; also there is the heavy cost of the bulbs themselves for planting, Narcissus poeticus will cost £50 an acre of 400,000 bulbs, but 270,000 of Golden Spur will cost £300 and fill the same space; others will cost prices halfway between these two. Tulips want more room, and at 180,000 to the acre some will cost as much as £500. Growers like to advertise big bulbs, but the harder and smaller English-grown bulb will often give as fine a bloom as the larger imported article. The whole industry is comparatively new, and a very pleasant one for the many women who are employed.

The town is a very old one, and the Welland going through it with trees along its banks and the shipping close to the roadway gives it rather a Dutch appearance. It is noteworthy as being the centre from which we shall be able to see more fine churches, all within easy distance, than we can in any other part of the county or kingdom. As early as 860 the fisheries of the Welland, together with a wooden chapel of St. Mary here, which became the site afterwards of the priory, were given by Earl Alfgar to Croyland. Ivo Taillebois, the Conqueror’s nephew, with his wife Lucia the first, lived here in the castle in some magnificence as Lord of Holland. They were both buried in the priory church, founded by Lady Godiva’s brother, Thorold of Bokenhale, and over possession of which Spalding and Croyland had frequent disputes. One of the priors subsequently built Wykeham chapel. The Kings Edward I. and II. stayed at the priory, and from Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt and Chaucer were not infrequent visitors. The building was on the south side of the Market-place, and a shop there with a vaulted roof to one of its rooms had probably some connection with it. At the dissolution it was valued at £878, a very large sum, and next only to Croyland, which was by far the richest house in the county and valued at £1,100 or £1,200. Thornton Abbey was only set at £730.

The river is navigable for small sea-going vessels, and many large barges may generally be found tied up along its course through the town, discharging oil cake and cotton cake, and taking in cargoes of potatoes, both being transhipped at Fosdyke from or into coasting steamers running between Hull and London.

But water carriage though cheap is limited in that it only goes between two points, whereas Spalding is the meeting-place of at least three railways, making six exits for Spalding goods to come and go to and from all the main big towns in Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire or Norfolk, as well as to all those in our own county. Thus there are twice as many ways out of Spalding by rail as there are by road.

Ayscough Fee Hall Gardens, Spalding.

The Welland, carefully banked by the Romans, is now bridged for one railway after another, and runs with a street on either side of it and rows of trees along it right through the town. On your right as you enter from the south you see across the river, looking over the top of a picturesque old brick wall, the well-clipped masses of ancient yew trees which form the shaded walks in the pretty grounds of Ayscough Fee Hall. The house, built in 1429, but terribly modernised, is now used as a museum, and the grounds form a public garden for the town. Murray tells us that Maurice Johnson once lived in it, who helped to found the Society of Antiquaries in 1717, and founded in 1710 the “Gentleman’s Society of Spalding,” which still flourishes. Among its many distinguished members it numbered Newton, Bentley, Pope, Gay, Addison, Stukeley, and Sir Hans Sloane, and Captain Perry, engineer to the Czar, Peter the Great, who was engaged in the drainage of Deeping Fen.

Close to it is the fine old church, the body of which is as wide as it is long owing to its having double aisles on either side of the nave. It was founded to take the place of an earlier one which was falling to ruins, in the market-place. It dates from 1284, and was once cruciform in plan, with a tower at the north-west corner of the nave. The transepts, which now do not project beyond the double north and south aisles, had each two narrow transept aisles, but the western ones have been thrown into the aisles of the nave. The inner nave aisles are the same length as the nave, but the outer ones only go as far west as the north and south porches, the tower filling up the angle beyond the south porch. The chancel is so large that it was used by Bishop Fleming (1420-30) for episcopal ordinations.

Spalding Church from the S.E.

The east end wall is not rectangular, but the south chancel wall runs out two feet further east than the north wall, as it does also in the church of Coulsdon, near Reigate, in Surrey. The reason of this is that it is built on the foundation of an older chapel. The flat Norman buttresses are still to be seen outside the east end. The tower leans to the east, and when examined it was found to have been built flat on the surface of the ground with no foundation whatever. It seems incredible, but the intelligent verger was positive about it. The spire has beautiful canopied openings in three tiers, the lower ones having two lights and being unusually graceful. Standing inside the south porch and near the tower, and looking up the church, you get a most picturesque effect, for the church has so many aisles that you can see no less than twenty-three different arches. The north porch is handsome, and had three canopied niches over both the outer and the inner doorway, and a vaulted roof supporting a room over the entrance. A five-light window over the chancel arch is curious. There is a rood-loft and a staircase leading to it, and going on up to the roof. The Perpendicular west window is very large and has seven lights. This dates from the fifteenth century, when the nave was lengthened and the pillars of the nave considerably heightened and the old caps used again, and what had previously been an “early Decorated” church with only a nave and transepts, had Perpendicular aisles added. The large south-east chapel which, until 1874 was used as a school, was founded in 1311. An erect life-size marble figure commemorates Elizabeth Johnson, 1843. There are no other important monuments. The tower has eight bells and a Sanctus bell-cot at the east end of the nave. There are stone steps to enable people to get over the brick churchyard wall, as there are also at Kirton and Friskney. Some stone coffin-lids curiously out of place are let into one of the boundary walls of the churchyard. Close by is the White Horse, a picturesque old thatched and gabled inn. There is another inn here called “The Hole in the Wall.” I wonder if this title is derived from Shakespeare’s play, “The tedious brief scene of young Pyramus and Thisbe,” who, says the story, “did talk through the chink of a wall,” or does it refer to some breach in the sea wall? To come from fancy to fact, the real name seems to have been Holy Trinity Wall, the house having been built up against a wall of that church which, with half a score of others in Spalding, has been dismantled and utterly swept away. Another puzzling sign I passed lately was “The New Found out.” The writer of an article in The Times of April 8, on the fire at Little Chesterford, thinks the sign of one of the burnt public-houses, “The Bushel and Strike,” a very singular one, not knowing that the strike, like the bushel, is a measure of corn.

St. Paul’s, Fulney, to the north of the town, is a handsome new brick-and-stone church, by Sir Gilbert Scott, who also restored the old church and removed every sort of hideous inside fitting, where galleries all round the nave came within four feet of the heads of the worshippers in the box pews. At that time £11,000 was spent on the restoration. This was in 1866, in which year the vicar, the Rev. William Moore, died, and he and his wife are buried in the nave; his parents, who had done so much for the church, are buried at Weston.

About two miles from Fulney is Wykeham chapel,[33] built in 1310 and attached to a country residence of the priors of Spalding; it is now only a ruin.

N. Side, Spalding Church.

Going out of Spalding northwards, three miles bring us to Pinchbeck, which was an important village in Saxon times, and attached to Croyland Abbey, where a fine tower with six bells leans to the north-west. It is approached by a lime avenue. There are two rows of diaper carved work round the base of the tower, and large canopied niches on either side of the west door. The old roof on the north aisle is good, the pillars of the nave are spoilt by a hideous coat of purple paint. A delightful old brass weathercock is preserved in the church, and over the south porch is a dial. The high narrow tower-arch is a pleasure to look on. The altar tomb of Sir Thomas Pinchbeck (1500) has heraldic shields all round it, but is quite outdone by a brass of Margaret Lambert, a very ugly one, but adorned with twenty-seven heraldic coats of arms of her husband and fifteen of her own. The ten fine Perpendicular clerestory windows of three lights give the church a handsome appearance, and show the large wooden angels in the roof, who used to hold shields bearing the achievements of the house of “Pynchebek.”

Pinchbeck.

There is another name connected with this place, for one of the oldest Lincolnshire families is that of the Custs, or Costes, who have held land in Pinchbeck and near Bicker Haven for fourteen generations: though the first known mention of the name is not in the fens but at Navenby, where one Osbert Coste had held land in King John’s reign.

The neighbourhood of Croyland Abbey, of Spalding Priory, and of Boston Haven, with its large wool trade, made “Holland” a district of considerable importance, and led some of the more enterprising mercantile families to settle in the neighbourhood.

The same causes occasioned the building of the fine fen churches, which still remain, though the great houses have disappeared. Custs settled in Gosberton and Boston as well as at Pinchbeck. At the latter place, what is now the River Glen was in the fifteenth century called the “Bourne Ee,” or Eau, and the road by it was the “Ee Gate.” Here Robert Cust in 1479 lived in “The Great House at Croswithand,” in which was a large hall open to the roof and strewed with rushes, with hangings in it to partition off sleeping places for the guests or the sons of the house, the daughters sharing the parlour with their parents. Robert is called a “Flaxman,” that being the crop by which men began to make their fortunes in Pinchbeck Fen. He continually added small holdings to his modest property as opportunity arose, and his son Hugh, succeeding in 1492, did the same; buying two acres from “Thomas Sykylbrys Franklin” for 50s. and one and a half from Robert Sparowe for £5, and so on. Hugh is styled in 1494 “flax chapman,” in 1500 he had advanced to “Yeoman.” He then had three farms of sixty-nine acres, and by economy and industry he not only lived, but lived comfortably, and had money to buy fresh land, though his will shows that things were on a small scale still, so that individual mention is made of his “black colt with two white feet behind.” After the death of his two sons, Hugh’s grandson Richard succeeded in 1554, and married the juvenile widow, Milicent Slefurth née Beele, who brought him the lands of R. Pereson, the wealthy vicar of Quadring, with a house at Moneybridge on the Glen, which she left eventually to her second son, Richard. His grandson Samuel took to the legal profession, and, disdaining the parts of Holland after life in London, left the house there to his brother Joshua, who was the last Cust to live at Pinchbeck. The family were by this time wealthy, and had a good deal of land round Boston and elsewhere. Samuel’s son, Richard, married in 1641 Beatrice Pury, and had a son called Pury, whence spring the Purey Custs. The Pury family then lived at Kirton, near Boston. He left the law for a soldier’s life, and was “captain of a Trained Band in the Wapentake of Skirbeck in the parts of Holland.” He succeeded his father in 1663 and lived, after the Restoration, at Stamford. In 1677, by interest and the payment of £1,000, he obtained a baronetcy. His son, Sir Pury Cust, who had been knighted by William III. in 1690, after the battle of the Boyne, in which he commanded a troop of horse under the Duke of Schomberg, died in 1698, two years before his father. His wife, Ursula, the heiress of the Woodcock family of Newtimber, had died at the age of twenty-four in 1683. Her monument is in St. George’s church, Stamford. She traced back her family to Joan, “the fair maid of Kent,” through Joan’s second husband, John Lord Holland, if we are to take it that she was really married first, and not simply engaged when a girl to Lord Salisbury. At all events, her last husband was the Black Prince, by whom she was mother of Richard II. Her father was Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, the sixth son of Edward I.

In 1768 Sir John Cust was Speaker of the House of Commons. The present head of the Cust family is the Earl of Brownlow.

Surfleet.

Close to Pinchbeck, on whose already sinking tower the builders had not dared to place their intended spire, is Surfleet, where the tower and spire lean in a most threatening manner. Arches have been built up to support it, and by the well-known power of old buildings known as “Sticktion,” it may last for many generations, but it presents a very uncomfortable appearance. For the next twenty miles we shall be constantly crossing the great dykes which drain the fens, all running eastwards. The road which divides after crossing the Hammond Beck and the Rise-Gate-Eau passes through Gosberton, once called Gosberdekirk, a large village with a very fine Perpendicular church. You enter by a richly moulded doorway from a very wide porch, over the entrance to which is a figure. To the right of the porch, arched recesses are seen under each south aisle window. There is a central tower with large transepts and a lofty crocketed spire. A Lady chapel adjoins the south transept. The clerestory is a later addition, and the ground has been filled up so that the beautifully carved bases of the nave pillars are two feet below the present paving. A trap-door is lifted to show one of them. The rood staircase is on the south side, and in the south transept is a particularly fine window, with two carved cross-mullions. The moulding of the nave arches is carried right down the pillars, which deprives them of capitals and gives them a very feeble appearance. A similar absence of capitals is found in the tower arches at Horncastle. The roof under the belfry is groined, and a fine screen separates the chapel of St. Katherine from the body of the church. In this, there is an old plain chest with three iron bands. An elegant recumbent stone effigy of a lady and another of a knight in armour, with a shield bearing a Red Cross, are the only monuments of interest. As early as 1409, in the reign of Henry IV., Gosberton was a fat living, for in that year we find that the warden of the hospital of St. Nicholas at Pontefract exchanged the manor of Methley in Yorkshire for the advowsons of Gosberkirk, Lincolnshire, and Wathe, Yorkshire. This manor, before the end of that century, became the property of Sir Thomas Dymoke.

The church is very well cared for, and I was glad to see sheep in the churchyard, the only way of keeping the grass tidy without going to an unwarrantable expense.

Surfleet Windmill.

I know quite well the objections which can reasonably be urged to this plan, that the sheep make the paths and the porch dirty and may damage the tombstones; but the porch can have wire netting doors, and the paths can be cleaned up and the sheep excluded for Sunday; and in those churchyards which are worst cared for there are generally no tombstones which would be liable to any hurt.

Certainly in one churchyard where I have seen sheep for many years I never knew of any damage, and they did keep the grass neat where it would have cost much to keep it trimmed up by hand.

Not far from Gosberton station is Cressy Hall, a modern red brick house, built on the site of a very ancient one. It had been a manor of the Creci family from Norman times, and passed from them to Sir John Markham, who entertained there the Lady Margaret, mother of Henry VII.

Dr. Stukeley, towards the end of the eighteenth century, saw the old oak bedstead on which she slept. It was then in a farm-house, called Wrigbolt, in the parish of Gosberton, and was very large and shut in all round with oak panels carved outside, two holes being left at the foot big enough to admit a full-grown person—a sort of hutch in fact. The property subsequently came to the Heron family, who lived there for three centuries. They kept up a large heronry there, and we read of as many as eighty nests in one tree, but since the family left the manor, at the beginning of last century, the birds have been dispersed.

