Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

GREAT COTES

In the churchyard, after passing under a yew-tree arch, you see a magnificent walnut on a small green mound. There is no porch. You enter by a small, deeply moulded doorway at the north-west end of the north aisle. The pillars of the arcades are clusters of four rather thick shafts, some with unusually large round capitals, but others various in shape, and all of a bluish grey stone. There are four bays, three big and one a small one next the tower at the west end. There is a flat ceiling, both in nave and chancel, which cuts off the top of the Early English tower arch; hence the nave and aisles are covered, as at Swaton, near Helpringham, by one low, broad slate roof, reminding one of that at Grasmere. The chancel arch, if it can be called an arch at all, is the meanest I ever saw, and only equalled by the miserable, and apparently wooden, tracery of the east window. The chancel, which is nearly as long as the nave, is built of rough stones and has Decorated windows. On the floor is a curious brass of local workmanship probably, to Isabella, wife of Roger Barnadiston, c. 1420, and the artist seems to have handed on his craft, for the attraction of the church is a singular seventeenth century brass before the altar, to Sir Thomas Barnadiston, Kt. of Mikkylcotes, and his wife Dame Elizabeth, and their eight sons and seven daughters. The children kneel behind their kneeling parents, who are, however, on a larger scale, and have scrolls proceeding from their mouths. Above them is a picture of the Saviour, with nimbus, rising from a rectangular tomb of disproportionately small dimensions, while Roman soldiers are sleeping around. A defaced inscription runs all round the edge of the brass, and in the centre is the inscription in old lettering: “In the worschypp of the Resurrectio of o̅r Lord and the blessed sepulcur pray for the souls of Sir Thos Barnadiston Kt. and Dame Elizabeth his wife

and of yʳ charite say a pʳ noster ave and cred

and ye schall have a C days of p~don to yoʳ med”

GRIMSBY

Another six miles brings us to the outskirts of Grimsby, the birthplace, in 1530, of John Whitgift, Queen Elizabeth’s Archbishop of Canterbury. This is not at all an imposing or handsome town, but the length of the timber docks, and the size and varied life in the great fish docks, the pontoons which project into the river and are crowded with fishing boats, discharging tons of fish and taking in quantities of ice, are a wonderful sight. 165,510 tons of fish were dealt with in 1902—it is probably 170,000 now; and 300 tons of ice a day is made close by. The old church is a fine cruciform building, with a pair of ugly turrets at the end of nave, chancel, and transepts. Inside it is fine and spacious, and in effect cathedral-like. The transepts have doorways and two rows of three-light windows with tooth moulding round the upper lights and the gables. A corbel table with carved heads runs all round the church.

The south transept Early-English porch had eight shafts on either side, in most cases only the capitals now remain. The south aisle porch is good, but less rich. The tower arches are supported on octagonal pillars, which run into and form part of the transept walls. They are decorated by mouldings running up the whole length. The nave has six bays, and tall, slender clustered columns and plain capitals, with deeply moulded arches. Dreadful to relate, the columns and capitals are all painted grey.

There is a unique arrangement of combined triforium and clerestory, the small clerestory windows being inserted in the triforium into the taller central arches of the groups of three, which all have slender clustered shafts. This triforium goes round both nave, chancel and transepts, a very well carved modern oak pulpit rests on a marble base with surrounding shafts. The lectern is an eagle of the more artistic form, with one leg advanced and head turned sideways and looking upwards. I wonder that this is not more common, for I see it is figured in the A. and N. Stores catalogue. The sedilia rises in steps, as at Temple Bruer. A raised tomb carries the effigy of Sir Thomas Haslerton, brought from St. Leonard’s nunnery; he is in chain armour with helmet. A chapel in the north aisle has a squint looking to the high altar. This chapel is entered by a beautiful double arch from the transept, with Early capital to the mid pillar. The proportions of the whole church are pleasing, and its size is very striking. The tower has an arcaded parapet, and on each side two windows set in a recess under a big arch, between them a buttress runs up from the apex of a broad and deep gable-coping, which goes down each side of the tower, forming the hood-mould into which the gables of the nave transepts and chancel fit. All the doors, curiously enough, are painted green outside. There is in the churchyard a pillar with clustered shafts and carved capital, the base of which rests on a panelled block, which looks like an old font. Many bits from the old church, which was restored throughout in 1885, are ranged on the low wall of the churchyard walk, some of which look worthy of a better place.

The line from the docks runs along by the shore to Cleethorpes, where the Humber begins to merge into the sea. The wide, firm sands and the rippling shallow wavelets of the brown seawater are the delight of thousands of children; the air is fresh, food and drink are plentiful, and all things conspire to make a trippers’ paradise, while the Dolphin Hotel, which, like the others, looks out on the sea, is no bad place for a short sojourn in the off season.