Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

For the present church inside the Roman camp goes back to probably pre-Norman times. The tower has a Norman doorway, and has also a very early round arch, absolutely plain, leading from the tower to the nave, and it shows in its successive stages Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular work. The lower part of the tower has angle buttresses and two string-courses, and, except the battlements, which are of hard whitish stone, the whole building is, like all the churches in the north-east of the county, made of a rich yellow sandy ironstone with fossils in it. This gives a beautiful tone of colour and also, from its friable nature, an appearance of immense antiquity. The north porch has good ball-flower decoration, but is not so good as the Early English south door with its tooth ornaments; here the old door with its original hinges is still in use. The octagonal pillars stand on a wide square base two feet high with a top, a foot wide, forming a stone seat round the pillar, as at Claypole and Bottesford. The nave arcade of four bays is Early English with nail-head ornament. Since Butterfield removed the flat ceiling and put a red roof with green tie-beams and covered the chancel arch and walls with the painted patterns which he loved, the seats, like the porch doors at Grimsby, have all been green! This, to my mind, always gives a garden woodwork atmosphere. In the north aisle is a side altar, and near it are the interesting tombs of the Hundon family, while in the south aisle, behind the organ, is a fine marble monument with a kneeling figure in armour of Sir Edward Maddison, of Unthank Hall, Durham, and of Fonaby, who died in his 100th year, A.D. 1553. His second wife was Ann Roper, sister-in-law to Margaret Roper, who was the daughter of Sir Thomas More, and who—

“clasped in her last trance

Her murdered father’s head.”

THE HUNDON TOMBS

The Hundon tombs have recumbent stone effigies under recessed arches in the North wall, one being of Sir W. de Hundon cross-legged, with shield, and clad in chain-mail from head to foot. He fought in the last crusade, 1270. Another, in a recess massively cusped, is of Sir John de Hundon, High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1343, and Lady Hundon his wife, in a wimple and the dress of the period. Sir John is in plate armour, with chain hauberk, and girt with both sword and dagger, and both wear ruffs. She has a cushion at her head, and a lion at her feet. He lies on a plaited straw mattress rolled at each end, and wears a very rich sword-belt and huge spurs, but no helmet.

PRE-NORMAN TOWERS

The singular cluster of very early church towers near Caistor are similar to those near Gainsborough, and to another group just south of Grimsby (see Chapter [XXIII.]). South of Caistor is Rothwell, which we hoped to reach in a couple of miles from Cabourn, but could only find a bridle road, unless we were prepared to go two miles east to Swallow, or two miles west to Caistor, and then make a further round of three miles from either place. The church, which keeps the register of marriages taken in Cromwell’s time before Theophilus Harneis, Esq., J.P., after publication of banns “on three succeeding Lord’s Days, at the close of the morning exercise, and no opposition alleged to the contrary,” has two very massive Norman arches, the western bays with cable moulding. The tower is of the unbuttressed kind, and exhibits some more unmistakable “Long-and-Short” work than is at all common in the Saxon-built towers of Lincolnshire churches, built, that is to say, if not by Saxon hands, at least in the Saxon style, and in the earliest Norman days. The village is in a depression between two spurs of the Wold, and a road from it, which is the eastern one of three, all running south along the Wold, leads to Binbrook. The middle road is the “High Dyke,” the Roman road from Caistor to Horncastle, and has no villages on it. The western one goes by Normanby le Wold, Walesby, and Tealby, and joins the Louth-and-Rasen road at North-Willingham. From this road you get a fine view over the flats in the centre of the county, as indeed you do if you go by the main road from Caistor to Rasen. This takes you through Nettleton, where there is another of these early towers, but not so remarkably old-looking a specimen as some. A buttress against the south wall of the tower is noticeable, being carefully devised by the mediæval builders so as not to block the little window. Usselby, three miles north of Rasen, lies hidden behind “The Hall,” and is the tiniest church in the county. It has a nave and chancel of stone, and a bell-turret, and hideous brick-headed windows. At Claxby, close by, some fine fossils have been found. The eastern main road to Grimsby has most to show us, for on it we pass Cabourn and Swallow, both of which have towers like Rothwell, as also has Cuxwold, which is half-way between Swallow and Rothwell. All these unbuttressed towers are built of the same yellow sandy stone, and generally have the same two-light belfry window with a midwall jamb. Cabourn was the only church we found locked, and we could not see why, and as the absence of the rector’s key keeps people from seeing the inside, so the presence of his garden fence, which runs right up to the tower on both sides, keeps them from seeing the west end outside—a horrid arrangement, not unlike that at Rowston. The tower has a pointed tiled roof, like a pigeon cote, a very small blocked low-side window is at the south-west end of the chancel, and the bowl of a Norman font with cable moulding, found under the floor of the church, has been placed on the top of the old plain cylinder which did duty as a font till lately. The view from Cabourn hill, which drops down to Caistor, is a magnificent one. To the north the lofty Pelham Pillar, a tribute to a family distinguished as early as the reign of Edward III., stands up out of the oak woods, a landmark for many a mile.

Swallow has no jamb to its belfry window. But it has a very good Norman door, and round-headed windows. The south aisle arches have been built up. During the recent restoration two piscinas, Norman and Early English, were found, the former with a deep square bowl set on a pillar. The next church has the singular name of Irby-on-Humber, though the Humber is eight miles distant. Here we find Norman arcades of two arches with massive central pillars, thicker on the north side than the south, and Early English tower and chancel arches. An incised slab on the floor has figures of John and Elianora Malet, of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries. In the south aisle there is a blocked doorway to the rood loft, and a piscina. The east window is of three lancets. All the woodwork in the church is new and everything in beautiful order. Laceby Church, two miles further on, has a Transition tower, and an Early English arcade with one Norman arch in the middle. There are some blow-wells in the parish, as at Tetney. John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the end of Elizabeth’s reign, was formerly rector here.

LINCOLN LONGWOOLS

A mile to the left as we go from Irby to Laceby, lies the fine and well-wooded park of Riby Grove, the seat of Captain Pretyman, M.P. The Royalists won a battle here in 1645, in which Colonel Harrison, the Parliamentary leader, was slain. He was buried at Stallingborough. Riby of late years has been famous for the flocks and herds of the late Mr. Henry Dudding, which at their dispersal in July, 1913, realised in a two days’ sale 16,644 guineas. Over 1,800 Lincolnshire long-wool sheep were sold, the highest price being 600 guineas for the champion ram at the Bristol and Nottingham shows, who has gone to South America, in company with another stud ram who made eighty guineas, and several more of the best animals. But though the ram lambs made double figures, as the best had been secured before the sale the prices on the whole were not high, the sheep on the first day averaging just over £4 9s. Among the shorthorns 160 guineas was the highest price; this was given for a heifer whose destination was Germany. It is owing to men like Mr. Dudding that Lincolnshire farming and Lincolnshire flock and stock breeding has so great a name.