The next village to Gosberton is Quadring, a curious name, said to be derived from the Celtic Coed (= wood). The western tower and spire are well proportioned, and the tower is quite remarkable for the way in which it draws in, narrowing all the way up from the ground to the spire. The rich embattled nave parapet and the rood turrets and staircase are also noticeable, and, as usual with these Lincolnshire churches, a fine row of large clerestory windows gives a very handsome appearance. This church has in it a fine chest; as have Gosberton and Sutterton. The latter very plain, and both with three iron straps and locks, while at Swineshead is a good iron chest of the Nuremberg pattern.

Four miles will bring us to Donington, once a market town and the centre of the local hemp and flax trade, of which considerable quantities were grown both here and round Pinchbeck. It was the flax trade that attracted the Custs to Pinchbeck in the fifteenth century.

Up to the last century Donington had three hemp fairs in the year, in May, September, and October, and the land being mostly wet fen, the villagers kept large flocks of geese, one man owning as many as 1,000 “old geese.” These, besides goslings, yielded a crop of quills and feathers, and the poor birds were plucked five times a year. The sea shells in the soil indicate that before the sea banks were made the land was just a salt-water fen, and it is probable that the men of Donington had a navigable cut to the sea near Bicker or Wigtoft, for the Roman sea-bank from Frieston curved inland to Wigtoft and thence ran to Fossdyke, and the sea water no doubt came up to the bank.

The Romans did much for this village, which lies between their sea-bank and the Carr Dyke. The former kept out the sea water, and the latter intercepted the flood water from the hills. This was more effectually done later by the Hammond Beck, which, coming from Spalding, ran northwards a parallel course to the Roman Dyke, and with the same purpose, but some four or five miles nearer to Donington, after passing which place it bends round to the east and goes out at Boston. Thus farming was made possible, and potatoes now have taken the place of flax and hemp.

A large green, bordered by big school buildings, now fills the Market Square. The church, dedicated to St. Mary and the Holy Rood, is late Decorated and Perpendicular, and has a splendid tower and spire 240 feet high, which stands in a semi-detached way at the south-east of the south aisle and is surmounted by a very fine ball and weathercock. The lower stage forms a groined south porch, over which as well as on each buttress are large canopied niches for statues, and over the inner door is a figure of our Lord. The pillars in the nave are octagonal. There is a large rood bracket, and the rood staircase starts, not from behind the pulpit, but from the top of the chancel step. The walls of the Early English chancel are of rough stone, with no windows on the north, but the east window is a grand five-light Perpendicular one, and three large windows of the same style are at the west end. In all of these the tracery is unusually good. A doorway at each side of the altar shows that the chancel once extended further, and there is a curious arched recess at the north-east corner with high steps, the meaning of which is a puzzle. A little kneeling stone figure is seen in the wall of the north aisle. The responds of the nave arcades, both east and west, have very large carved bosses. The roof is old and quite plain. In the church are many memorial slabs to members of the Flinders family, among them one to Captain Matthew Flinders,[34] 1814, one of the early explorers, who, in the beginning of last century, was sent to map the coast of Australia, and having been captured by the French, was kept for some years in prison in Mauritius.

The Blacksmith’s epitaph, mentioned in the account of Bourne Abbey, is also found in the churchyard here, with bellows, forge, and anvil engraved on the stone.

Swineshead is but four miles further on, with Bicker half way. The latter has a far older church than any in the neighbourhood. It is dedicated to St. Swithun. It is a twelfth-century cruciform building with massive piers and cushion capitals and fine moulding to its Norman arches over the two western bays of the nave. The clerestory has Norman arcading in triplets with glass in the centre light. The east window consists of three tall Early English lancets. A turret staircase in the south aisle gives access to another in the tower. The north aisle oak seats have been made out of portions of the rood screen. The Early English font, being supported on four short feet, is interesting, as is a holy water stoup in the porch. This church has been well restored by the Rev. H. T. Fletcher, now ninety-three years of age, who has been rector for half a century. In the last half of the thirteenth century a Christopher Massingberd was the incumbent. It is kept locked on account of recent thefts in the neighbourhood. As you go to Swineshead you pass a roadside pond with a notice, “Beware of the Swans.” The village, like Donington, was once a market town, and has still the remains of its market cross and stocks. The low spire of the church rises from a beautiful battlemented octagon which crowns the tower and is the feature of the building. There is a similar one at the base of the spire of the grand church of Patrington in Holderness. The tower is at the west end of the nave, and at each of its corners are very high pinnacles. The belfry is lighted by unusually large three-light Perpendicular windows, and the clerestory by large windows with Decorated tracery. The south aisle windows, too, are Decorated, those in the north aisle Perpendicular. The roof is old, and though plain in the nave, is richer in the north aisle. The clustered columns in the nave are slender, and the long pointed chancel arch, having no shoulders, is curiously ugly. The old iron chest has been already mentioned.

The Welland at Marsh Road, Spalding.

At Swineshead the road goes east to Boston and west to Sleaford. This we will speak of when we describe the six roads out of Sleaford, of which the Swineshead road is by far the most interesting. But we must go back by Bicker, to which the sea once came close up, as testified by the remains of the Roman sea-bank only two miles off; and perhaps, too, by the name “Fishmere End,” near the neighbouring village of Wigton. After seeing Bicker we will retrace our steps through Donington by Quadring and Gosberton, till we reach the “Gate Eau,” then turning to the left, strike the direct Spalding and Boston road. This, after crossing “Quadring Eau-Dyke”—a name which tells a fenny tale—passes over the Roman bank as it leaves Bicker, and making eastwards after its long inland curve from Frieston, proceeds to Sutterton and Algarkirk. The names go together as a station on the Great Northern Railway loop line, and the villages are not far apart. They were both endowed as early as 868, as mentioned in the Arundel MSS. The churches of both are cruciform. Sutterton has a tall spire thickly crocketed, and a charming Transition doorway in the south porch. That of the north is of the same date. The Early English arcades have rich bands of carving under the capitals of their round pillars; the two eastern pillars, from the thrust of the tower, lean considerably to the west; and, showing how much of the building was done in the Transition Norman time, the pointed arch of the chancel is enriched with Norman moulding. The large Perpendicular windows are very good, but the tracery of the Decorated west window is not attractive. The level of the floor has been so filled up that the narrow transept-arch pillars are now buried as much as three feet. The fittings are all pinewood, which gives one a kind of shock in so fine an old church. There are eight bells and a thirteenth-century Sanctus bell with inscription in Lombardic letters. The wood of the massive old iron-bound chest is sadly decayed.

Algarkirk.

Algarkirk, the church of Earl Alfgar, stands within half a mile of Sutterton, in a park. The parish is a huge one, and the living was, till recently, worth £2,000 a year, but having been purchased from the Berridge family and presented to the Bishop of Lincoln, its revenues have gone largely to endow new churches in Grimsby, and the present incumbent has only one quarter of what his predecessors had. Like Spalding, Algarkirk had double aisles to the transepts, but the eastern aisle on the south side has been thrown into the transept. The Decorated windows of each transept are very fine ones, and those at the east and west ends of the nave are extremely large and good, that at the west filling the whole of the wall space. The clerestory has ten three-light windows, and the transepts have similar ones. Outside, the nave, aisles and transepts are all battlemented, which gives a very rich appearance. The fittings are all of oak, and there are six bells. Every window below the clerestory has good modern stained glass, and, taken as a whole, the church is one of the most beautiful in the county.

It was Easter time when we visited Algarkirk, and the rookery in the park at the edge of the churchyard was giving abundant signs of busy life. The delightful cawing of the rooks is always associated in my mind with the bright spring time in villages of the Lincolnshire wolds. In the churchyard I noticed the name of Phœbe more than once, but I doubt if the parents, when bestowing this pretty classic name on their infant daughter at the font, ever thought of her adding to it, as the tombstone says she did, the prosaic name of Weatherbogg.

At Sutterton two main roads cross, one from Swineshead to Holbeach, crossing the Welland near Fosdyke; the other from Boston to Spalding, crossing the Glen at Surfleet.

From Swineshead two very dull roads run west to Sleaford, and north to Coningsby and Tattershall, to join the Sleaford and Horncastle road. This, after crossing the old Hammond Beck, sends an off-shoot eastwards to Boston, whose tower is seen about four miles off. It then crosses the great South-Forty-foot drain at Hubbert’s bridge, named after Hubba the Dane, and the North-Forty-foot less than a mile further on, and, passing by Brothertoft to the Witham, which it crosses at Langrick, runs in a perfectly straight line through Thornton-le-Fen to Coningsby. An equally straight road goes parallel to, but four miles east of it, from Boston by New Bolingbroke to Revesby.

From what we have said it will be seen that the road from Spalding northwards is thickly set with fine churches; but that which goes eastwards boasts another group which are grander still. They are all figured in the volume of “Lincolnshire Churches,” which deals with the division of Holland. This was published in 1843 by T. N. Morton of Boston, the excellent drawings being by Stephen Lewin. His drawing of Kirton Old Church shows what an extremely handsome building it was before Hayward destroyed it in 1804.

One ought not to close this Chapter without some reference to the term “pinchbeck,” meaning sham, literally base metal, looking like gold, and used for watchcases.[35] Some Pinchbeck natives still have it that it was a yellow metal found rather more than a century ago near Pinchbeck, and now exhausted. But fen soil has no minerals, and really it was a London watchmaker, who was either a native of Pinchbeck or else called Pinchbeck, who invented the alloy of 80 parts copper to 20 of zinc. I remember hearing of a case at Spilsby sessions, where a man was accused of stealing a watch. The robbed man was asked, “What was your watch? a gold one?” “Nöa, it wëant gowd.” “Silver then?” “Näay, it wëant silver, nither.” “Then what was it?” “Why, it wor pinchbeck.”

On a later occasion the thief, asking the same “lawyer feller” to defend him, said, by way of introduction, “You remember you got me off before for stealing a watch.” “For the alleged stealing of a watch, you mean.” “Alleged be blowed! I’ve got the watch at home now.”

At Fulney.

CHAPTER XXXIX CHURCHES OF HOLLAND, EAST OF SPALDING

The road which runs east from Spalding passes out of the county to reach King’s Lynn. But before it does so, it goes through a line of villages along which, within a distance of ten miles, are six of the finest churches which even Lincolnshire can show. Going out through Fulney we begin, less than four miles from Spalding, with Weston, where we find an unusually fine south porch with arcading and stone seats on either side. At the east end are three lancet lights of perfect Early English work and four slender buttresses. The nave dates from the middle of the twelfth century, and has stout round pillars in the south and octagonal in the north arcades, each set round with slender detached shafts as at Skirbeck, united under capitals carved with good stiff foliage. The aisles and transepts are later, and the tower later again.

The Early English font is a splendid specimen and stands on its original octagonal steps with half of the circle occupied by a broad platform for the priest. Two good old oak chests stand on either side of the tower arch, and near the south door two curious musical instruments of the oboe type are hanging, and seem to be worthy of more careful preservation.

The whole of our route to-day lies through a perfectly flat land, mostly arable and of extraordinary fertility. The corn crops at the end of May were standing nearly two feet high, and all around bright squares of yellow made the air heavy with the scent of the mustard flower. I lately went all over the great mustard factory of Messrs. Colman at Norwich, in which the beauty and ingenuity of the machinery for making and labelling the tins, for filling bags and boxes, or for sorting and folding up in their proper papers the cubes of blue (of which there is a factory contiguous) were a perfect marvel. The works cover thirty-two acres, and everything needed for the business is made on the premises. The mustard of commerce is a mixture of the brown and the white, both of which, and especially the best brown, are grown in the greatest perfection in the fields round Holbeach. It is a valuable crop. In October, 1912, I saw a quotation of 10s. 6d. to 13s. 6d. a bushel for brown, and 8s. to 8s. 6d. for white; 1913 was a much better year, and so I suppose prices ruled higher. But to return.

Here and there we passed a field with an unfamiliar crop of stiff purplish plants which showed where the cultivation of the Isatis tinctoria, the woad plant, which added so much to the attractiveness of our earliest British ancestors, was still kept going. This flat country is not without its trees, and near the villages park-like meadows, the remains of ancient manors, showed a beautiful wealth of chestnut bloom, whilst the cottage gardens were gay with laburnum and pink May. This was especially the case with the most easterly villages of Holbeach, Gedney and Long Sutton, but all along this line of road from Weston to Sutton there were, at one time, manors of the Irby, Welby, Littlebury, and other families, of which nothing now remains but this heritage of trees. The line of road is a very remarkable one, for it divides what once might have been described as the waters that were above from the waters that were below; in other words the Fen from the Marsh. If you look at a good map you will see to the north of the road, from west to east successively, Pinchbeck Marsh, Spalding Marsh, Weston Marsh, Moulton Marsh, Whaplode Marsh, Holbeach Marsh, Gedney Marsh, Sutton Marsh, and Wingland Marsh. The last of these lies between Sutton Bridge and Cross-Keys, on the county boundary; and since the new outfall of the river Nene was cut, a rich tract has been gained for cultivation where once the sea had possession, and just where King John lost his baggage and treasure in his disastrous crossing of the Cross-Keys Wash, at low tide, shortly before his death in 1216. There is now a good road there.

Now look at the map again and you will see to the south of this Holbeach road the same names, but with Fen instead of Marsh—Moulton, Whaplode, Holbeach, and Gedney Fen.

