Comys far behynde.
Do thou for thy selfe while ye have space.
To pray Jesu of mercy and grace,
In heaven to have a place.
Sir John Reade, the great-grandson of John and Margaret, who died in 1626, is described as “eques aureus vereque Xianus eirenarcha prudens,” etc., the last substantive meaning Justice of the Peace.
There is an old Bede-house founded 1555, which we shall pass now on our way to Leake, and we may perhaps trace the old sea-bank just behind it. There was once one also at Benington, a few miles further on, called “Benington Bede.” But before leaving so much that is old we may delight our eyes, if we are lucky enough to find Mr. Barker (the vicar) or his wife in the church, with a sight of some most exquisite modern church embroidery in the form of an altar cloth, lately made by the ladies of the rectory.
Leake Church.
LEAKE
Leake, little more than a mile from Wrangle, has a most massive Perpendicular tower which was fifty-seven years building and never completed; here, too, there was a seaway to the coast. The south aisle of the church and the nave have been restored, but the north aisle is still in a ruinous condition, and reflects little credit on the patrons who are, or were, the governors of Oakham and Uppingham schools. There is a magnificent clerestory of six windows with carved and canopied niches between each window, giving a very rich effect; and, as at Wrangle, there is an octagonal rood turret and spirelet at the south-east of the nave. The wavy parapet of the nave gable reminds one of the similar work round the eastern chapel at Peterborough Cathedral, and the tall nave pillars resemble those at Boston. Only a very little Norman work remains from an earlier church. A knight in alabaster, a good Jacobean pulpit, and a remarkable old alms-box made out of a solid oak stem are in the church, and round the churchyard is a moat with a very large lych-gate on the bridge across it. A mile and a half east of this are the remains of an old stone building of early date, called the Moat House.