The inscription on the former is “Richard Barowe sumtyme marchant of the stapyll of Calys, and Batarick his wyfe, the which Richard decissyd the XX day of Apryle the yere of owre Lord A.MCCCCC and fyve, on whose soullys Ihu̅ have mercy Amen for charitie.”
The Barrows were an old and notable family, one of them was Master of the Rolls and Keeper of the Great Seal, 1485. They were long settled at Winthorpe, and in 1670 Isaac Barrow was Bishop of St. Asaph, and his nephew was well known to history as the Master of Trinity, 1672-1677, and a celebrated divine.
WINTHORPE
One of Robert Palmer’s descendants, Elizabeth of Winthorpe, married George Sharpe, who was Archbishop of York in 1676, so Winthorpe furnished a bishop and an archbishop’s wife in the same decade.
William Palmer was apparently part donor of the south porch of Winthorpe, which is very like those at Addlethorpe and Hogsthorpe, having a gabled and crocketed parapet carved with graceful flowing foliage; and on the two stones, lettered in Early English as at Hogsthorpe, are the lines:—
Robert Lungnay and Wyll’ P
alm’: thay payd for thys
God in hys mercy
bryng them to his blys.