The Marsh country is far the most interesting, and it is clear both from the nature of the land and from the names of the places that the Wash used to come several miles further inland than it does now, running up between Algarkirk and Gosberton as far as Bicker, and penetrating up the Welland estuary to “Surfleet seas end,” and up the Moulton river to “Moulton seas end,” to Holbeach Clough, to Lutton Gowt, which is north of Long Sutton on the Leam, and to the Roman bank which is still visible at Fleet and again further east between Cross-Keys and Walpole. This bank probably came by Tydd St. Mary, through which a Roman road from Cowbit also passed. But this was long ago, and many centuries elapsed before this Spalding and Lynn road, passing between Marsh and Fen, came into being, with its many magnificent churches, mostly the work of great monastic institutions between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and therefore built with exceptional magnificence.

After Weston less than two miles, through a country brightened by the many red and white chestnut trees in bloom, brings us to Moulton, lying a little to the south of the main road. Here we have a beautiful Perpendicular tower and crocketed spire, reminding one, by its graceful proportions, of Louth, though not much more than half the height. The nave has six bays of Transition Norman work with pillars both round and clustered, resting on large millstone-like bases, the two western piers having tall responds built into them, which probably supported the arch of an earlier tower. The Early English carved foliage on the capitals is like that at Skirbeck, or in the Galilee Porch at Ely and the transept of York Cathedral. Some most graceful old work has been restored in the lower part of the rood-screen, and a new and well-designed canopy added. The doorway to this rood-loft is on the south side. A curious old oak alms-box is near the south door, and against the western pier of the north arcade is a singular font which has been displaced by a modern square one of no particular merit. In the older one the bowl stands on the trunk of a tree carved in stone, on either side of which are figures about three feet high of Adam and Eve, and the Serpent is curling round the tree.[36] The wooden cover with the figure of a stout Rubens angel flying and grasping the top has fallen into disrepair. A list of the vicars from 1237 is in the north aisle.

The clerestory windows are handsomely arcaded outside, with round Norman arcading on the south and pointed arcades on the north side, and ugly Perpendicular windows inserted at intervals which occupy the space of two arcades.

The great beauty of the church is the Perpendicular tower and spire, built about 1380. It has four stages, and over the great west window are some canopied niches, two of which still contain their statues. The buttresses have also niches and canopies, and the tower finishes with a rich battlement and pinnacles which are connected with the spire by light flying-buttresses; the whole is beautifully proportioned, and as it stands in a very wide street one can get a satisfactory view of it.

The dividing of each side by set-off string courses, three on the west and four on the north and south sides, the canopy work of the buttresses at each stage, the pleasing varieties in the size of the windows, the canopied arcading on the west front, the panelled parapet and deep cornice, the elegant pinnacles at the corners of the coped battlements from which the light flying-buttresses spring up to the richly ornamented spire, all help to delight and satisfy the eye in a manner which few churches in any county can hope to rival.

In a bridge half a mile from the church on the south side of a lane called ‘Old Spalding Gate,’ or ‘Elloe Stone lane,’ at the fifth milestone from Spalding, still stands the Elloe Stone.

The Shire Mote or hundred court of the Elloe Wapentake, which is a huge one embracing the whole of Holland between the Welland and the Nene, used to be held at the four cross-roads near this stone, in pre-Norman times. The manor courts were introduced by the Normans.

Boy Scouts were very much in evidence when we were in Moulton; they number over thirty there alone, and I never saw a smarter lot.

From Moulton we get back to the main road and go on two short miles to Whaplode. In Domesday Book this is spelt Quappelode, the cape on the lode or creek, the village being built on a spit of land elevated above the fens and encircled by drains, or lodes, to keep it free from inundation.

Whaplode Church.

The church here was built by the abbot of Croyland in rivalry with Moulton, which was the work of the prior of Spalding. The nave, of no less than seven bays, is narrow and 110 feet long, and exhibits in the low chancel arch and four adjoining arcades quite the most interesting Norman work in ‘Holland.’ The massive Norman pillars are built in pairs of different patterns. The three western arches are Transitional and pointed; of this period the chief feature is the west door with a fine series of mouldings and a double row of eight detached shafts on either side, set one behind the other.

The tower is very fine and is in a most unusual position, being south of the eastmost bay of the south aisle and almost detached, though once joined by a transept. We quite agree with Mr. Jeans when he says “Probably it was intended to have two transeptal towers like Exeter and Ottery, the only two churches in England with them, but a late Perpendicular transept occupies the place of the North one.” The lower Transition stage is richly arcaded, the next two Early English stages have lancet arcading, and the belfry stage, which is early Decorated, has coupled lights and a parapet above them. The choir-screen stood, curiously, a bay in front of the rood loft, the stairs to which are on the south side. The pulpit is Jacobean, the font a copy of a Norman one, the chancel is of the meanest, and all the windows except one at the east of the north aisle are incredibly ugly. Some stone coffins are placed in the west end, where also is the fine canopied monument of Sir Anthony and Lady Elizabeth Irby with large figures of their children kneeling at the side. See Ashby-cum-Fenby, p. 267.

Another three miles along this wonderful line of grand churches brings us to the church of All Saints, Holbeach, a magnificent building all in the latest Decorated style throughout. The spire without crockets, though higher than Moulton, is rather dwarfed by the large tower without pinnacles. The nave is very spacious and light, having large aisle windows with no stained glass, and no less than fourteen pairs of clerestory windows. The flamboyant tracery in the east window is very good. The nave has seven very lofty bays on tall, light, clustered pillars, and the eastern bay does not reach the chancel arch, but leaves a wall space of six feet to accommodate the requirements of the rood loft. There is a very large north porch of singular construction, with heavy, round battlemented turrets like the flanking bastions of a castle gateway. Above is a parvise. In the north aisle is a well-preserved altar tomb to Sir Humphrey Littlebury, c. 1400, and two brasses; one of Joanna Welbye, 1458, for both these families once had manors at Holbeach.

Fleet Church.

The approach to the town is through a well-wooded country, and a row of pink chestnuts in bloom lined the churchyard, as we saw it early in June. Like Moulton, the parish is a very large one, containing, according to Murray, 21,000 acres of land and 14,000 of water. Somewhere in this huge parish was born, in 1687, William Stukeley, the antiquarian, who became in his later years the rector of Somerby, near Grantham.

The “Legend of Holbeach” was probably unknown to him, but it is of some antiquity, and it is printed at the end of the chapter in the rhyming form which was given to it more than a hundred years ago by Thomas Rawnsley of Bourne, D.L.

A mile off the road to the right, is seen the spire of Fleet church. This, too, is mainly in the Decorated style with Early English arcades and a Perpendicular west window. The tower stands apart from the rest of the church at an interval of fifteen feet. Other instances of detached towers are at Evesham in Worcestershire, at Elstow near Bedford, and, I think, at Terrington in Norfolk; but a detached spire is very rarely seen.

All the churches on the main road are at intervals of three miles, and that distance will bring us to the tall slender Giotto-like tower of Gedney, ninety feet high with very small buttresses. This, like Whaplode, was built, by the abbots of Croyland. The spacious nave has twelve Perpendicular three-light clerestory windows of unusual beauty, divided by pinnacles rising above the parapet. There are six lofty bays and a fine Early English tower arch. As at Holbeach and Sutton, there is a parvise over the south porch. The tower was to have had a spire instead of its present little spirelet, but only the base of it was built. Possibly this was because the foundations were not trustworthy, and, indeed, it may be said to have no foundations but to be built on a raft in the peat bog on which it floats securely, as did Winchester Cathedral before the deep drainage trench was cut along the north side of the close. At Gedney, if you jump on the floor of the porch you will distinctly perceive the vibration of the ground.

It is enriched at the first stage by lancet windows, then by an arcading with pointed arches, above which come beautiful twin windows, each with two lights; and the upper, Decorated, stage of the tower—above the line where the Black Death so obviously and effectually stopped the work, as described in the next chapter—has two lofty canopied and transomed windows in each face, which give a very handsome appearance. There is no west door.

Gedney Church.

Within is a ‘low-side’ window at the south-west end of the chancel which is sometimes called an ‘Ichnoscope,’ and in the vestry is a ‘squint.’ A thirteenth-century cross-legged knight, the fine brass of a lady (1390), recently discovered, and the richly coloured alabaster monument of Adlard and Cassandra Welby (1590) are all worthy of notice; while the abbots’ inscription over the door, “Pax Xti sit huic domui et omnibus habitantibus in ea, hic requies nostra,” is to be contrasted with the worldly-wise motto of John Petty on the old bell-metal door lock, “Be Ware before, avyseth Johannes Pette.” Let into the door is a very remarkable crucifixion in ivory.

As we left Gedney and looked back over the fields the tall and Italian-looking campanile, whose bells, however, cannot vie with the eight bells of Holbeach, made a unique and memorable picture. I doubt if there is anything quite like it in England. We passed on eastwards another three miles by Gedney Marsh, with its “Cock and Magpie” inn, while the strong summer scent of the brilliant mustard fields recalled the apt description of our great Lincolnshire poet:

As with Shakespeare, once let anything be described by Tennyson, and no other form of words can ever again seem so fit and inevitable. How often does one notice this!

But now we are at Long Sutton, or Sutton St. Mary’s, and find there perhaps the most interesting of this wonderful sequence of exceptional churches.

Again we have a long nave of seven bays, with Norman pillars, both round and octagonal. A flat Norman arch to the chancel, and on each side of the chancel a slender column and two tall arches leading to chancel transepts. The rood staircase goes up from the pulpit on the north side, and above the nave arcades is a Transitional clerestory with arcading, which now serves as a triforium, being surmounted by another clerestory of the Perpendicular period; indeed the outside of the church, from its aisle and clerestory windows, has just the appearance of a Perpendicular building, so that when on entering one finds oneself in a fine Norman nave, the sight, as Mr. Jeans says, is quite startling.

Long Sutton Church.

At the north-east angle is a curious two-storied octagonal vestry, or sacristy, with a winding stair of fourteenth century date, having a small window into the chancel. The tower is Early English and is curiously placed at the south-west angle of the south aisle. That at Whaplode is at the south-east angle. Both tower and spire are in their original condition (the latter of timber covered with lead) and are the best and earliest specimens of their period. The tower stands on four magnificent arches now blocked, above which outside is a rich arcading like that in the north transept of Wells Cathedral. Above this the belfry windows are double, having a three-light window inside, with a two-light window outside, the mullion coming down to the outer edge of the splay; a very unusual arrangement. The spire is clasped at each corner by a spirelet, and rises to the height of 162 feet. Altogether this church is the fitting crown to our long string of stately churches. There are larger single churches with twelve to even twenty clerestory windows in Norfolk and Suffolk, but I doubt if any group in the kingdom can rival these, though the Sleaford group runs them hard. And certainly the Marsh churches between Boston and Wainfleet, and the still more characteristic group round Burgh-le-Marsh and Theddlethorpe have a charm—owing a good deal to their old oak fittings—which “can only be described in superlatives.” Next to these for interest I would put the Pinchbeck group in the triangle formed by Boston, Spalding, and Donington, and the group of old pre-Norman towers like Clee which are found near together to the south and west of Grimsby. Of course, Lincoln Minster with Stow, Grantham with Hough-on-the-Hill, Boston Stump, and Louth spire, stand outside every group in unapproachable greatness. Long Sutton is not without neighbours. Two miles to the north is Lutton, where Dr. Busby, the famous headmaster of Westminster, was born. He died in 1695. The large inlaid Italian pulpit with elegant canopy, put up in 1702, was probably his gift.

Three miles east is Sutton bridge, only separated from Norfolk by the uninhabited Wingland Marsh, while three miles to the south is the village of Tydd-St.-Mary, the last village on the Wisbech road which is in Lincolnshire, Tydd-St.-Giles being over the border in Cambridgeshire; for both Norfolk and Cambridge here touch the county; Wisbech, which is itself the centre of a grand group of churches, being in the latter county.

To finish our day and get into “the parts of Lindsey,” we take the north road from Holbeach over Fosdyke bridge to Boston. In the church at Fosdyke we may see a remarkable font with a tall Perpendicular oak cover similar, but not equal in beauty, to that at Frieston.

Before 1814, people who wished to go from Boston into the eastern half of Holland and on to Cambridge and Norfolk had to cross the Welland estuary by ferry or go round by Spalding, but in 1811 an Act was passed for erecting a bridge at Fosdyke Wash and making a causeway to it over the sands. The work was designed by Rennie, who had an excellent patron in Sir Joseph Banks. The account of it, written at the time, is curious. The bridge was 300 feet long and had eight openings, the three in mid-stream being thirty feet wide, and the centre one opened with two leaves, which, having a counterpoise, were easily moved from a horizontal to a perpendicular position by means of a large rack-wheel and pinion wound by a common hand-winch. The nine piers were each made of oak trees driven in whole in clusters of six. These trees were none of them less than thirty feet long and eighteen inches in diameter, rather larger than the beams used to carry the floors in Tattershall Castle.[37] Those in the four central piers were enormous, being forty-two feet long and nineteen inches in diameter. They were driven in twenty to twenty-two feet below the bottom of the river and bolted together with timbers a foot thick. All was carried out in oak, the roadway planks being three inches thick. I went to see this stout old timber bridge and was disgusted to find that a grey-painted iron structure had taken its place.

From Fosdyke the road passes Algarkirk and strikes the Spalding and Boston main road at Sutterton, where it turns north to Kirton. After passing Kirton—the magnificent church of which place was so strangely altered and mutilated by a ruthless architect called Hayward, in 1804, who pulled down its noble central tower and its double-aisled transept and built of the old materials a handsome but new tower at the west end—we soon see on the right, first Frampton and then Wyberton, the latter only about a mile south of Boston.

