W. F. Rawnsley

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”