Pantheon, the filth of idolatry being abolished, a church should be erected in memory of the Blessed Virgin and all Martyrs; and on this principle, in other places also, the site of the heathen worship, and the day of its special observance, were transformed into the occasion and place of observance of the Christian festival of “All Hallows,” or “All Saints” day; and in the course of re-corrupting time the offering on behalf of the dead by the heathen, and the commemorative ceremony of the early Christian, passed into “prayers for the dead,” which became general in a later age. Further, to give their sympathies a wider compass, the old “Golden Legend” tells us that “Saynt Odylle ordeyned that the feast and remembraunce of all them that ben departed (generally) out of this worlde sholde be holden in al monasteryes, the daye after the fest Halowen (All Hallows even); the wyche thynge was approved after all holye Chyrche.” [157] This is the old Christian black-letter festival of “All Souls,” generally, as distinguished from the red-letter, “All Saints day.” Such are some of the old traditions which hang, like evergreen garlands, round our sacred places. Children may once have “passed through fire to Molech” where now the heaving turf shrouds the skeleton of a decayed church.
On the walls of the church are tablets with the following inscriptions:—“To the beloved memory of Frederick Evan Cowper Smith, Lieutenant, Royal Artillery, eldest son of the late T. F. Smith formerly Rector of this Parish. He died of Fever, brought on by over-exertion in the discharge of his duty, while on active service in Afghanistan, with the Kyber Line Field Force, on July 26th, 1880, when he had just completed 19 years of earthly life. Jesu Mercy.” A second is as follows:—“Sacred to the memory of Arthur Monro Cowper Smith, Captain in the Royal Field Artillery, and graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge; he died at Beira, East Africa, on Sept. 28, 1898, in the 36th year of his age, of injuries received in a grass fire while shooting big game on the Pungwe River. He was the second son of the Rev. T. F. Smith, B.D., late Rector of this Parish.”
Another tablet is in memory of the Rev. T. F. Smith, B.C., “formerly Fellow of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, and Rector of this parish, who died May 21, 1871, aged 50.”
A fourth is to the memory of Colonel Bonar
Millett Deane, second son of Rev. G. Deane, late Rector of Bighton. He died in South Africa, gallantly leading a column of the 58th Regiment, under General Colley, at the battle of Laing’s Nek, January 28, 1881, aged 46 years. “He fought a good fight, he kept the faith. Jesu Mercy.” He was a relative of the late Rector, the Rev. F. H. Deane, B.D., afterwards Rector of South Kilworth, Rugby.
A document in the parish chest shews that the burial ground was, at one time, re-purchased for a burial, and fenced in, while other papers shew how this came about, viz., that the duty of the parishioners to keep up the churchyard fence had been neglected (as has also occurred in other places in this neighbourhood), and so the land lapsed, and had to be recovered. In these papers, both church and chapel are named as distinct, which again is confirmed by the Will [158] of John Kele, parson of Horsington, 26 January, 1540, in which he directs that his body shall be “buryed in the Quire of All Hallows,” and bequeaths to “the church of Horsington on mass boke (one mass book), on port huse (Breviary), on boke called Manipulus Curatorum”; he adds, “I also wyll that on broken chalyce, that I have, be sold, and wared off the chancell of the chapell of Horsington; proved 17 Feb. 1540.” Here he is to be buried at All Hallows, and makes a bequest to the “Horsington Church,” this evidently again being All Hallows; but the money produced by the sale of the broken chalice is to be wared (note the Lincolnshire word, i.e., spent) on “the chancell of the chapell.” The pilgrim from Woodhall Spa can find his way by a pleasant walk of 2½ miles, mostly through the fields, northwards from the Bath-house, or along the Stixwould-road, re-entering the fields a little westward of “Miser’s Row,” and so by Halstead Hall, and to All Hallows. We now proceed to later incidents in Horsington history. There are the traces of two old moated mansions, one on the right of the road going from Woodhall Spa, about a quarter of a mile before reaching the village: there is now a small farmhouse within the moat, which is shaded by its sallows or willow trees. Nearly opposite, a cross cut in the turf by the road shews where a man was killed some years ago. The other traces are to be seen in the field just to the south of the present churchyard. The field is still called “Hall close,” and the moats, ponds, and
mounds cover some two acres. It has been the residence of a family of importance; and we find among the list of those gentry who contributed their £25 to the Armada Fund the name of Robert Smythe, --- of Horsington. In the register of burials is the entry, dated 1671, “Bridget Hall wiff of Robert Hall buried in her own yard Dec. 1st, 1671.” She lived at “Hall farm,” near the road from Horsington to Bucknall; and deeming it popish to lie east and west in a churchyard, she directed that her body should be buried north and south in her own garden. Some years ago the occupier, in digging a drain between the house and the road, came upon a skeleton lying north and south, presumably that of Bridget Hall.