Frampton, once cruciform with a good tower and spire, has lost its north transept, its tall Early English pillars now support arches of a later style, but a fine oak roof and tall screen remain. There is an odd monument of ecclesiastical power on a buttress outside at the angle of the transept. A figurehead grotesquely carved, with the inscription, “Wot ye whi I sta̅d her [know ye, why I stand here] for I forswor my Savior ego Ricardus in Angulo,” probably a lasting reference to some ecclesiastical penance.

Frampton Hall, a good Queen Anne house, is close to the church. Here, as in several of the Marsh churches, rings to tie horses to during service may be seen in the wall. Not a mile away northwards is Wyberton, which, if built as planned, would have been a very fine edifice. When it was restored by G. Scott, Jun., in 1881, the floor of the chancel being lowered brought to light two magnificent pillar bases. These, with the grand chancel arch, are indications that a fine cruciform church was projected but apparently never carried out. Tall arcades with clustered and octagonal columns and a good Perpendicular roof with carved bosses and angels are there now, and signs that an earlier building existed are visible in stones either lying loose or built into the walls. A slab to Adam Frampton is dated 1325.

The font is a very rich one of the same period as those to the north-east of Boston, at Benington and Leverton. The registers begin as early as 1538. We pass now through Boston, and crossing the sluice bridge, get a fine view of the tall tower by the water-side and soon strike the Sibsey and Spilsby road.

A grand black thunder-cloud rolls up across the fen, and having discharged a tempest of hailstones on the Wolds, descends upon us between Sibsey and Stickney in torrents of rain. It passes, and the bright sunshine—the “clear shining after rain” of the Hebrew prophet—contrasted with the darkness of the moving thunder-clouds as they roll seawards, makes a fine picture, and one which in that flat land you can watch for miles as it moves.

The agricultural statistics for Lincolnshire in 1913 show that there were in Lindsey about 860,000, in Kesteven 419,560, and in Holland 243,200 acres under cultivation. The various crops in each were in thousands of acres as follows:—

The table shows that Holland grows a good deal of wheat and oats, but not much barley compared with the two other divisions, and very few “roots.” But in 1913 it grew 40,370 acres of potatoes, which is 5,000 acres more than all the rest of the county; and this was a decrease on the previous year’s crop of 2,479 acres. Then the big item in Holland under “other crops” shows the mustard, while 2,500 acres in that column for Lindsey are taken up with “rape.” The amount of bare fallow last year was, in Lindsey, 22,940 acres; in Kesteven, 15,385; and in Holland, 5,311. This, and the number of horses employed on the land—Lindsey, 26,930; Kesteven, 12,412; Holland, 10,892—when it is remembered that the acreage of the three divisions is in the proportion of 4, 2, and 1, shows how highly cultivated the Lincolnshire fen-land in Holland is. The arable land in that division is more than two-thirds of the whole acreage.

Another thing this report brings out is the marked decrease in 1913 in the number of cattle, sheep and pigs, and especially of sheep in every part of the county. This decrease was—

This shows that Holland suffered more decrease in proportion than the other two divisions in all respects, and especially in the number of pigs. Of course the season must always be answerable for a good deal, and the numbers may all go up this year. But the enormous drop in the number of cattle and sheep, telling a tale of the absence of “roots” and “feed,” will hardly be made good in one year.

CHAPTER XL THE BLACK DEATH

Mention being made in the last chapter of the Black Death, the disastrous effects of which were so visible in the tower of Gedney, it will be not inappropriate to give some short account of it here.

Edward the Third had been twenty years on the throne when a great change came over the country. The introduction of leases of lands and houses by the lord of the manor had created a class of “farmers”—the word was a new one—by which the old feudal system of land-tenure was disturbed, the old tie of personal dependence of the serf on his lord being broken, and the lord of the manor reduced to the position of a modern landlord. And not only was an independent class of tenants coming into existence who were able to rise to a position of apparent equality with their former masters, but among the labourers, too, a greater freedom was growing, which was gradually loosing them from their local bondage to the soil, and giving them power to choose what place of employment and what master they pleased. This rise of the free labourer following naturally on the enfranchisement of the serf had made it necessary for the landlord to rely on hired labour, and just when it was most essential for them to have an abundant supply of hands seeking employment, all at once the supply absolutely and entirely failed.

The cause of this was the Black Death, which, starting in Asia, swept over the whole of Europe and speedily reached these shores in the autumn of 1348. No such swift and universally devastating plague had ever been known. One half of the population of every European country perished, and in England more than half. In one London burying-place above 50,000 corpses were interred.

In Norwich, then the chief east-coast port north of the Thames, we hear of 60,000 deaths. We hear, too, of whole villages being wiped out, and nowhere were sufficient hands left to cultivate the soil.

Crops were ungathered, cattle roamed at will. The pestilence lasted through the whole of 1349, after which, though occasionally recurring, it died away.

In Lincolnshire it was very bad, and some knowledge of it can be gathered from the memoranda of the Bishop of Lincoln, John Gynewell, who held office from September 23, 1347, to August 5, 1362; the appalling frequency of the institutions to the various benefices in his diocese give some measure of the severity of this dreadful visitation.

It began at Melcombe Regis in Dorset in the month of July, 1348, but did not reach Lincoln until May, 1349. It got to London in January of that year, and was at its height there in March, April, and May. In May, in the town of Newark, we read that “it waxes day by day more and more, insomuch that the Churchyard will not suffice for the men that die in that place.”

From his palace at Liddington, in Rutland, Bishop Gynewell went in May to consecrate a burial ground at Great Easton, which, being only a chapelry to the parish of Bringhurst, had no burial ground of its own. The licence was granted only during the duration of the pestilence. The bishop in his preamble says: “There increases among you, as in other places of our Diocese, a mortality of men such as has not been seen or heard aforetime from the beginning of the world, so that the old grave-yard of your church [Bringhurst] is not sufficient to receive the bodies of the dead.”

The enormous number of clergy who died in the Diocese of Lincoln is attested by the fact that in July alone 250 institutions were made and all but fifteen owing to deaths, a number which is considerably more than the whole for the first eighteen months of Bishop Gynewell’s episcopate. The average is over eight a day.

The most singular thing which the statistics point to, is that, on the high ground round Lincoln and in the parts of Lindsey the mortality among the clergy was far higher than in other parts of the diocese, whilst in the low lands and fens round Peterborough, and in the parts of Holland, the percentage of deaths was almost invariably low, twenty-seven and twenty-four per cent. as compared with fifty-seven for Stamford and sixty for Lincoln. The worst months in Lincolnshire were July and August, yet even then, in spite of the severity of the plague and the disorganisation which it occasioned in all the social and religious life of the age, ordinary business, we are told, went on, and the bishop never ceased his constant journeys and visitations to all parts of his enormous diocese, reaching as it did from Henley on the Thames to the Humber, and including besides Lincoln, the counties of Northampton, Rutland, Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, Hertford, Buckingham, and Oxford.

That the nation was not more depressed by this state of things was doubtless due to the feeling of national exaltation occasioned by the battle of Cressy in 1346, and the capture of Calais in the next year and the subsequent truce with France.

One of the results of this plague was the absolute cessation of work for want of hands, which threw land out of cultivation and suspended all building operations. At Gedney, as the architect who restored the church in 1898, Mr. W. D. Caröe, pointed out to me, the history of the Black Death is distinctly written on the tower, and you may plainly see where the fourteenth-century builders ceased and how, above the present clock, the work was recommenced by different hands, with altered design and quite other materials.

Gedney, from Fleet.

CHAPTER XLI CROYLAND

As you pass in the train along the line from Peterborough to Spalding, and have got a mile or two north of Deeping St. James station, you can see to the east in a cluster of trees a broad tower with a short, thick spire standing out as the only feature in a wide, flat landscape. This, for all who know it, has a mysterious attraction, for it is the sorrowful ruin of a once magnificent building, a far-famed centre of light and learning from whence came the brains, the piety, and the wealth which, issuing over the fens of south-east Lincolnshire, not only supplied the first lecturers to Cambridge, but planted those splendid churches for which the “parts of Holland” are famous to this day. For this is the great Abbey of Crowland, or Croyland, the home of the good St. Guthlac, to whose memory this and many another church was dedicated, and to whose shrine pilgrimage was made for several centuries. It stands alone on a once desolate and still sparsely inhabited and seemingly endless fen, and past it the Welland flows down to the long serpentine lake beloved of skaters, which is spelt Cowbit, but called by all Lincolnshire folk “Cubbit Wash.”

Croyland is an older name than Crowland, and the fine church and monastery to which it owes its fame was set up in the eighth century, by King Æthelbald, in grateful memory of St. Guthlac. Now St. Guthlac is no legendary saint; he was a member of the Mercian royal house, who, tired of soldiering, sought a retirement from the world; and certainly few better places could be found than what was then a desolate, reedy waste of waters at the point where Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire meet by the edge of Deeping Fen. No road led to it, and the fenmen’s boats were the only means of passage.

Cowbit Church.

Guthlac was, we are told, the son of Penwald, a Mercian nobleman, and he was very likely born not far from Croyland. After nine years’ military service he entered the monastery of Hrypadon, or Repton, and after two years’ study resolved to take up the life of an Anchorite. So, in defiance of the evil spirits who were reputed to have their abode there, and who were probably nothing but the shrieking sea-gulls and the melancholy cries of the bittern and curlew, he landed on a bit of dry ground two miles to the north-east of Croyland, now called Anchor-Church-Hill, just east of the Spalding road. Here were some British or Saxon burial mounds, on one of which he set up his hut and chapel, while his sister Pega established herself a few miles to the south-west, at Peakirk. He had landed on his island on St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 699, a young man of twenty-six, and here he was visited by Bishop Hædda, who ordained him in 705. In 709 Æthelbald being outlawed by his cousin King Coelred, took sanctuary with St. Guthlac, who prophesied to him that he would one day be king, and without bloodshed. St. Guthlac died in 713 or 714, but Æthelbald, who had vowed to build a monastery for Guthlac if ever he could, did become king in 716, and in gratitude built the first stone church and endowed a monastery for Benedictines at Croyland. Naturally St. Guthlac was the patron saint, and to him was joined St. Bartholomew, on whose day he had first come to Croyland.

St. Guthlac is represented in his statue as bearing the scourge of St. Bartholomew, on whose feast day each year little knives were given away emblematic of his martyrdom by flaying. The custom was not abolished till 1476. Pictures of the scourge and knives are found in the stained glass of old windows; for instance, at Bag-Enderby, near Somersby. In 866 the Danes burnt the monastery. Eighty years later the chancellor of King Edred, whose name is variously given as Turketyl, or Thurcytel, restored the church and monastery, and became the first abbot in 946, about which time he founded the Croyland library. The first church was built on a peat bog; oak piles five and a half feet long being driven through the peat on to gravel, and above the piles recent digging has shown alternate layers of loose stone and quarry-dust, above which the stone foundations of the tower were found to go down fifteen inches below the surface, and to rest on a mixture of rubble and stiff soil which was brought in boats a distance of nine miles. Thurcytel’s church, which was cruciform and of considerable size and held one large bell, has almost, if not entirely, disappeared. The monastery was finished after his death by his successor, Egelric, who added six other bells in 976. The Danes, by cruel and repeated exactions, ruined the abbey which Thurcytel had left so richly endowed, in the time of Egelric’s successor, Godric, about 1010. This Egelric must not be confused with the Peterborough abbot of the same name, who became Bishop of Durham and made the great causeway from Deeping to Spalding in 1052, probably to give work to the peasantry in the year of the dreadful famine, 1051.

On so treacherous a foundation the monks wisely built in wood rather than stone when possible, but they had no preservatives for wood in those days, hence, in 1061, Abbot Ulfcytel had to rebuild the wooden erections which were attached to the monastery. He was greatly helped by the famous Waltheof, Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, and when, on the false accusation of his infamous wife Judith, sister of William I., Waltheof was beheaded at Winchester, the monks got leave from the Conqueror to have his body buried at Croyland. In 1076 Ingulphus became abbot, and, owing to the carelessness of some plumbers—an old and ever-recurring story—the whole of the buildings were again burnt down and the library of 700 MSS. destroyed. It is to the Chronicle of Ingulphus that we owe most of our knowledge of the early history of Croyland, and even if the Chronicle were written three centuries after his death, it still contains much sound and reliable information. Certainly after the fire his building was patched up for a generation, and the Abbot Joffrid, a man of extraordinary learning, zeal, and skill, built in 1109 what may well be called the third abbey. Most of Thurcytel’s work which had escaped the fire was taken down, and the foundations carried down to the gravel bed below the peat. Of this building, which was carried out by Arnold, a lay monk and a very skilful mason, the two western piers and arch of the central tower remain, but an earthquake in 1113 damaged the nave, and when in 1143 it was partly burnt down again, for the third time, Abbot Edward restored it. King Henry had sent for Joffrid (or Geoffrey) from Normandy. Among other remarkable deeds he sent four learned monks to give a course of lectures on grammar, logic, rhetoric and philosophy in a barn which they hired in Cambridge, or Grantbridge as it was then called. Sermons were also preached there in French and Latin, both by the monk Gilbert and by the abbot himself, of whom we are told that, though his numerous hearers understood neither language, the force of his subject and his comely person excited them to give amply towards his building fund. The account of the laying of the first stones of his new abbey is very remarkable. Five thousand persons were assembled and feasted on the spot, and many distinguished people took part, each laying one stone and placing on it a handsome offering of money, or titles to property, or patronage, or land, or possession of yearly tithes of sheep, gifts of corn or malt or stone, or the service for so many years of quarriers at the stone pits, with carriage of stone in boats.

Croyland lost a good friend by the death of Queen Maud, wife of Henry I., in 1118. She had been the especial patroness of the abbot Joffrid, and had founded the first Austin priory in England in 1108. Twenty years later King Stephen gave a fresh charter to the abbey, in the time of Abbot Edward, who commenced to re-build the abbey in 1145. The beautiful west front of the nave, some of which remains, was possibly planned by Henry de Longchamp in 1190, but was not finished till the time of Richard de Upton, 1417-1427. His predecessor, Thomas de Overton, had rebuilt the nave in 1405, and it was during his abbacy that Croyland became a mitred abbey.

