Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

The Corby-Colsterworth-and-Grantham Road leaves Bourne on the west and, passing through Bourne Wood at about four miles’ distance, reaches Edenham. On the west front of the church tower, at a height of forty feet, is the brass of an archbishop. Inside the church are two stones, one being the figure of a lady and the other being part of an ancient cross, both carved with very early interlaced work. The chancel is a museum of monuments of the Bertie family, the Dukes of Ancaster, continued from the earliest series at Spilsby of the Willoughby D’Eresbys, and beginning with Robert Bertie,[2] eleventh Lord Willoughby and first Earl of Lindsey, who fell at Edgehill while leading the Lincolnshire regiment, 1642. The present Earls of Lindsey and Uffington are descended from Lord Albemarle Bertie, fifth son of Robert, third Earl of Lindsey, who has a huge monument here, dated 1738, adorned with no less than seven marble busts.

Two fine altar tombs of the fourteenth century, with effigies of knight and lady, seem to be treated somewhat negligently, being thrust away together at the entrance. The nave pillars are very lofty, but the whole church has a bare and disappointing appearance from the plainness of the architecture, and the ugly coat of yellow wash, both on walls and pillars, and the badness of the stained glass.

On the north wall of the chancel and reaching to the roof there is a very lofty monument, with life-size effigy to the first Duke of Ancaster, 1723. East of this, one to the second duke with a marble cupid holding a big medallion of his duchess, Jane Brownlow, 1741, and on the south wall are equally huge memorials. In the family pew we hailed with relief a very good alabaster tablet with white marble medallion of the late Lady Willoughby “Clementina Elizabeth wife of the first Baron Aveland, Baroness Willoughby d’Eresby in her own right, joint hereditary Lord Chamberlain of England,” 1888.

The font is transition Norman, the cylindrical bowl surrounded by eight columns not detached, and a circle of arcading consisting of two Norman arches between each column springing from the capitals of the pillars.

The magnificent set of gold Communion plate was presented by the Willoughby family. It is of French, Spanish, and Italian workmanship. Humby church has also a fine gold service, presented by Lady Brownlow in 1682. It gives one pleasure to find good cedar trees and yews growing in the churchyard.

GRIMSTHORPE

Grimsthorpe Castle is a mile beyond Edenham. The park, the finest in the county, in which are herds of both fallow and red deer, is very large, and full of old oaks and hawthorns; the latter in winter are quite green with the amount of mistletoe which grows on them. The lake covers one hundred acres. The house is a vast building and contains a magnificent hall 110 feet long, with a double staircase at either end, and rising to the full height of the roof. In the state dining-room is the Gobelin tapestry which came to the Duke of Suffolk by his marriage with Mary, the widow of Louis XII. of France. Here, too, are several Coronation chairs, the perquisites of the Hereditary Grand Chamberlain. The Willoughby d’Eresby family have discharged this office ever since 1630 in virtue of descent from Alberic De Vere, Earl of Oxford, Grand Chamberlain to Henry I., but in 1779, on the death of the fourth Duke of Ancaster, the office was adjudged to be the right of both his sisters, from which time the Willoughby family have held it conjointly with the Earl of Carrington and the Marquis of Cholmondeley. Among the pictures are several Holbeins. The manor of Grimsthorpe was granted to William, the ninth Lord Willoughby, by Henry VIII. on his marriage with Mary de Salinas, a Spanish lady in attendance on Katharine of Aragon, and it was their daughter Katherine who became Duchess of Suffolk and afterwards married Richard Bertie.

Just outside Grimsthorpe Park is the village of Swinstead, in whose church is a large monument to the last Duke of Ancaster, 1809, and an effigy of one of the numerous thirteenth century crusaders. Somehow one never looks on the four crusades of that century as at all up to the mark in interest and importance of the first and third under Godfrey de Bouillon and Cœur de Lion in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; as for the second (St. Bernard’s) that was nothing but a wretched muddle all through.

Two miles further on is Corby, where the market cross remains, but not the market. The station on the Great Northern main line is about five miles east of Woolsthorpe, Sir Isaac Newton’s birthplace and early home.

I think the most remarkable of the Bourne roads is the Roman “Kings Street,” which starts for the north and, after passing on the right the fine cruciform church of Morton and then the graceful spire of Hacconby, a name of unmistakable Danish origin, sends first an offshoot to the right to pass through the fens to Heckington, and three or four miles further on another to the left to run on the higher ground to Folkingham, whilst it keeps on its own rigidly straight course to the Roman station on the ford of the river Slea, passing through no villages all the way, and only one other Roman station which guarded a smaller ford at Threckingham.