But anyone who likes to worry it out can postulate that the length of a metre is 39·37079 inches. This was originally adopted as a “Natural unit,” being one ten-millionth of the distance between a pole and the Equator. But, as an error has been found in the measurement of this distance, it is no longer a “Natural unit,” but just the length of a certain rod of platinum kept at Paris, as the yard is the length of a rod kept at Westminster.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE FEN CHURCHES—NORTHERN DIVISION
Friskney—Frescoes in the Church—Its Decoys—Wrangle—John Reed’s Epitaph—Leake—Leverton—Benington—Frieston—The Font-Cover—Frieston Shore—Rare Flowers—Fishtoft—Skirbeck—Boston—The Church.
The two centres for “The parts of Holland” are Spalding and Boston. From the latter we go both north and south, from Spalding only eastwards, and in each case we shall pass few residential places of importance, but many exceptionally fine churches.
We will take the district north of Boston first.
Friskney, which is but three and a half miles south of Wainfleet, where we ended our south Lindsey excursion, is really in Lindsey. It stands between the Marsh and the Fen. The road from Wainfleet to Boston bounds the inhabited area of the parish on the east, and another from Burgh, which runs for ten miles without passing a single village till it reaches Wrangle, does the same on the west. Outside of these roads on the west is the great “East Fen,” reclaimed little more than 100 years ago, and on the east is the “Old Marsh,” along which went the Roman Bank, and east of which again is the “New Marsh,” and beyond it the huge stretch of the “Friskney flats,” over which the sea ebbs and flows for a distance of from three to four miles; the haunt of innumerable sea birds, plovers (locally pyewipes), curlew, redshanks, knots, dunlins, stints, etc., as well as duck and geese of many kinds and even, at times, the lordly swan.
FRISKNEY
Thus surrounded, Friskney stands solitary about half way between Wainfleet and Wrangle, and if only the northern boundary of Holland had been made the “Black Dyke” and “Gout” as would have been most natural, Friskney would have been the north-eastern point of Holland, instead of being the south-eastern point of Lindsey. Since their discovery by the late rector, the Rev. H. J. Cheales, the most noticeable thing in the fine Perpendicular church is the series of wall paintings above the arcades of the nave, date 1320, most of them are faint and hard to make out, but there are drawings of them, and an account was published in 1884 and 1905 in the “Archæologia,” vols. 48 and 50. The subjects are the Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection, and Ascension, and the Assumption of the Virgin, on the north arcade; on the south are the Offering of Melchizedek, the Gathering of the Manna, the Last Supper, one possibly of Pope Gregory, one of King Æthelred entering Bardney Abbey, and a most curious one of Jews stabbing the Host. There are two Norman arches in the aisle wall, and a beautiful tower arch with steps from the nave down into the tower, the lower part of which is transition Norman, the next stage Early English, and the next Perpendicular; there are six bells in it. The nave is very high, the clerestory, on which the paintings are, having been added early in the fourteenth century. The old roof has been preserved, and the chancel screen and two chantry screens, which are unusually high to match the nave. The rood stairs, as at Wrangle and Leake, are on the south side. The pulpit is dated 1659. The north chantry is entered by a half arch, and there is a squint and a curious low-side window placed oddly on the north side of the chancel arch. Some unusually fine sedilia with diaper work at the back, and a trefoiled aumbry and piscina are in the chancel, which has been nearly ruined by bad restoration with a new roof in 1849. It has large handsome windows and finely canopied niches on each buttress, with ornamentation carved in Ancaster stone. This chancel was the gift of John Mitchell of Friskney in 1566.
An effigy of a knight of the Freshney family (a local pronunciation of Friskney), of whom we have seen so many monuments in the Marsh churches at Somercoats, Saltfleetby and Skidbrooke, is at the west end, and a restored churchyard cross stands near the south door.