The next village is one which gives his title to Lord Yarborough. The church, like so many in this neighbourhood, Grimoldby and South Cockerington being honourable exceptions, is locked, but the chief point of interest is to be seen outside. This is a beautiful example of a richly carved doorway. The mouldings of the square head are good and set with little ornaments, and very bold and original carvings run round the arch of the doorway. The space between the arch and the outer square head mould is filled with shallow carved work representing on the left, the fall, with Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and much good foliage carving; and on the right the Lamb and the emblems of the Passion. An old English inscription runs round the arch of the doorway, but is only in part decipherable; the stone is a white hardish sandstone, and the surface a good deal worn, but the whole design is most elegant and unusual.

A mile more brings us to the two churches of Covenham, within a quarter of a mile of each other, and both locked. Covenham St. Mary seems to be built of a hard chalk. There are mason-marks high up on each pilaster of the porch. The other church, of St. Bartholomew, was once a cruciform building. It is made of the same white material, but the tower is now covered with Welsh slate, and one transept is gone. The fonts in both churches are good. That in St. Mary’s is, for beauty of design and boldness of execution, the best in the neighbourhood, but they do not compare for beauty and size with those in the Fen churches, which are lofty and set on wide octagonal basements of three or four steps. Here, the brass to Sir John Skipwyth, who died at, or in the year of, Agincourt, 1415, is in exceptionally good condition. He is armed and has both the long dagger and sword, the latter suspended from his left arm by a strap. The tail of the lion on which he stands is erect between the leg of the knight and his sword.

The rest of the route by Fulston, Tetney and Humberston to Grimsby is not of any interest until we come to Clee, which, with its interesting Saxon church tower, we have already described.

A ROMAN ‘HOG’S BACK’

In the Wold country the main roads usually run along the ridges of the Wolds and afford views on either side. One of the best of these, “Hog’s Back” views is obtained from one of the byways which starts from the Spilsby and Alford road at the top of Milescross hill, and runs south till it reaches Gunby. It skirts the wooded belt of the Well Vale estate, and drops into the village of Ulceby which, like most of the tiny Wold villages, lies on the bank of a small stream in a wooded hollow, where the church and farm and a few cottages form a pleasing picture of rural retirement.

Mounting again, the road turns to the left and goes straight ahead on what is evidently a portion of a Roman “street,” giving on the left a view of the “Marsh” towards Mablethorpe, with its grey shimmering line which denotes “the bounding main,” and on the right a still more distant prospect over the flat “fen” lands in the direction of Boston, whose columnar tower rises far up into the sky. The blue haze of the marsh, the purple distance over the fens, with, in the autumn, the long, drifting lines of grey smoke from the burning “quitch,” or “twitch” as they usually call it here, make a delightful impression; and then if we turn fenwards we drop into the leafy hollow of Skendleby village, where once the Conqueror’s friend, Gilbert de Gaunt, resided, and to which William of Waynfleet, the famous Bishop of Winchester, was presented as vicar by the convent of Bardney in 1430. It is a pretty village with its church and manor-house, and thatched, white-washed cottages bright with flowers, and its well-stocked farm. A tall windmill crowns the next height; this is Grebby Mill, and it is interesting to find that there has been a windmill there for 600 years.

For Grebby is old enough to be mentioned in Domesday Book, and in 1317 we have mention of a windmill there belonging to Robert de Willoughby and Margaret his wife.

THE FLOODED FEN

From the windmill one looks down to the old brick tower of Scremby church, which is the last building on the edge of the slope from which the endless levels of the fen begin and run south till they reach Crowland and Peterborough. From whence the great cathedral, with its splendid west front, looked out in the disastrous August of 1912 over miles and miles of corn-land where the tall sheaves stood up out of a vast expanse of water, the result of the abnormal rains and the burst dyke which made Whittlesea Mere once more resume its ancient appearance.

Below Scremby the road runs to the left to Candlesby, and so rejoins that starting-place of so many byways—Gunby.