SIR CHARLES ANDERSON
Lea church stands high, and has a chantry in which is a cross-legged knight, Sir Ranulph Trehampton, 1300, and some good early glass of about 1330. Of Trehampton’s manor-house only the site remains, but the hall, which is full of antiquarian treasures, was the home of that well-known Lincolnshire worthy Sir Charles Anderson, Bart., the county antiquarian, 1804-1891. He was a charming personality. The following story, referring to him, was told me by that delightful teller of good stories, the Very Rev. Reynolds Hole, Dean of Rochester. At the time when a railway was being cut (between Lincoln and Gainsborough probably, for that passes through Lea), but at all events in a part of the county in which Sir Charles took a great interest, he was visiting the works, when an insinuating Irish navvy stopped and looked at him and then said, “So you’re Sir Charles Anderson, are ye? Sure now there’s scores of Andersons where I come from; there’s one now in Sligo, a saddler. Ach! he’s a good fellow is that; the rale gintleman. He gives without asking.” Then, after a pause, “You’ve a look of ’em.” The Andersons lived in Lincolnshire from the days of Richard II., first at Wrawby then at Flixborough, temp. Henry VII.
Gainsborough Church.
Knaith is noticeable as being the birthplace, in 1532, of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charterhouse in London, where he is buried. The church has what is not at all common in English churches, a baldacchino over the altar, but in fact it is not an ordinary church, being just a part of an old Cistercian nunnery, founded by Ralph Evermue, about 1180.
THE CHARTERHOUSE
Thomas Sutton was of Lincoln parents. He served in the army and was made inspector of the King’s Artillery. Having leased some land in the county of Durham, he proceeded to work the coal there, and became very wealthy, in fact the wealthiest commoner in the realm, and with at least £5,000 a year, so that he was able to give Lord Suffolk £13,000 for the house then called Howard House in Middlesex, which had been the original Charterhouse, founded in 1371 by Sir Walter Manney and dissolved in 1535. This was in May, 1611. He wished to do something to benefit the nation, but he left the details to the Crown. He died in December of the same year, but his charity was arranged to support eighty poor folk, and to teach forty boys, being, like Robert Johnson’s foundation at Uppingham, both a hospital and a school. The hospital remains in its old buildings in London, the school was moved in 1872 to Godalming, where it greatly flourishes.
A central road runs through the middle of the flat country, half-way between the Lincoln-and-Gainsborough road and the Ridge. This takes us from Corringham by a string of small villages to Stow, and thence by Sturton to Saxilby, and so back to Lincoln. Of those villages Springthorpe and Heapham both have the early unbuttressed towers, described in Chapters XXII. and XXIII., the former with herring-bone masonry, the latter, like Marton, is unfortunately covered with stucco. In the next village of Upton again we find herring-bone masonry; at Willingham-by-Stow, the base of the tower is early Norman; so that in spite of the ruthless way in which succeeding styles destroyed the work of their predecessors, we have a large group in this neighbourhood of churches whose early Norman or even Saxon work is still visible. At Sturton is a good brick church by Pearson, reminding one of that by Gilbert Scott at Fulney, just outside Spalding.
LINCOLNSHIRE ROADS
A few years ago, when the first motor made its way into Lincolnshire, the road from Gainsborough to Louth was one long stretch of small loose stones. It had never even dreamt of a steam roller, and there were always ruts for the wheels, and as Lincolnshire carriage wheels were set three or four inches wider apart so that they could accommodate themselves to the cart ruts, when we brought a carriage up from Oxfordshire it was found impossible to use it till the axles had been cut and lengthened so that it could run in the ruts. But this was a great improvement on the days my grandmother remembered, when it took four stout horses to draw a carriage at foot’s pace from Ingoldmells to Spilsby (and this was only 100 years ago), or when Sir Charles Anderson saw a small cart-load of corn stuck on the road and thatched down for the winter there, doubtless belonging to a small farmer who had but one horse, which could not draw the load home. Mention is made in this chapter of Scunthorpe. The iron workers there appear to be keen footballers, for I notice that there is now (December, 1913) one family there of eleven brothers between the ages of 18 and 43, ten of them experienced players, who challenge any single family anywhere to play two matches, one at the home of each team. I wonder if any family of eleven stalwart sons will be found to take them on.