[233] Allen, in his “History of Lincolnshire,” states that these conical roofs remained in the thirties, but they were there at least ten years later, to the writer’s own knowledge.
[236] At Revesby there is St. Sythe’s Lawn, where the Abbot of that monastery used to reside, and some of the carving from his residence is still preserved in the very handsome new church erected there by the late Right Honourable E. Stanhope. In Mells church, Somerset, in the coloured glass of a window, St. Sitha is also represented with two keys in one hand and three loaves in the other. She was slain by the Danes about a.d. 870. (“Archæol. Journal,” No. 6, June, 1845).
[238] Toll-bars are not always so successfully negotiated. The writer, when at Cambridge, had three college acquaintances who, on one occasion—contra leges—attended Newmarket races. Riding home in the dusk, they found the toll-bar closed, and charged it. The first of them cleared it successfully; the second, rather a bulky man, rode at it, but the horse stopped short and he himself shot over, without it. The third took the gate, but the horse and rider fell together, and he was carried into the bar-house insensible, to be presently found there, and taken home by the Proctor, who had been looking for them. He, however, proved a friend in need and in deed, for he kept council, and did not divulge the incident. A future clergyman, afterwards residing in this neighbourhood, attempted the same feat, but suffered for it ever afterwards. A screw was left loose in his cranium, and he might sometimes be seen riding along the ditches by the roadside rather than on the road itself. His horse, however, and he, as should always be the case, thoroughly understood each other, and did not “fall out,” or in.
[239a] “Quarterly Review,” July, 1891, p. 127.
[239b] A volume was published by the Lincolnshire Architectural Society, in 1846 (J. H. Parker, Oxford), which gives a History of the Architecture of the Abbey Chapel, now standing. Dr. Oliver, also, in his “Religious Houses on the Witham,” gives a very interesting history of the Abbey. Both these books are now scarce.
[240a] MS. Vespasian E. xviii, in British Museum: quoted “Architect. Soc. Journ.,” 1895, p. 109.
[240b] Harlevan MS., No. 4127.
[240c] Quoted from the Fenman’s Vade Mecum.
[241a] “Placitum de quo Warranto,” p. 401.
[241b] Quoted Oliver’s “Religious Houses,” pp. 77, 78.