The architect and master mason under Richard de Upton was one William de Wernington, or William de Croyland, whose monument is in the tower now. The effigy wears a monk’s cowl and long robe, and holds a builder’s square and compasses and has this inscription: “ICI : GIST : MESTRE : WILLM : DE : WERMIGTON : LE : MASON : A : LALME : DE : KY : DEVY : P″SA : GRACE : DOVNEZ : ABSOLVTION.”

The noble west window, which has lost all its mullions and tracery, must have been one of the very finest in England.

In the days of Henry II. a dispute arose between the Abbot of Croyland and the Prior of Spalding, the prior going so far as to claim Croyland as a cell to Spalding. This quarrel continued through the reigns of Richard I. and John, when the Abbot of Peterborough joined the fray with a fresh dispute about the rights of common and pasture, and the payment of tolls at Croyland bridge. In these controversies Croyland generally was worsted.

Croyland Abbey.

John de Lytlyngton succeeded Abbot Upton and ruled for forty years. In his time Henry VI. and Edward IV. both visited Croyland, the latter being on his way to Fotheringay. A three months’ frost, followed by two years of famine, and later a great flood, followed by a pestilence and a fire which destroyed nearly all the village, but spared the abbey, are among the records of his abbacy. He vaulted the roofs of the aisles, glazed the windows, had the bells recast, and gave the choir an organ; also he built the great west tower for the bells and the porch with its parvise. He died in 1469. The short steeple was added to the tower later. The last abbot was John Welles, alias Bridges. Another campanile had been built beyond the east end of the choir by Abbot Ralph Marshe, 1260, which gave the abbey two separate peals, as once at Lincoln. After these many vicissitudes the greater part of the beautiful building was destroyed at the dissolution in 1539, the nave, of nine bays, being preserved for a parish church. The north aisle had been used for the purpose before, and is so still. Besides this there is left now the west front, consisting of a tower with short spire and a very fine Perpendicular window, and all but the gable and window tracery of the beautiful ornate west end of the nave. This had originally no less than twenty-nine statues under canopies, in seven tiers, covering the wall on either side of the doorway and window, and also above the window. The handsome doorway is entered by a deeply moulded single arch enclosing two smaller ones, and in the tympanum is a large quatrefoil illustrating the life of St. Guthlac. The tower has a western porch under a six-light window. Much has been done by the rector, the Rev. T. H. Le Bœuf, to preserve this magnificent ruin, and since 1860, under Sir G. Scott and Mr. J. L. Pearson, sound restoration has been carried out. Besides the west front and the western tower and spire, one of the most remarkable parts of the abbey still existing is the stone screen which, contrary to usual custom, filled the west arch of the central tower, and is pierced by two doors, one on either side of the altar. Of this the side looking west is plain and probably had wooden panelling, but the eastern side is handsomely carved and panelled in stone. The north aisle has Lytlyngton’s groined roof, five large Perpendicular windows, and a rood-screen. Of St. Guthlac’s Shrine, which was destroyed in 870 and newly erected in 1136, and moved in 1196, nothing remains.

Of the old glass fragments have lately been found buried in the churchyard.

An epitaph on the north wall, dated 1715, has the following apt lines:—

Croyland Bridge.

The boundaries of Croyland, which in Æthelbald’s Charter were rivers, were staked out more definitely when disputes between this abbey and Peterborough arose, by stone crosses; and though these are in part destroyed or broken down, six crosses, or parts of them, are still standing in fields or hedges, which are all mentioned by name, in later charters. One of them, “Turketyls or Thurcytels Cross,” is placed at the junction of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. In this, as in all the others, the cross is missing. The shaft is of obelisk form, on a shapely base, and has been restored. Parts of other crosses are “Guthlac’s Stone,” near the Assendyke, four miles from Croyland; “Finestone,” or “Fynset,” “Greynes,” “Folwardstaking,” and “Kenulph’s Stone.” One of the boundaries mentioned as early as the charter of Edred, A.D. 943, is “The Triangular Bridge.” The present is an extremely curious thirteenth- or fourteenth-century structure, doubtless replacing an earlier one. Like the triangular lodge near Rothwell, in Northamptonshire, it was probably intended to be emblematic of the Trinity. It has three pointed arches, with a way for a stream to flow under each, and three roadways over the arches, but the arches are too low, and the roadways too narrow for vehicles and too steep for any convenient traffic. Hence it may have been the basement of a large cross approached by three flights of steps, where now we have the steep inclines. The parapet walls are perhaps a later addition. Still it served as a bridge too. Roads from Stamford, Peterborough and Spalding meet at the bridge, and tributaries of the Welland and Nene, now covered in, flow under it. The height of the arches is nine feet, and their span sixteen and a half. It would not require that span now, but the streams were bigger when this bridge was built, for we are told that Henry VI. came to Croyland by water in 1460, and that Edward IV. embarked at the wharf just below the bridge, in 1468, for Fotheringay Castle, which is on the banks of the Nene, a distance of some two and twenty miles by water.

There is a stone bench along the left side of the bridge parapet, as you approach from Peterborough, and on this you find an ancient stone figure seated: it is often called Æthelbald holding a globe in his hand or a loaf of bread; but it is far more likely that it is the figure of our Lord, from the centre of the gable above the great west window of the nave, holding in his hands what Shakespeare in the lines below calls “the sceptre and the ball.” The shallowness of the statue and its height—six feet when seated but even the knees only projecting ten inches—make it certain that it was only meant to be seen from the front and at a good height. Moreover, the workmanship of the statue corresponds with that of the other statues on the west front of the abbey.

The rector states as a fact that the west gable of this west front was taken down in 1720, and the statue placed on the bridge, where it must be admitted that it looks very much out of place and uncomfortable. The bridge is said to be in three counties—Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire—so, though the abbey is entirely in Lincolnshire, we can in a few steps leave the county of which Croyland is the last place we have to describe.

The “ball,” or orb, is carried by the monarch at the coronation service in one hand and the sceptre in the other as symbols of imperial power. There is no finer passage in English literature than the soliloquy of King Henry V. on the eve of the battle of Agincourt, the last part of which runs thus:—

In the Museum of the Record-office is a long brown-paper roll with a double column of swans’ heads, the bills painted red and showing in black the marks of the different owners in two counties, of which Lincolnshire is one. These marks were in use in the years 1497-1504, a few being added for the year 1515.

One of the plainest to read is the name of Carolus Stanefeld de Bolyngbroke; among others are the marks of the parsons of Leek and Leverton, the vicars of Waynflete, Frekeney and Sybsa, the Bayly of Croft, the abbot of Revysbye and Philip abbas de Croyland.

CHAPTER XLII LINCOLNSHIRE FOX-HOUNDS BY E. P. RAWNSLEY, ESQ., M.F.H. — NOTE By Author

Except the fen country and a small corner in the extreme north-west, the whole of Lincolnshire is hunted by fox-hounds. Four packs, namely, the Brocklesby (Lord Yarborough’s), the Burton, Blankney and Southwold hunt entirely in Lincolnshire; while the Belvoir and Cottesmore hunt partly in Lincolnshire. Premier position must be given to the Brocklesby. It is one of the very few packs maintained entirely by the master, and for over 150 years the Earls of Yarborough have done this for the benefit of the residents and farmers in the large tract of country they hunt over. The country hunted extends from the Humber on the north to a line drawn from Louth to Market-Rasen on the south, and from the sea on the east to the river Ancholme on the west. The country is mostly wold, and consequently plough, but very open, the only big woods being those that surround Brocklesby itself. The hounds having been so long in one family are of the best, and there are few kennels in England but have a large infusion of the Brocklesby blood, famous for nose, tongue, and stoutness. For upwards of 100 years the family of Smith carried the horn and did much to establish the notoriety of the pack, while in more recent years Will Dale, a great huntsman and houndman, and Jem Smith, no relation of the former huntsman, have kept it up. Possibly sport in the country was never better than when W. Dale and Mr. Maunsell-Richardson each hunted one pack; when one was hunting the other was always out to render assistance, and as both knew the country perfectly, the result was more good runs and more foxes caught at the end of them than was ever done in the country before or since.

With the exception of Brocklesby there are not many residences in the country, though the Upplebys of Barrow, the Alingtons of Swinhope, the Nelthorpes of Scawby in old days joined the chase; and it is related of the first, grandfather of the present owner of Barrow, that after a good run he was found riding on his pillow shouting at the top of his voice, “Mind you keep your eye on Blossom,” a noted bitch at that time in the pack. At the present time a great supporter is Mr. Haigh of Grainsby, who cannot have too many foxes, though he does all his hunting on foot. Mr. Pretyman’s covers at Riby are equally well stocked; while Bradley Wood, the property of Mr. Sutton-Nelthorpe, is the key of all that side of the country. Probably hunting will continue longer over cultivated country, such as the Brocklesby, than in most parts of England. There are few railways, the country is not adapted to small holdings, the farmers are all sportsmen, and occupy large farms, delighted to have a litter of cubs reared on their land and to see a couple of fox-hound puppies playing in their yards, while such a thing as a complaint about hounds and field crossing their land is unknown.

The Burton comes next in point of antiquity, and takes its name from Burton, Lord Monson’s place near Lincoln, where Lord Monson first started the hounds in 1774. Many notable sportsmen have held the mastership. The old Burton country was of very wide extent, stretching from Brigg on the north to Sleaford on the south, and from Stourton by Horncastle on the east to the Trent on the west. It is now divided into Burton and Blankney, the present southern boundary of the Burton being the river Witham and the Fossdyke. The most notable Masters of the country when undivided were Mr. Assheton-Smith, Sir Richard Sutton, Lord Henry Bentinck, who bred a pack of hounds which for work were unequalled, and their blood is still treasured in many kennels, and Mr. Henry Chaplin, to whom Lord Henry gave his hounds, and when the old Burton country was divided Mr. Chaplin took this pack with him. The Burton country as it is now was established in 1871; Mr. F. Foljambe being the first master, a great houndman with a thorough knowledge of the science of hunting, he very soon established a pack, and with Will Dale as huntsman, sport of the highest order was the result. Mr. Foljambe was succeeded by Mr. Wemyss, Mr. Shrubb and again Mr. Wemyss for short periods; then Mr. T. Wilson came, and for twenty-four years presided over the country. He bred an excellent pack of hounds, and sport, especially during the latter part of his reign, was very good; the country, when he gave up, being better off for foxes than it had ever been; this was in 1912. Sir M. Cholmeley succeeded Mr. Wilson. The Burton country is a fair mixture of grass and plough, with some very fine woodlands on the east side of it, known as the Wragby woods. It is far the best scenting country in Lincolnshire, and being little cut up with railways or rivers, is the best hunting country in all the shire. There are not many residences in the country, but excellent support in the way of foxes is given by the landowners. The Bacons of Thonock have ever assisted; then the Amcotts family of Hackthorn and Kettlethorpe, the Wrights of Brattleby, the owners of most of the Wragby woods, and of Toft, Newton and Nevile’s gorses are perhaps most conspicuous; but the whole country is well provided.

The Blankney was first formed as a separate country in 1871, when Mr. Henry Chaplin took command, and as he brought the pack given to him by Lord H. Bentinck, and H. Dawkins as huntsman, very good sport was shown. On Mr. Chaplin giving up he was succeeded by Major Tempest. Then followed Mr. Cockburn, and for a short time Lord Londesborough joined him; Mr. Lubbock followed, then an old name in Lord Charles Bentinck; Mr. R. Swan came next and is still in command. Changes have been rather frequent, as in many countries.

The Blankney country is now a good deal intersected by railways, and the vale towards the Trent has two rivers, the Brant and Witham, which cut it up further. The Wellingore vale is looked on as the best part, having a large proportion of grass, “the heath,” in the centre, is all light plough and very bad scenting country, while on the east there is a strip of country bordering on the fen of good hunting character, and a portion of the Belvoir country towards Sleaford, which is lent to the Blankney, is also very fair.

The Southwold was the last part of Lincolnshire to be established as a separate country (later, that is, than either the Brocklesby or the Burton); it was not till 1823 that it was hunted regularly. It has a wide range, extending from the sea on the east to the river Witham on the west, and from Market-Rasen and Louth on the north to the fens on the south. It is probably more varied than any part of Lincolnshire. The marsh with its wide ditches comes on the east; the wolds, mostly light plough, in the centre; while on the west they dip into a mixed country of grass and plough. The fen country, all ditches and plough, is in the south; hounds, however, only occasionally get into it, as there are hardly any covers. Very short masterships have been the rule, but a committee ruled for nearly twenty years (1857-76), at the end of which time foxes were very scarce in the country. Mr. Crowder then came for four years, and in 1880 Mr. E. P. Rawnsley took the country, and is still master. With latterly the aid of Mr. J. S. V. Fox, and now of Sir W. Cooke, so great an alteration has taken place that whereas formerly four days a week sufficed to hunt the country, now it is always hunted six days, Sir W. Cooke taking the north side and Mr. Rawnsley the south. Sir W. Cooke has a pack of his own, while Mr. Rawnsley hunts the pack which belongs to the country and has been bred from all the best working strains of blood obtainable. Though there are some very big woods on the edges of the country, the centre is all open; there are few railways and no rivers, the scenting conditions are fair, and it is probably the second best hunting country in Lincolnshire.

