CHAPTER XIX
THE NORTH-EAST OF THE COUNTY
Thornton Curtis—Barrow—The Hull-to-Holland Ferry—Goxhill—Thornton Abbey—Immingham—The New Docks—Stallingborough—The Ayscough Tombs—Great Cotes—Grimsby—The Docks—The Church, Cleethorpes—Legend of Havelock the Dane.
We will now return to the north-east of the county.
From Brocklesby a good road runs north by Ulceby, with its ridiculously thin, tall spire, and Wootton, to Thornton Curtis and Barrow-on-Humber.
THORNTON CURTIS
Thornton Curtis is a place to be visited, because it possesses one of the seven black marble Tournai fonts like those at Lincoln and Winchester. This stands in a wide open space at the west end of the church, mounted on a square three-stepped pedestal. The four corner shafts, like those at Ipswich, are of lighter colour than the central pillar and the top. The latter has suffered several fractures owing to its having been more than once moved, and the base is much worn as if it had been exposed to the weather. The sides are sculptured with griffins and monsters, and on the top at each corner is a bird. Of the church the groined porch has been renewed, but the doorway is old and good, and part of the ancient oak door remains with the original fine hinges, and a design in iron round the head of the door. On the floor near the south-west corner of the church is a sepulchral stone slab with a half effigy of a lady in deep relief showing at the head end. There is a fine wide Early English tower arch, and the handsome arches of the nave are borne on clustered pillars, which are all alike on the north side, but of different patterns on the south side, and with excellent boldly cut foliage capitals, the western capital and respond being especially fine. The north aisle is very wide, and the church unusually roomy. The pine roof and the oak seats were all new about thirty years ago. The light and graceful rood screen is also new, and has deep buttress-like returns on the western side, as at Grimoldby. The chancel has late twelfth century lancets, one with a Norman arch, the others pointed, showing the transition period; once the church was all Norman, but it was extended westwards early in the thirteenth century. There are two charming piscinas of the same period, with Norman pilasters and round-headed arches, but the western one has had a later pointed arch, apparently put on in more recent times.
In the north aisle wall there are three arched niches for tombs, and on the north side of the chancel outside is a wide Norman arch with a flat buttress curiously carried up from above the centre of the archway, as in the Jews’ House at Lincoln. Near the south porch is a mural tablet carved in oak, with old English lettering, which reads thus:—
In the yer yat all the stalles
In thys chyrch was mayd
Thomas Kyrkbe Jho Shreb
byn Hew Roston Jho Smyth
Kyrk Masters in the yer of
Our Lorde God MCCCCCXXXII.
In the churchyard is half of the shaft of a cross, octagonal, with rosettes carved at intervals on the four smaller sides. Like the font, it is mounted on a broad, square three-stepped pedestal.