Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

Hubbards Mill, Louth.

LOUTH PARK ABBEY

Louth Park Abbey, about a mile and a half to the east of the town, was built on a site belonging to the Bishops of Lincoln, and was given to the Cistercian colony from Fountains Abbey, who found Haverholme too damp for comfort, by Bishop Alexander in 1139. The Cistercians built themselves a large church, 256 feet long and sixty-one feet in width, with transepts which more than doubled this; parts of these and the chancel, also a portion of the west front and one nave pillar, are all that is left of it, but the ground plan has been excavated, which shows that there were no fewer than ten bays to the nave, and massive circular piers. There was a cloister on the south, surrounded by monastic buildings, and east of these a chapter-house with groined roof springing from six pillars. A very large gateway stood at the south-west, and outside was a double moat to which the water from St. Helen’s Spring was conducted by what is still known as “the Monk’s Dyke.” It flourished greatly at the beginning of the fourteenth century, having then sixty-six monks and 150 lay brethren. The Louth Park Abbey Chronicle, though very valuable, is not exactly contemporaneous with the things it mentions, for it was all written by a scribe in the fifteenth century. It covers the years from 1066 to the death of Henry IV. in 1413.

Near the abbey, but on the other side of the canal, is Keddington, where the arch of the organ chamber is made of carved stones, no doubt brought from the abbey. The church, which is built of chalk and greensand, is older than any in the immediate neighbourhood, and has a Norman south door. It has a remarkable lancet window on the south side, in the upper part of which is a carved dragon, and has also what is very rare, a wooden mediæval eagle lectern.

ROADS FROM LOUTH

Half-a-dozen main roads radiate from Louth, one might call it eight, for two of the half-dozen divide, one within a mile, and one at a distance of two miles from the town. They go, one north to Grimsby, twenty miles of level road along the marsh, and one west to Market Rasen, by the Ludfords and North Willingham, fifteen and a half miles. One mile out, this road divides and goes west and then south to Wragby by South Willingham, sixteen and a half miles. Both of these roads, as well as that which runs south-west to Horncastle, fourteen and a half miles, cross the Wolds and are distinctly hilly, rising and falling nearly four hundred feet. The fifth road, which goes due south to Spilsby, sixteen miles, though seldom as much as 250 feet higher than Louth, which stands about seventy-five feet above sea level, affords fine views, and is a very pleasant road to travel. But all these highways must be dealt with in detail later. The sixth road from Louth runs south-east to Alford, and keeps on the level of the marsh, and the seventh and eighth roads run eastwards across the marsh to the sea, one branching off the Alford road at Kenwick and avoiding all villages, comes to the coast at Saltfleet; the other, starting out from Louth by Keddington and Alvingham, loses itself in many small and endlessly twisting roads which connect the various villages and reaches the sea eventually at Donna Nook and Saltfleet, places five miles apart, with no passage to the sea between them—nothing but mud flats, samphire beds and sea birds. There is a charm about “the waste enormous marsh,” and also about the high and windy Wolds, which never palls, but before we journey along either of the highways from Louth I should like to introduce one of those byways which form the chief delight of people who love the country.

SOME BYWAYS

We will leave Louth, then, by the Spilsby road, and when we reach the second milestone, 147 miles from London, turn and look at the beautiful spire of Louth Church rising from a group of elms in the middle distance of a wide panorama. From our height of 300 feet we look across the whole marsh to the sea, ten miles to the east, and far on beyond Louth we look northwards towards Grimsby and the Humber, the perpetually shifting lights and shades caused by the great cumulus clouds in these fine level views, the many farmsteads and occasional church towers—

“The crowded farms and lessening towers”