Conspicuous supporters of the hunt are the Heneages of Hainton, and the large extent of covers and country owned by them has always been open to hounds. The Foxes of Girsby and Mr. Walter Rawnsley of Well Vale have been the same. The late Captain J. W. Fox was for many years chairman of the committee when it ruled the affairs of the hunt, and his son was for seven years joint master with Mr. Rawnsley, during which time the sport was of higher average merit than it had ever attained. Many more residents now come out than was formerly the case, and everywhere the stock of foxes is far better than thirty years ago.

Somersby, the birthplace of Tennyson, is situated in the centre of the hunt, but we never heard of the Poet Laureate joining the chase in his young days. Then Spilsby, the birthplace of Sir John Franklin, and Tattershall Castle, noted as one of the finest brick buildings in England, are both of them in the Southwold country.

It appears that Mr. Charles Pelham, who was the last of the Brocklesby Pelhams, was the first M.F.H. of The Brocklesby, at first as joint and then as sole master, till his death in 1763. Also that Lord Yarborough hunted what is now the Southwold country for a month at a time in spring and autumn, having kennels at Ketsby until 1795, by which time his gorse covers round Brocklesby had grown up and he was able to dispense with the country south of Louth. Then till 1820 a pack of trencher-fed harriers hunted fox and hare indiscriminately. These from 1820 to 1822 were called “The Gillingham” and were hunted by Mr. Brackenbury from Scremby, after which the kennels were transferred to Hundleby and the name changed to “The Southwold.” They now kept to fox entirely, and the Hon. George Pelham, then living at Legbourne, was the first master.

The following is a complete list of the masters of the Southwold up to the present date, 1914:—

From this it will be seen that until the days of the committee no one hunted the pack for even five years, with the exception of Mr. Heanley and Mr. Hellier, until the present master, Mr. E. P. Rawnsley.

With the reign of the committee central kennels were established for the hunt at Belchford in 1857. Previously each master fixed his kennels as it suited him, either at Louth, Horncastle, Hundleby or Harrington.

Now, April 1914, Sir William Cooke having given up, Lord Charles Bentinck has succeeded him. He brings his own pack with him, and the country no longer is divided into north and south, but hunted as a whole again.

APPENDIX I

The altar tombstone from which John preached is near the chancel door. Epworth people will tell you that the mark of his heels is still visible on the stone. Really they are segments of two ironstone nodules in the sandstone slab. The inscription is a remarkable one:

APPENDIX II

Dr. Wm. Stukeley, 1687-1765, was a famous Lincolnshire antiquarian. He practised medicine, first at Boston and then at Grantham from 1710 to 1726. He was made an F.R.S. in 1717, and in that or the following year he helped to establish the Society of Antiquaries in London, and was for the first nine years secretary to that Society. In 1719 he became an M.D. of Cambridge and was made a member of the “Spalding Gentlemen’s Society” in 1722. In 1727 he took Holy Orders and from 1730 to 1748 officiated as Vicar of All Saints at Stamford, where he founded the short-lived “Brazenose Society.” He was a great friend of Sir Isaac Newton and kept up his interest in scientific matters to the end, inasmuch as he put off his service on one occasion in order that his congregation might watch an eclipse of the sun. Whilst still Vicar of Stamford he was made Rector of Somerby near Grantham, 1739-1747, but he retired from both livings in 1748, and spent the rest of his life in London, where at the age of 75 he preached his first sermon in spectacles, taking as his text “Now we see through a glass darkly.” He wrote five volumes of Notes of the proceedings of the “Royal Society,” which are now in the library of the “Spalding Gentlemen’s Society,” and he dedicated his “Itinerarium curiosum” to Maurice Johnson, the founder of that society. He took, for many years, antiquarian tours all over England; writing at some length on Stonehenge and the Roman Wall, and often illustrating his articles, for he was a skilful draughtsman. He died in London in his seventy-ninth year.

APPENDIX III A LOWLAND PEASANT POET

I had not long ago a couple of poems put into my hands by one who, knowing the author, told me something of his life and circumstances. Being much struck by the poems I set to work to make inquiries in the hope of getting something further. But he seems to have written very little. His nephew copied out and sent The Auld Blasted Tree and added “I made inquiry of my aunt if she had any more; she says those you have seen along with this one I now enclose were all he wrote, at least the best of them.” The relatives allowed me to see the account of his funeral with an appreciation of the man as it appeared in the local newspaper. It ran as follows, and was published in The Peebleshire Advertiser, July 7, 1906.

Thus far the newspaper of 1906; and a correspondent who knew the family writes under date March 18, 1912, “Alexander Forrester Farquharson (the subject of the foregoing notice) was born on Sept. 26, 1836, and was named Forrester after the minister of West Linton Parish. He was the son of Andrew Farquharson, mole catcher and small Farmer, and Isabella Cairns, both natives of the Carlops district who lived there at a house called Lonely Bield. Alexander lived in the same house, and followed his father’s occupation. His son died lately and the mother has now left the House.” From this somewhat meagre account we may gather that the whole of his life was spent in Nature’s lonely places

and in this respect he resembles Allan Ramsay who drank in the poetry of Nature when a boy at Leadhills high up on the Crawford moor in Lanarkshire, where hills, glens, and burns, with birds and flowers and ever-changing skies were his to watch and study and take delight in, at the impressionable season of boyhood; whereby Nature herself laid the foundations of his poetic fancies. And this opportunity to walk with Nature came also to Farquharson, in even a greater measure than it did to Ramsay; for he, like Burns, lived and laboured in the country after he had grown to manhood. But Farquharson had not so good an education as the other two, nor did it fall to him, as it did to them, to have at the outset of his career books put into his hands which directed his attention more especially to poetry. Thus, what the selection of English Songs, which he called his Vade mecum, did for Burns, Watson’s collection of Scottish poems did for Ramsay, and among these, notably, one by Robt. Semphill called “The life and death of the Piper of Kilbarchan” and another by Hamilton of Gilbertfield, “The last dying words of Bonnie Heck.” Later, Hamilton, who by this poem first inspired Ramsay with the desire to write in verse, heartily recognised his merit and himself wrote of him

This source of inspiration from books of poetry never, as far as we know, fell to the lot of Farquharson, whose education was altogether on a lower plane. He was born and died just a Scottish peasant; but his communing with Nature gave him the power of observation, whilst the love of reading, which has for generations been the heritage of the Scots even in the humblest walks of life, taught him how to express the thoughts which came to him, and he had undoubtedly a gift for verse. His poems on his old “Hardie” fiddle, and on the Sundew are so good that they might have been written by Burns. But, like Burns and Ramsay too, he is best when he sticks to the vernacular. When he begins to write English he is less convincing. It is well to remember that Ramsay could owe nothing to Burns, as he died in 1758, the year before Burns was born; but Farquharson, whose widow is still alive, died only the other day, and was acquainted with the works certainly of one and probably of both of them. This does not, however, make him less deserving of notice; for little as he wrote, the two poems just mentioned show, I cannot help thinking, a high degree of poetic merit, being not merely surprising as the work of a peasant, but—extremely good per se, and serve to show how the true poetic gift may lurk unsuspected in a country village. In his poems Fair Habbies Howe (or hollow) and Monk’s Burn he refers to the fact that the descriptions of Nature in Allan Ramsay’s pastoral The Gentle Shepherd are taken from the Carlops district, about twelve miles from Edinburgh, in which he himself lived. The second scene of the first act of The Gentle Shepherd begins thus:

The Gentle Shepherd, the poem on which Allan Ramsay’s reputation is mainly founded, is a pastoral of great beauty and charm. The original MS. was presented by the author to the Countess of Eglinton. It is a folio Vol. of 105 pages, clearly written by his own hand, and has a few comic pen-and-ink sketches added at the beginning or end of the acts, and at the close is this note:

We will now turn to the seven bits of verse we have been able to collect by the Shepherd of Lonely Bield.

FOOTNOTES

INDEX

Compiled mainly by Miss Rotha Clay, author of Mediæval Hospitals of England and Hermits and Anchorites of England.