Here is another odd circumstance. We now have our splendid county asylums for our lunatics, but the writer can remember the case of an unfortunate lunatic who was kept chained to the kitchen fire-place in a house in Horncastle, was never unchained, and slept on the brick floor. At Horsington the parish officers made special provision for the insane. In the parish chest there was, until quite recently, [159] a brass collar, to which was attached a chain for securing the unfortunate individual by the neck. The writer was lately informed by an old Horsington man, over 80 years of age, that the last occasion on which this collar was used was early in the 19th century. A villager then residing near the present blacksmith’s shop, and named Joe Kent, had two insane daughters, who had a very strong antipathy to each other, so that they had always to be kept apart, or they would have killed each other. My informant took me to what formerly was the garden of Kent’s house, and pointed out two spots where these two unfortunate creatures were, in fine weather, chained to the wall, one by the neck and the other by the waist, about 15 yards apart. When within doors they were similarly secured in separate rooms, treatment, surely, which was calculated to aggravate rather than alleviate their afflictions, but those were days in which rough remedies were too often resorted to.
Horsington was further connected with an incident which, had it not been nipped in the bud, might have had most serious national consequences, viz., what is known as “the Cato street conspiracy,” the leader of which was Arthur Thistlewood, a native of Horsington.
His proper name was Burnett, the name of his mother, he not being born in wedlock. She was the daughter of a small shopkeeper in the village. Thistlewood, his father, was a farmer, and Burnett was brought up with the rest of Thistlewood’s family. Possibly his peculiar position may have soured his temper. The following extracts taken from a recent publication give contemporary information as to the details of this dangerous and daringly-conceived plot. [160] The Earl of Hardwick, writing to Lady Elizabeth Stuart, then in Paris, Feb. 24, 1820, states that he had, in London, just received information of a plot to assassinate ministers as they came from dinner at Lord Harrowby’s. (The Duke of Berry had been assassinated in Paris, at the door of the Opera House, on Feb. 13th, 1820, only eleven days before.) Thirty men, his lordship says, were found in a hay-loft, all armed. Notice had been privately given to the police of the plot, and the dinner had been consequently postponed. These men had probably met to consider the cause of this postponement. Nine of the party were taken, the rest escaping by a rope ladder. Lord Hardwick, writing again at 4 p.m. the same day, says, “I have just seen the leaders of the horrible plot . . . Thistlewood was taken to the Treasury, where he was about to be examined. Townshend the police officer asked if I would like to see him . . . he was sitting over the fire without his hat; it was easy to distinguish him from the rest, by the character of ferocity which marked his countenance, which had a singularly bad expression . . . Sir Charles Flint took me to another room, where there were several of the arms taken; 7 pistols and bayonets, 4 daggers, or pike heads, two feet in length; and some muskets. A sergeant of the guard was wounded in the arm by a ball which had passed through his hand; he also received three balls in the crown of his hat.” Thistlewood was taken in White Cross Street, near Finsbury Square, in his bed. The place where the conspirators were discovered by the police was the loft of a stable at the “Horse and Groom” public-house, in John Street, Portman Square, which is between the square and Edgware Road. They were to have forced themselves into the house, at Lord Harrowby’s, while dinner was going on, which they could easily