Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

Leaving Scartho we quickly reach the outskirts of Grimsby, and, turning to the right on the Cleethorpes road, we come in a couple of miles to the church of Clee. This is the best of the group we have been visiting. It is one of the earliest churches in the county, and is highly interesting, not only for the venerable antiquity of its tower, but for the fine and varied early Norman and Transition architecture in the body of the church. As a rule there is nothing left of any antiquity in these pre-Norman churches but the tower.

CLEE

There is a narrow western doorway and a much taller one of similar character opening into the nave; each has Voussoirs set in double rows. Just above the belfry on the west face is a keyhole light made of top and side stones, and a circular light in the south face. Mr. Jeans, in Murray’s “Lincolnshire,” notes that they have all similar characteristics—“Rubble walling with large quoins, a bold string-course dividing them into stages, tall, narrow doorways with rude imposts and coupled belfry windows with a massive mid-wall shaft.” All this we find at Clee, and the red calcined stones in the wall tell of the Danish fire here as at Scartho. The early Norman arcade in the north of the nave has square piers with shafts at the corners, one of them twisted, like the work in Durham Cathedral. All are different in their structure and in the carving of their capitals. The south arcade has thick round columns of later Norman work with chevron, billet, and very thick cable moulding. The arches are round, and the stones of the moulding, as at Somerby, being cut by various hands and without plan or drawing, fit together, but are hardly any two of them of the same sized pattern. This is quite usual in Norman arch mouldings. I noticed it lately over the west doorway of the fine tower of New Romney, Kent. The arches at the east of each aisle which give upon the transepts are pointed, but with Norman mouldings, and the transept arches are the same; the transepts themselves and the low central tower and the chancel are all modern. The old tower is, as usual, at the west end. On the shaft of one of the south arcade pillars is a very interesting record of two notable Bishops of Lincoln. It is in Latin, cut on a small tablet of marble about six inches by eight, and let in flush with the pillar. It says that “the Church was dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity and the blessed Virgin by Hugh Bishop of Lincoln in the year 1192, in the time of King Richard and re-dedicated after restoration by Bishop Christopher Wordsworth in 1888.” 1192 was the same year in which Bishop Hugh began the choir at Lincoln, which is pure Early English, but doubtless the nave at Clee was built some years before it was dedicated. The font is a massive Norman one, and a portion of the shaft of an early cross stands just inside the door.

Clee Church.

PRE-NORMAN TOWER

ASHBY-CUM-FENBY

The pathway to the church is lined on either side with tall fuschias, not a usual sight near the east coast. This church is the old parish church of Cleethorpes, which is the most crowded of the Lincolnshire watering-places, the goal of endless excursions from all the neighbouring counties, but not a place of any attraction for residents. Six miles due east across the river Humber is the revolving light of the Spurn Head lighthouse, plainly seen from the hill above Alford, thirty miles away. Between the Louth and Grimsby main road and the sea another road runs south from Clee by Humberstone and Tetney, thence to Covenham and Alvingham and so to Louth. Humberstone is a parish which goes with Holton-le-Clay, though they are about three miles apart. It is remarkable for its fine avenues of trees, and has a good Perpendicular tower. But in this respect it is surpassed by the extremely well-built and well-designed tower at the next village of Tetney. This, unlike the body of the church, is entirely of good, hard, grey Yorkshire stone. Some “Blow Wells,” which are circular pits of very blue water 100 feet deep, are in a field half a mile to the south-east of the church. There are others at Laceby and Little Cotes, both in the valley of the Freshney river, six miles off. The water comes through faults in the limestone ridge four or five miles to the west. A stream also flows through Tetney, which comes out of the Croxby pond near Hatcliffe, the only piece of water in the neighbourhood. The roads we have been writing of are all entirely in the flat ground, but from the Louth and Grimsby main road a branch goes off to the left, after crossing a fourteenth century bridge with ribbed arches, at Utterby, which runs north along the western edge of the Wold past Brocklesby to Barrow on Humber. This, when it is opposite to Waith, has on its left a place called Ravendale, and, on its right, a little hidden away village, called Ashby-cum-Fenby. At Ravendale there was once a priory belonging to a Premonstratensian abbey in Brittany. It was seized by the Crown with other alien priories in 1337 to form part of the dowry of Joan of Navarre, Queen of Henry IV. Ashby-cum-Fenby has very pretty Early-English two-light windows in the belfry, set round with dog-tooth moulding. A Crusader effigy of 1300 is at the west end of the tower, and two fine monuments to two sisters of the Drury family are in good preservation; one to Sir F. and Lady Wray closely resembles the Irby monument at Whaplode, and, as the families are related, probably the work is by the same sculptor. That of Susannah Drury in the chancel is a good piece of sculpture, but the whole has literally been whitewashed, which does not improve it. The churchyard is for the most part deplorably neglected, and a few sheep would greatly improve it. A row of almshouses with tiny gardens, made like the Workmen’s row at Tattershall, adjoins the west side of the churchyard.

The road after this passes nothing of importance near it, till it reaches Brocklesby.

Close to the bell ropes in the tower at Tetney is a neat little brass which aptly commemorates a fine old parishioner as follows:—