• A
• Addlethorpe, 307-12
• Ædwin, King, 93, 114, 354
• Agricultural returns, 477
• Alexander, Bp., 76, 95, 371
• Alford, 305
• Algarkirk, 32, 459-61
• Alkborough, 196-7
• Allington, E. and W., 70
• Alms-box, 69
• Almshouses, 13-14, 16, 186, 206, 267, 414.
• See also Hospitals
• Altar stone, 41, 142, 200, 257
• Alton church fight, 287
• Alvingham, 280, 371
• Anatomy of Melancholy, 274
• Ancaster, 88-9
• Ancholme, R., 183
• Anderson, Sir Charles, 205-6, 207
• Angel Hotel, Grantham, 56
• Anglo-Saxon ornaments, 254-5
• Anglo-Saxon remains, 168-9.
• See also Architecture
• Anwick, 371
• Aragon, Katherine of, 31
• Architecture, Different Styles, 6.
• Saxon and Early Romanesque, 19, 29, 43, 46, 71-2, 85, 90, 126, 139, 148, 164, 188-9, 196, 230, 251-5, 252-4.
• Norman Domestic, 51, 122, 124, 255
• Armada picture of Bratoft Church, 321
• Arras and Cambray, St. Vedast, Bp. of, 276
• Ashby near Spilsby, 335
• Ashby-cum-Fenby, 267
• Ashby Puerorum, 342, 379
• Askew (Ayscoughe), family of, 223-4
• Axholme, Isle of, 4, 5, 198, 208-12
• Ayscoughe Fee Hall, Spalding, 445
• B
• Baden-Powell, Sir R. S., 278, note
• Bain, R., 274, 364-5, 371, 385
• Bacon, Sir Hickman, of Thonock, 204, 405
• Baptists in Lincolnshire, 325
• Bardney, 390-3
• Barholm, 19
• Barkston, 65-6
• Barkwith, East and West, 268
• Barlings Abbey, 143, 395
• Barnadiston, family of, 225
• Barnetby-le-Wold, 234, 259
• Barnoldby-le-Beck, 283
• Barrow-on-Humber, 216-7
• Barrowby, 70
• Barton-on-Humber, 7, 188-93
• Barsham, Norfolk, 384
• Bassingham Saxon font, 148
• Bassingthorpe, 40
• Baston, 29
• Baumber, 144
• Bayons Manor, 273
• Beacon, 48, 167, 423
• Beaufort, Lady Margaret, 12, 49
• Bec, Sir Walter’s grave, Halton, 330
• Thomas and Antony, Bishops, 97, 160
• Belchford, S. W. H. Kennels, 275, 283
• Belleau, 247-48, 249
• Bells, 19-20, 60, 99, 126, 197, 311, 313, 318, 434, 438, 459
• Belton, 64-5, 210
• Belvoir Castle, 69-70
• Benington, 416-7
• Benniworth, 268
• Bertie, family of, 19, 30-1, 335
• Bicker, 457, 459
• Bigby, 183, 235
• Bigby font and Tyrwhit Monuments, 235-6
• Billingborough, 35
• Bilsby, 305
• Bitchfield, 40
• Binbrook, 274
• Black Death, 480-2
• Blankney, 149
• Bloody Oaks, battle of, 11, 18
• Blow wells, 232, 267
• Boat, ancient, 184-5
• Bolingbroke, Old, 339, 359
• Bolles, family of, 284-8
• Bond family monuments at Croft, 318
• Books, chained, 60
• Boothby Graffoe, 162
• Boothby Pagnell, 51
• Bore, the, 201-2
• Boston, 420-40
• “stump,” 60, 108, 420-3
• guilds, 430
• religious houses, 430
• silting of the river, 432-3
• Bottesford, 200
• Botolph, St., 426
• Boucherett, family, 273
• Bourne Town and Abbey, 23, 27;
• manor, 21-4, 32
• Braceborough Spa, 22
• Bracebridge, 164
• Braceby, 42
• Bramfield, Sub-dean, Murder of, 104
• Brandon, Chas., Duke of Suffolk, 399
• Brant, Broughton, 90, 148, 151-4
• Brasenose Coll., Stamford, 14
• Brasses, 171-2, 225, 235, 294-5, 317, 334, 387
• Brasses, earliest in County, 146, 317
• Brasses twice used, 200, 322
• Bratoft, 321
• Bridges, ancient, 129, 270, 490
• Brigg, old boat at, 184-5
• Brigsley, 274
• Brocklesby, 236-8
• Bromhead and Chard, 131
• Brothertoft, 404
• Broughton near Brigg, 71, 183-4
• Browne family, Monuments at Croft, 317
• Browne, William, 12, 13
• Brownlow family, 64-5
• Buckden, 109, 117, 384
• Buckland, 283
• Bulb trade, Spalding, 441-4
• Bull-running, 11
• Bully Hill, 276
• Burgh-le-Marsh, 320
• Burgh-on-Bain, 268
• Burghley House, 12
• Burleigh, Lord of, 16-17
• Burton Coggles, 40
• Burton Pedwardine, 85
• Burton Stather, 4, 198
• Buslingthorpe, early brass, 146
• Butterwick, 418
• Bytham, Castle, 44-5
• maypole ladder, 44
• Bytham, Little, 40, 44, 46
• Bytham farmers’ motto, 46
• Byways, 245-7
• C
• Cabourn Hill, 231
• Caenby, 269-270
• Caistor, 7, 228-30, 236
• Callis, (Almshouse), 13
• Candlesby, 283, 382
• Canwick, 149
• Careby and Carlby, 40
• Carlton Scroop, 67
• Carlton Gt. and Little, 278
• Carr, use of word, 183-4
• Carr Dyke, 23, 28-9, 34, 40, 44, 87, 165, 183, 371, 401, 456
• Carre Family, 77
• Casewick Hall, 19
• Casterton, Great, 7
• Cathedrals Compared, 98-9
• Cawdron Monuments, 85
• Cawkwell, 276
• Cawthorpe, 245-7
• Caythorpe, 67-8
• Ceremony of Championship, 376-8
• Chalice, Priest’s, 83
• Champion of England, Grand, 334, 372-8
• Chantries, 63
• Chaplin, Jane, aged 102, 277
• Cartulary, Alvingham, 281
• Charterhouse, Founder of, 206
• Chaucer, 199, 339, 359, 444
• Cherry Willingham, 143
• Church Clock at Rowston, 150
• Churchwardens’ Books, 83-4, 137, 240, 257, 260, 309-10, 318-19, 325-7
• Claxby, near Alford, 248
• Claxby, near Rasen, 232
• Claypole, 71, 74-75
• Clee, 264-6
• Cleethorpes, 227, 265
• “Cliff,” 159, 183, 198, 232-3
• Clixby, 234
• Cockerington, (North, South), 279-81
• Coifi, Chief Priest, 113
• Coleby, 141, 162-3
• Colsterworth, Newton Chapel, 46-47, 66
• Compton Church, Surrey, 397
• Coningsby, 370-1
• Conington, Prof., 423
• Corby, 31, 40
• Corringham, 200-1
• Cotes-by-Stow, 141-2
• Cotes, Great, and Barnadiston Brasses, 224-5
• Cotes, Little, 267
• Cotes, North, 295
• Country Seats near Grantham, 64
• Covenham, St. M. and St. B., 281
• Cowbit, 406, 483-4
• Cowpaddle, The, 149
• Crabbe, Rector of Allington, 70
• Cranwell, 90
• Cressy Hall, 71, 454-5
• Creeton, Stone coffins at, 40
• Cripple, Memorial Brass to, 310
• Croft, 316-19
• Cromwell, Oliver, 201, 364, 439
• his letters, 54-55, 364, 439
• Cromwell, Ralph, 380-382, 384-385
• Crosses, Stone, 33, 57, 71, 74, 79, 80, 134, 139, 150, 196, 342
• Queen Eleanor, 9, 62, 134, 174
• Boundary, 489-90
• Crowle, 212, 261
• Croxby Pond, 267, 274
• Croyland Abbey, 5, 342, 483-9
• Bridge, 490-1
• Curfew, 149
• Cust, Family of, 64-5, 450-2
• Cuthbert Bede, 40
• Cuthbert, St., 213-14
• Cuxwold, 231
• D
• Dalby, 360
• Danegelt, 7
• Danish occupation, 8-9, 20, 32, 140, 201, 204, 263-5, 276, 402-3, 485
• Dashwoods and Batemans at Well, 249
• Deeping Fen, 21-2
• St. James, 20, 29
• Denton, 69
• Devil’s door, the, 331
• Devil looking over Lincoln, 101
• Dictionary, Elliott’s, 327
• Digby, 150
• Disney, family of, 171-3
• Doddington Hall, 173-6
• Dog-whipping in church, 83, 319
• Dominus, use of word, 394-5
• Donington, 455-6
• on Bain, 276
• Dorchester (Oxon), bishopric of, 93, 140
• Drainage and embankments in fen and marsh, 28, 209, 314, 432-5, 446, 456.
• See also Roman Works
• Drainage opposed by Fenmen, 433
• Drayton, M., quoted, 426
• Driby, 378-83
• “Droves,” all E. and W., 44
• Duck-decoys, 200, 411-13
• Dunham Bridge, 137-8
• Dunsby and Dowsby, 34
• Dunston pillar, 148, 167
• Durham priory, 8
• Durobrivæ Roman station, 7
• Dymoke, family of, 80, 334, 372-7
• E
• Eagle, 173
• “Eagre” or bore in R. Trent, 201-2
• Early church towers, group of, 198-9, 230, 252, 262
• Easter Sepulchre, 21, 41, 75, 82, 106, 162
• Easton, 48, 50
• Eden, R., 40, 41, 43
• Edenham, 29-30
• Eleanor, Queen, 9, 103, 116, 174
• Elkington, South, 274, 284
• North, 284
• Elloe stone, 466
• Elsham, 3, 185-6
• Empingham, battle at, 11, 18
• Enderby, Bag, 258, 340, 379
• Enderby, Mavis, 362, 434
• Enderby Wood, 369
• Epworth, 210
• Eresby, 335
• Ermine Street, High Dyke, 3-4, 7, 18, 50, 88, 90, 92, 122, 129, 149, 151, 154, 157, 159, 178, 182-4, 190, 230, 269
• Ewerby, 60, 78-9, 85, 259
• F
• Farquharson, A. F., 501-10
• Fens, 2, 5, 23, 34-35, 400-8, 464-5
• Ferriby, South and North, 186-7, 196
• Ferries over the Trent, 138
• Ferry at Hull, 217-8
• Fillingham, 199
• Firsby, 325
• Fishtoft, 419-20
• Fiskerton, 143, 168-9
• Fleet, 470
• Flinders, Matthew, 456-7, note
• Flodden Field, 240
• Floods, in the fen, 433-5
• Floss, mill on, 201
• Flowers in June, 262-3, 464
• Rare, 370-1, 419
• Folkingham, 32
• Folk-song, Lincolnshire, 296-303
• Font covers, 257-8, 419, 475
• Fonts, 64-5, 69, 108, 215, 234-5, 257-61, 291, 305, 306, 340-1, 368, 417, 463, 465-6
• Football, a family team, 207
• Fosdyke, Rennie’s Bridge at, 475
• Foss Dyke, 134, 137
• Foss Way, 92, 148, 173
• Fotherby Top, 284
• Fox, John, born at Boston, 438
• Fox-hounds, 493-8
• Frampton, 476
• Franklin, family of, 336, 457
• Friaries, 124, 430
• Frieston, 257, 418-9
• Friskney, 380, 409-11
• duck decoy, 411-12
• Frodingham, 198
• Fulbeck, 68
• Fulney, 448
• Fulston, 281, 295
• G
• Gainsborough, 138, 201-4
• Gautby, 144
• Gaynisburgh, Richard de, 204
• Gayton-le-Marsh, 278
• Gayton-le-Wold, 268
• Gedney, 470-2
• Gelston Cross, 74
• Gentleman’s Soc. of Spalding, 445-6
• Giantess, Lincolnshire, 34
• Gibbets, 270-1
• Gibraltar Point, 298, 315
• Gilbert de Gaunt, 32
• Gilbert of Sempringham, St., 35-8, 371
• Girsby, 268
• Glass, ancient, 12, 33, 43
• Glen, R., 19, 29, 39-41, 43-4, 51
• Glentham, 269-70
• Glentworth, 199-200
• Gobaud family, 34
• Godiva, Lady, 444
• Gonerby Hill, 71
• Goosetoft, 404-5
• Gosberton, 452-4
• Gowts, 126, 432
• Goxhill, 218-19
• Grainsby, 263
• Grainthorpe, 294-5
• Grandiloquent writing, 109
• Grantham, 5, 52-63, 73
• Grantham, Thomas, of Halton Baptist, 325
• Grasby, 233-4
• Great Humby, 34
• Grebby, 282
• Green lady, the, 286, 289
• Greetham, 342
• Gretford, 19-20
• Grey friars at Grantham and Lincoln, 62, 128
• Grimblethorpe, 268
• Grimoldby, 216, 242, 279, 281
• Grimsby, 225-7
• Corporation seals, 227
• Grimsthorpe, 30-1
• Grinling Gibbons, 65
• Guilds and charters, 430, 432
• Gunby, Dan, 296
• Gulls breeding at Manton, 198
• Gunby St. Peter, 283, 322
• Guthlac, St., 483-5
• Gynewell, Bishop, 481
• H
• Habrough, 222
• Hacconby, 31
• Haceby, 42
• Hagnaby, 306, 366
• Hagworthingham, 362
• Hainton, 268
• Hale, Great, 71, 84-5
• Hallam, historian, 439
• Halstead Hall, 396
• Haltham, 369
• Halton, East, 221
• Halton, West, 195
• Halton Holgate, 329-32
• Halton, John de, Bp. of Carlisle, 368-9
• Hameringham, 363-4
• Harlaxton, 68-9
• Harmston, 164
• Harpswell, 198
• Harrington, 340
• Hatcliffe, 267
• Haugh, 285
• Haugham, 245, 277
• Havelock, The Dane, Story of, 227, 394
• Haverholme, 37, 78, 243, 371
• Hawysia, de Trikingham, 42
• Haydor, good stained glass, 33
• Heapham, 206
• Heckington, 80-3
• Helpringham, 85-6
• Heneage, family of, 268
• Henry VIII., 76, 109, 157, 240
• Hereward the Wake, 23-4, 40
• Hermits, 178, 219
• Hexham, 80
• Hibaldstow, 183
• High Dyke, alias Ermine St., 159
• From Caistor, 230
• Hogsthorpe, 307
• Holbeach, 468-70
• Legend of, 478-9
• Holdingham, 89
• Holland Fen, 404
• Holton-le-Clay, 263
• Holywell, 22
• Honington, 67
• Horbling, 35
• Horkstow, 186-7
• Horncastle, 91, 364-5
• Hospitals and Almshouses, 9, 12-14, 53, 134, 178-81, 186
• Hough-on-the-Hill, 71-4, 149, 162, 184
• Hour-Glasses, 41, 90, 164, 210, 364
• Houses, beautiful, 40
• Howell, 79-80
• Howorth, Sir Henry’s interesting book, 112
• Hubbert’s Bridge, why so called, 46
• Hugh of Lincoln, St., 96-117
• Hugh of Wells, 96-7
• Hugh, “Little St. Hugh,” 118-9
• Humber, R., 187
• Humberstone, 266
• Hundleby, 361
• Hundon, Tombs, Caistor, 229-30
• Hussey, Ld., 76, 242, 438
• Huttoft, 306
• I
• Iconoclasm, 256-7
• Immingham, 222-3
• Imp, The Lincoln, 106
• Ingelow, Jean, 434, 439
• Ingoldmells, 310, 315
• Ingoldsby, 40
• Inscriptions in Churches, 19, 21, 42, 43, 46, 49, 51, 67, 108, 201, 216, 224, 225, 234, 235, 267, 280, 286, 288, 307, 318, 321, 363, 375, 414, 417, 424, 476, 487, 489
• On Jubilee Memorial, 186
• On Bells, 511, 313
• Irby, 324
• Irby-on-Humber, 231-2
• Irby family monuments, 468
• Irnham, 40-1
• Ithamar, first English Bp., 114
• J
• Jesus Coll. Chapel bench ends, 332
• Jews, persecution of, 117-9, 123
• Joffrid, Abbot of Croyland, 486-7
• sends Lecturers to Cambridge, 486
• lays first stone of the third abbey, 487
• John, King of England, at Kingscliffe, 9, 56, 71, 76
• John, King of France, 53, 160, 238
• Johnson, Archdeacon, 16
• Johnson, Dr., 360
• Jump, famous, of Dr. Trought, 246
• K
• Katherine Howard, 76, 109, 157
• Keate, Dr., 345
• Keddington, 244
• Keelby, 283
• Kelstern, 274
• Kettleby, 235-6
