Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

The Custs.

THE CUST FAMILY

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.

GOSBERTON

THE LEANING TOWER

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.

SHEEP IN CHURCHYARDS

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.

QUADRING

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.

DONINGTON

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.

FLINDERS AND FRANKLIN

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

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.

SUTTERTON

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.

THE MAGNIFICENT WINDOWS

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.

AT ALGARKIRK

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.

MEANING OF ‘PINCHBECK’

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

Weston—The Font—Fertile Country—Colman’s Factory—The Woad Plant—’Twixt Marsh and Fen—Moulton—The Spire—The Elloe Stone—Whaplode—Holbeach—Fleet—Gedney—The Mustard Fields—Long Sutton—Groups of Churches—Fossdyke Old Bridge—Kirton—Frampton—Wyberton—A Storm—Agricultural Statistics, 1913—A Legend of Holbeach.

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.

‘MARSH’ AND ‘FEN’

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.

RETIREMENT OF THE WASH

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.

MOULTON

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.

WHAPLODE

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.

HOLBEACH

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 DETACHED SPIRE

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.

GEDNEY

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.

THE MUSTARD FIELDS

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:

“All the land in flowery squares,

Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,

Smelt of the coming Summer.”

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!

GROUPS OF FINE CHURCHES

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.

OLD FOSDYKE BRIDGE

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 AND WYBERTON

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.

AGRICULTURAL RETURNS

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:—

	Wheat.	Oats.	Barley.	Beans and Peas.	“Roots.”	Potatoes.	Clover, Vetches &c.	Other crops.
In Lindsey	79	69½	125½	24	83¼	27	109	7
” Kesteven	44½	24	67½	17½	34½	8½	46¼	3¾
” Holland	35	23	18	17¼	7	40⅓	15	12¾

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—

	Cattle.	Sheep.	Pigs.
In Lindsey	8,672	35,516	1,002
” Kesteven	5,675	10,462	2,801
” Holland	3,664	9,587	4,638
Total	18,011	55,565	8,441

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.

THE REVELLERS

“A LEGEND OF HOLBECH”

“A LEGEND OF HOLBECH”

a true story.

Made into this rhyme by Mr. Rawnsley of Bourne, about the year 1800.

In the bleak noxious Fen that to Lincoln pertains

Where agues assert their fell sway,

There the Bittern hoarse moans and the seamew complains

As she flits o’er the watery way.

While with strains thus discordant, the natives of air

With screams and with shrieks the ear strike,

The toad and the frog croaking notes of despair

Join the din, from the bog and the dyke.

Mid scenes that the senses annoy and appal

Sad and sullen old Holbech appears,

As if doomed to bewail her hard fate from the Fall,

Like a Niobe washed with her tears.

From fogs pestilential that hovered around,

To ward off despair and disease,

The juice of the grape was most generous found,

Source of comfort, of joy, and of ease.

At the “Chequers” long famed to quaff then did delight

The Burghers both ancient and young,

With smoking and cards, passed the dull winter night,

They joked and they laughed and they sung.

Three revellers left, when the midnight was come,

Unable their game to pursue,

Repaired, most unhallowed, to visit the tomb

Where enshrouded lay one of their crew.

For he, late-departed, renowned was at whist,

The marsh-men still tell of his fame,

Till Death with a spade struck the cards from his fist

And spoiled both his hand and his game.

Cold and damp was the night; thro’ the churchyard they prowled,

As wolves by fierce hunger subdued,

’Gainst the doors they huge gravestones impetuous rolled

Which recoiled at such violence rude.

From the sepulchre’s jaws their old comrade uncased,

(How chilling the tale to relate),

Upreared ’gainst the wall on the table was placed

A corpse, in funereal state.

By a taper’s faint blaze and with Luna’s faint light

That would sometimes emit them a ray,

The cards were produced, and they cut with delight

To know who with “Dumby” should play.

Exalted on basses the bravoes kneeled round

Exulting and proud of the deed,

To Dumby they bent with respect most profound

And said “Sir! it is your turn to lead.”

The game then commenced, when one offered him aid,

And affected to guide his cold hand

While another cried out, “Bravo! Dumby, well played,

I see you’ve the cards at command.”

Thus impious, they jokèd devoid of all grace,

When dread sounds shook the walls of the church,

And lo! Dumby sank down, and a ghost in his place

Shrieked dismal “Haste! haste! save your lurch!”

Astounded they stared; but the fiend disappeared

And Dumby again took his seat,

So they deemed ’twas but fancy, nor longer they feared

But swore that “Old Dumb should be beat.”

Eight to nine was the game, Dumby’s partner called loud

“Speak once, my old friend, or we’re done

Remember our stake ’tis my coat or your shroud

Now answer and win—can you one?”[38]

“What silent, my Dumby, when most I you need

Dame Fortune our wishes has crossed,”

When a voice from beneath, howled, “your fate is decreed

The game and the gamesters are lost.”

Then strange! most terrific and horrid to view!

Three Demons thro’ earth burst their way:

Each one chose his partner, his arms round him threw

And vanished in smoke with his prey.

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.

THE BLACK DEATH

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.

ITS EFFECT ON BUILDING

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

St. Guthlac—Abbot Joffrid—Boundary Crosses—The Triangular Bridge—Figure with Sceptre and Ball—Lincolnshire swan-marks.

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.

ST. GUTHLAC

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.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE ABBEY

ABBOTS OF 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 MASTER MASON

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.

THE RUINS

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:—

Man’s life is like unto a winter’s day,

Some brake their fast and so departs away;

Others stay dinner then departs full fed,

The longest age but supps and goes to bed.

Croyland Bridge.

THE BOUNDARY CROSSES

TRIANGULAR 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.

FIGURE ON THE BRIDGE

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:—

’Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,

The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,

The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,

The farced title running ’fore the king,

The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp

That beats upon the high shore of this world,

No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,

Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,

Who with a body fill’d and vacant mind

Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread;

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,

But, like a lackey, from the rise to set

Sweats in the eye of Phœbus, and all night

Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,

Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,

And follows so the ever-running year,

With profitable labour, to his grave:

And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,

Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.

The slave, a member of the country’s peace,

Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots

What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,

Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

Henry V., Act IV. Scene 1.

LINCOLNSHIRE SWAN-MARKS

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.

Brocklesby—Burton—Blankney and Southwold—Note by Author.

THE BROCKLESBY

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 AND THE BLANKNEY

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

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.

NOTE
By Author

MASTERS OF THE SOUTHWOLD

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:—

Hon. G. Pelham	1823-6
Lord Kintore	1826
Mr. Joseph Brackenbury	1827-9
Sir Richard Sutton, combining it with the Burton	1829-30
Captain Freeman, who brought hounds from “The Vine”	1830-32
Mr. Parker	1832-35
Mr. Heanley, who brought his own hounds	1835-41
Mr. Musters, who brought his own hounds	1841-43
Mr. Hellier	1843-52
Mr. Henley Greaves	1852-53
Mr. Cooke	1853-57
A Committee, presided over part of the time by Captain Dallas York	1857-76
Mr. F. Crowder	1876-80
Mr. E. Preston Rawnsley	1880

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.

BELCHFORD KENNELS

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.