Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

In full purpose if Goddes will be

To ly doune by your side.

Going on two miles along the Roman road to Horncastle we come to Hameringham. Here, as at Lusby, there is no tower, but a little slated bell-turret. Two large arches and one beautiful little pointed arch at the west end on small octagonal pillars divide the nave from the aisle. The western pillar is of the local green-sand, and dates from the thirteenth century. The other pillar is of whitish stone, and the small eastern respond is of the same. These date from the fourteenth century, and have boldly foliaged capitals. Close together on the abacus are two distinct marks of bullets which must have come in through the aisle window. There is a good fifteenth century font, and on the Jacobean pulpit is the original hour-glass stand, and with an old church hour-glass in it. These stands are still to be seen at Bracebridge, Leasingham, Sapperton and Belton in the Isle of Axholme. The traces of a blocked priest’s door are visible on the north side. Oddly enough the dressings of the porch, etc., are of red sandstone from Dumfries. It is a good hard stone, but there is much to be said for always, if possible, using the stone of the country.

WINCEBY FIGHT

HORNCASTLE

The next village is Winceby, where “Slash Lane” commemorates the place of Cromwell’s cavalry-battle in 1643. In the south chapel of Horncastle church, some four miles on, we shall see a goodly array of scythes on long straight handles, which are said to have been used with deadly effect in this fight. This church has five three-light clerestory windows on each side of the nave, but in the chancel, six on the south and only five on the north side, the eastmost one being larger than the rest. There is an outside belfry staircase with a cone to it built against the middle of the south wall of the tower. Inside, the pilasters of the tower arch die away into the arch moulding without capitals. The brass in the north wall, to Lionel Dymoke, is remarkable (date 1519); and in the north chapel a tomb to Sir Ingram Hopton “who paid his debt to Nature and duty to his King and Country in the attempt of seizing the arch rebel in the bloody skirmish near Winceby, October 6, 1643.” This should be October 11. The arch rebel was Cromwell, who was unhorsed and nearly taken prisoner by Sir Ingram. He afterwards slept at Horncastle in a house in West Street. This battle secured Lindsey and the Wolds for Cromwell, Boston and the Fens were never Royalist. The River Bain, which rises in Kelston near the Louth and Rasen road, gave its name to the Roman station of Banovallum. It flows through Gayton-le-Wold, Biscathorpe, Donington-on-Bain and Goulceby to Horncastle, and out by Coningsby and Tattershall to the River Witham, and it makes a peninsula at Horncastle, whence the name of Hyrn-ceaster, = the camp at the horn or bend. Portions of a Roman wall still exist near the market-place, and at the south-west corner of the churchyard. The manor was sold in 1230 to the Bishop of Carlisle for the use of the see; it served as a refuge when border invasions made the diocese of Carlisle undesirable as a peaceful home, and during the fourteenth century was the usual episcopal residence.

The celebrated horse fair is not what it used to be. Lincoln fair is more accessible, and is now the more important of the two. But it still affords two or three days of wild excitement, with horses tearing about the streets. At one time the fair lasted three weeks. August was a thirsty month, and the number of beer-houses had to be increased pro. tem. to meet the need of both buyers and sellers; so five-shilling licenses were issued called bush or bough licenses, a bush being hung out for a sign, a custom once common in England and still prevalent on the Continent. Hence, the proverb, “Good wine needs no bush,” i.e., no advertisement. The Hon. Edward Stanhope of Revesby, who was Minister for War in 1868, has a statue in the market-place, near the house in which the Sellwoods lived, two of whom, Louisa and Emily, married Charles and Alfred Tennyson.

Leaving the market-place for the Lincoln road you pass what is an unusual feature in a town—an elm tree overhanging the street, and having in it several rooks’ nests. It is near the “Fighting Cocks” inn. There is a similar tree loaded with nests in the town of Staines.

When the river was used for navigation there was a high arched bridge with a towing-path under it, and the bridge, though now flat, is still called “the bow bridge.”

At that time the church was filled with box pews and lofts, and the front row of pews in the lofts were sold to different families by auction and would fetch as much as £80, the second row reaching £40. But though there were ardent churchgoers in the town, the villages around were very indifferently served, having in quite a dozen instances in that one neighbourhood no parsonage house and consequently no resident parson.