• Kettlethorpe Hall, 176-7
• Killingholme, North, South, 222
• King’s Street, 23, 31-4
• Kirkby-Underwood, 40
• Kirkby, East, 366
• Kirkstead, Abbey and Chapel, 396-8
• Kirmington, Green Spire, 236
• Kirmond-le-mire, 274
• Kirton, 475
• Kirton-in-Lindsey, 182
• Knaith, 206
• Knights Hospitallers, alias of Jerusalem and of St. John, 155-9
• Knights Templars, 155-9, 173, 198.
• See also Temple Belwood, Temple Bruer
• Koh-i-noor (mt. of light), diamond, 237.
• Kyme, North and South, 87-9, 371
• tower, 438
• L
• Laceby, 232, 267
• Lady Lucia, 339
• Lambert, Daniel, 16
• Langton, 360
• Langtoft, 20-1
• Laughton, 200
• Lea, 201, 204-5
• Leadenham, 68, 151
• Leake, 413-6
• Leasingham, 89-90
• Lenton or Lavington, 40
• Leverton, 416-7
• Liddington, 481
• Lincoln—
• Lindum Colonia, 91
• Afternoon tea at, A.D. 1762, 136
• Bishop’s palaces, 109, 117, 384, 481
• Cathedral, 91-111
• Chancery, 109-10
• Chapter-house, 110
• Churches, 126-7
• Corporation, 129-31
• Conduits, 128-9
• Friaries, 123-4, 128, 135
• Gates, 91-2, 120-2, 129, 131
• Guild, 124-5, 255
• High bridge, 129
• Hospitals, 134
• Jews’ houses, 118, 121-3, 255
• Library, 131
• Stonebow, 129-30
• Lincoln, Bishops of, 95-8, 103-8, 117, 481
• Parliaments of, 110-11
• Heath, 148-9, 157
• Lincoln Stuff ball, 134
• Lincolnshire flocks, 232
• Lincolnshire, divisions of, 4-5, 22, 73-4
• Lincolnshire Rebellion, 240-2
• Lincolnshire Roads, 207
• Slope of the land, 34, 39
• Lincolnshire stories, 337-8, 339-40, 462
• Linwood, 146-7
• Littleborough, 90, 138
• Lock-up house, 150
• “Long and short” work, 2, 253
• Long Bennington, 71
• Lord High Treasurer Cromwell, Chapter XXXIII
• Louth, 60, 239-45
• Grammar School, 242
• Louth Park Abbey, 37, 242-4
• Chronicle, 244, 433
• Roads, 244
• Lud, R., 3
• Ludford Magna, 274
• Lusby, 363
• “Lyttyl clause,” the, 240-2
• M
• Mablethorpe, 292, 347
• Maddison, Canon, 103
• Maltby-le-Marsh, 291
• Manby, 278-9
• Mappa Mundi, 76
• Mareham-le-fen, 370
• Markby, 306
• Markham, Mrs., 102
• Marquis of Granby, 70
• Marsh, the, 2-3, 464-5
• Marsh Chapel, 295
• Marton, 139
• Marston, 149
• Martyrs, Clerical, 242
• Masquerade at Nocton, 169-70
• Massingberd family, 322
• Mausoleum at Brocklesby, 236
• Mavis Enderby, 362, 366, 434
• Maypole, use of, 44
• Mazes, 196-7
• Melton Ross, 234
• Mercia, kings of, 7-8, 114
• Messingham, 107, 200
• Miningsby, 366
• Miserere seats, 104, 423
• “Molly Grime,” 270
• Monksthorpe, 324
• Monumental effigies, &c., 30, 31, 34, 49, 67, 69, 77, 79, 80, 83, 103, 104, 145-7, 149, 171-3, 184, 192, 195, 200, 210, 223-6, 229-30, 232, 235-6, 238, 267-9, 271, 278, 280-1, 292-5, 310, 312, 317, 322-4, 330, 334, 340, 364, 372-5, 423, 453, 468, 471-2, 487
• Monumental epitaphs, 26-7, 420, 457.
• See also Inscriptions in Churches.
• Moorby, 368
• Morton, 31, 204
• Moulton, 260, 465-6
• Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, 209
• Muckton, 247
• Mustard, cultivation of, 463-4, 472, 477
• Colman’s factory, Norwich, 464
• Muston, 70
• “My owd Son,” 440
• N
• Names ending in ‘by,’ 185, 341
• Nature’s poets, 303-4
• Navenby, 161-3
• Nettleton, 231
• Nettleship, R. L., 297
• Newsham Abbey, 238
• Newton Church Tower, 42
• Newton, Isaac, 31, 46-8, 55, 57, 62
• Newton-by-Toft, 270
• Noblemen not Saints, 257
• Nocton, 166-9
• Nonconformists, 324-5
• Normanby-le-Wold, 230
• Norman buildings, 255
• North Country humour, 303
• Northorpe, 200
• North Wytham, 46
• Norton Disney, 148, 170-3
• O
• Octave of E.E. Churches, 42
• Orgarth Hill, Danish Camp, 276
• Ormsby, North, 284
• Ormsby, South, 361
• Osbournby, 33
• Oswald, St., 212-4
• Oswy, King of Northumbria, 8
• P
• Pagnell, Boothby, 51
• Palmer, effigy of, 34
• Parish Clerks, Stories of, 319-20
• Partney, 358-60
• Paulinus, St., 93, 112-14
• Peasant poets, 303-4, 501
• Pelham buckle, the, 238, 385
• Pelham pillar, 231, 233, 236
• Penda and Pæda, Kings of Mercia, 8, 114
• Penrose, Rev. Trevenen, 163
• Peterborough, cathedral, 49-50, 52
• Pickworth, 41
• Pilgrimage of Grace, 240, 242
• Pinchbeck, 448-50
• metal called, 461-2
• Plague, 290-1, 439
• Plague-stone, 290-1
• Ponton, Great, 50
• Ponton, Little, 51
• Pope Gregory, 112-13
• Potter Hanworth, 165
• Potteries, Pre-Roman, 315-6
• Premonstratensian, meaning of, 395
• Pulpit, early, note, 192
• Q
• Quadring, 455
• Queen Margaret (Ed. I.), 428
• Queen Eleanor’s heart buried at Lincoln A.D. 1290, 103
• R
• Raithby, 361-2
• Rasen, Market, 272
• Middle, 271
• West, 270
• Ravendale, 267, 274
• Rawnsley, 27, 43, 249, 328, 330, 332, 336, 340, 352, 361, 493, 496
• Read’s Island, 187
• Rebellion, Lincolnshire, 240-2, 243
• Registers, Early, 306, 476
• Remigius, Bishop, 76, 93, 140
• Revesby Abbey, 367
• Riby Grove, 232
• Richard III. at Grantham, 56
• Ridge, the, 4, 159
• Rigsby, 247
• Rippingale, 34
• Riseholme, 269
• Roads, few going E. and W., 33
• in the marsh, 280, 316
• without villages, 151
• Roadway streams, 246-7
• Robert de Brunne, 25-6
• Rochford, Stoke, 48
• Romanus, Bp., 113-114
• Romans, our benefactors, 401
• Roman works:
• embankments, etc., 2, 295, 310-12, 315, 401, 409, 417, 456, 459, 464-5;
• see Carr Dyke, Foss Dyke
• gateways, 91
• roads, 23, 34, 89, 91-3, 137, 144,183, 230, 328, 465.
• See Ermine Street, Foss Way, King’s Street
• stations, 32, 50, 67, 87, 88, 91, 138, 140, 184, 228-9, 248, 315-6, 364-5
• remains, 91, 104, 120, 122, 125-6, 149, 184, 196
• Rood lofts and screens, 256
• Roof covering both nave and aisles, 87, 225
• Rooks in towns, 365
• Ropsley, 43
• Rothwell, long and short work, 230
• Rowston, 150
• Rulos, Richard de, father of Lincolnshire farmers, 21-22
• S
• St. Denis, 76
• St. John, family of, 49-50
• St. John, Oliver, 49-50
• St. Poll, family of, 145
• St. Thomas of Canterbury, Church Dedicated to, 40
• Saleby, 278
• Salinas, Mary de, 31
• Salisbury, Connection of Grantham with, 62-3
• Saltfleetby, All Saints, 293
• St. Clements, 294
• Samplers, 168
• Sandbank, “The Old Warp,” 187
• Sandtoft, 209
• Sapperton, Pulpit Hour-glass at, 41
• Sausthorpe, 360
• Saxby, All Saints, 186
• Saxilby, 137
• Saxon Churchyard, 29
• Scamblesby, 276
• Scartho, 264
• Scawby, 183, 198
• Sutton Nelthorpe of, 198, 494
• Schools, 13, 16, 27, 43, 57, 206, 242, 272
• Scopwick, 149
• Scremby, 282
• Scrivelsby, 372-4
• Scunthorpe, 198, 207
• Sea-dyke, 2, 416-7,
• see Draining, Roman Embankment
• Seals, Ancient, 227
• Sedgebrook, 69, 70
• Sempringham, 35-38
• Sempringham Hall, Stamford, 14
• Sempringham, Order of, 25-6
• Sheep in Churchyard, 267, 454
• Sibsey, 361
• Silk Willoughby Wayside Cross, 33
• Sixhills, 146, 273, 277
• Shakespeare Quotations, 63, 209, 491-2
• Skating in Fens, 405-7
• International, 408
• Skegness, 314-5
• Roman Castrum at, 316
• Skendleby, 282
• Skidbroke, 294
• Skirbeck, 420, 427
• “Skirth” Billinghay, 371
• Slash Lane, 364
• Sleaford, 4, 76-8, 169
• Slope of Church W. to E., 66, 186
• Smith, Capt. John, 278
• Snarford, 144-5
• Snelland Register, 144
• St. Poll Tombs, 145-6
• Somerby, 42-3
• Somercotes, South, 294
• Somersby, 340-343, 345-353
• Somersby Brook, 298, 322, 342
• Somersby Church Opening, 352
• Somerton Castle, 160-1
• South Thoresby, 247, 290
• Spalding, 441-8
• Spectacles, Use of, 51
• Spelling, a clear gift, 49
• Spilsby, 233, 333-7
• Spital-on-the-Street, 178-81
• Springs, Mineral, 22, 69, 70
• Springthorpe, 206
• Stainfield, 395
• Stainsby, 379
• Stainton-le-Vale, 274
• Stallingborough, 223
• The Ayscoughe Tombs, 223-4
• Stamford, 4, 7-17
• bedehouse, 13-14
• churches, 7, 9, 12-14
• college, 14
• St. Leonard’s Priory, 8
• “Stamford Baron,” 12
• Stanley, Dean, on Wesley, 211
• “Staple,” the meaning of, 428
• Starlings, flocks of, 250
• Steeping, Little and Great, 323-4
• Stephen King, 76
• Stickford and Stickney, 361
• Stixwould, 395-6
• Stocks, 372, 389, 457
• Stoke Rochford, 48
• Stones, sculptured, 139, 150, 212, 269, 281, 366, 368
• Stonebow, the, 129
• Stone Coffin, use for, 80
• Stow, 140-2
• Stow Green, 32
• Stragglethorpe, 90
• Strubby, 291
• Stubton, 71
• Stukeley, Dr. W., 43, 500
• Sturton, 207
• Suffolk, Duke of, 398-9
• Duchess of, 31
• Surfleet, 452-3
• Sutterton, 459
• Sutton, Long, 472-4
• Sutton, Thomas, 206
• Swallow, 231
• Swan, St. Hugh’s, 116
• Swan-marks, 492
• Swan, ballad of the, 299
• Swaton, 86-7
• Swineshead, 457-9
• Swinstead, 31
• Sword called “Fox,” 131
• Syston Hall, 64
• T
• Tallington, 7, 19
• Tathwell, St. Vedast’s, 276-7
• Tattershall, 12, 235, 370-1, 379-80, 382-9
• Mantelpieces, 384, 388
• Taylor, John, poet, 405
• Tealby, 273, 343
• Temple Belwood, 210
• Bruer, 76, 151, 154-9
• Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 131-4, 340, 346-357
• Tennyson, Dr., 342-344, 346
• Tennyson Centenary, 131-2
• Tennyson, family of, 343-57
• Tennyson-Turner, C., 233-4
• Tennyson poems in the Lincolnshire dialect, 356
• Tennyson, Matilda, last of the family, 353
• Tetford, 379
• Tetney, 3, 266-7
• Theddlethorpe, West, 293, 313
• Theodore, Archbp. of Canterbury, 193
• Thorganby, 274
• Thonock Hall, 204, 495
• Thornton Abbey, 219-21, 238
• Thornton Curtis, 108, 215-16
• Thorpe, 325-7
• Thorpe Hall, 284-9
• Thorpe St. Peter’s, 259
• Threckingham, 32
• Thurcytel, first Abbot of Croyland, 485
• Thurlby, 29, 259
• Tickencote, 18
• Toft-next-Newton, 270
• Top, Cliff and Wold, 232
• Torrington, East and West, 263
• Tothby, 290
• Tournai fonts, 108, 215, 259
• Tournays, or Tourneys, family of, 269-70
• Tower-on-the-Moor, 398
• Toynton, High, 342
• Trent, R., 4, 114, 137-8, 200-2, 207
• Tumby, 370, 379-80
• Tupholme, Abbey, 284, 395
• Two churches in one churchyard, 280
• Tydd St. Mary, 465, 474
• U
• Uffington Hall, 19
• Ulceby, 213, 282
• Uppingham, founder of, 16, 206
• Upton, 206
• Usselby, 231
• Utterby, 260, 267, 284
• V
• Vyner, F. G., 144
• W
• Waddington, 164
• Wainfleet, 91, 327-9, 379
• Wainfleet, St. Mary’s, 329
• Wainfleet, William of, Bishop, 327-8
• Waith, 263
• Wake, de, family of, 20-1, 23, 40
• Walcot, double “squint” at, 41
• Walesby, 274
• Walks, Uppingham to Boston, 35;
• Horncastle to Mablethorpe, 249
• Wall-painting, 141, 182, 410
• Walmsgate, 283
• Waltham, 264, 274
• Wapentake, meaning of, 73-74
• “Warping,” process of, 212
• Wars, Civil, 19, 53-5, 201, 232, 286, 364
• Wars of the Roses, 10-11, 18
• Watts, G. F., and Tennyson, 134
• “Wedercoke” at Louth, 240
• Weir dyke, 144, 183, 186
• Welbourn, John de, treasurer, 98, 151
• Well, 247-251
• Welland, R., 7
• Wellbourn, 154
• Wellingore, 161
• Wellington and Dr. Keate, 345
• Wells, blow-, 232, 267
• Welton-le-Wold, 268
• Wernington, William de, Master Mason, 487
• Wesley, Samuel and John, 210-12, 499
• Westmoreland Stories, 303, 338-9
• Weston, 463
• Whitgift, John, Archbp. of Canterbury, 225, 232
• Wickenby, 260
• Wilfrid, Bishop, 8-10
• Wilksby, 368
• Willingham, North, 146, 230, 244, 272, 277
• South, 244, 268
• Cherry, 143
• by Stow, 206
• Wilsthorpe, 40, 41
• Whaplode, 466-8
• Willoughby, 248, 278
• Willoughby d’Eresby, family of, 30-1, 86, 248-9, 333-5
• Willoughton, 157
• Winceby, 364-5
• Wine-cellars in Boston, 430-1
• Winteringham, 3, 184, 195
• Winterton, 184, 195-6
• Winthorpe, 312-14
• Witham-on-hill, inscription on Bells, 20
• Witham, R., 39, 44, 46, 51, 90, 91, 126, 129, 134, 137, 149, 371, 425-6, 432-3
• Withern, 278
• Woad, cultivation of, 464
• Wolds, the, 2-5, 146, 148, 232
• Wood, Enderby, 369
• Woodhall Spa, 397-8
• Woodcarving by Wallis, of Louth, 237
• Wood-work, church, 255-6
• Wool, staple, 13, 147, 309, 428-9, 432
• Woolsthorpe, 31, 47-8
• Wordsworth, Bishop, Christopher, 103, 265, 269
• Wordsworth, W., Sonnet Persuasion, 113
• Wragby, 269
• Wrangle, 413-4
• Wrawby, 183, 185, 206
• Wray, Sir Christopher, 145, 200
• Wright family, 289, 413
• Wulfhere, King of Mercia, 7
• Wyberton, 476
• Wyclif, John, 199
• Wykeham Chapel, 448
• Y
• Yarborough, Earls of, 236-7
• Church, 281
• Z
• Zucchero, 289