Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

I once walked with an Undergraduate friend on a winter’s day from Uppingham to Boston, about 57 miles, the road led pleasantly at first through Normanton, Exton and Grimsthorpe Parks, in the last of which the mistletoe was at its best; but when we got off the high ground and came to Dunsby and Dowsby the only pleasure was the walking, and as we reached Billingborough and Horbling, about 30 miles on our way, and had still more than twenty to trudge and in a very uninviting country, snow began to fall, and then the pleasure went out of the walking. By the time we reached Boston it was four inches deep. It had been very heavy going for the last fourteen miles, and never were people more glad to come to the end of their journey. Neither of us ever felt any great desire to visit that bit of Lincolnshire again; and yet, under less untoward circumstances, there would have been something to stop for at Billingborough with its lofty spire, its fine gable-crosses, and great west window, and at the still older small cruciform church at Horbling, exhibiting work of every period but Saxon, but most of which, owing to bad foundations, has had to be at different times taken down and rebuilt. It contains a fine fourteenth century monument to the De la Maine family. Even more interesting would it have been to see the remains of the famous priory church at Sempringham, a mile and a half south of Billingborough, for Sempringham was the birthplace of a remarkable Englishman. Gilbert, eldest son of a Norman knight and heir to a large estate, was born in 1083; he was deformed, but possessing both wit and courage he travelled on the Continent. Later in life he was Chaplain to Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, who built Sleaford Castle in 1137, and Rector of Sempringham, and Torrington, near Wragby. Being both wealthy and devoted to the church, he, with the Bishop’s approval, applied in the year 1148 to Pope Eugenius III. for a licence to found a religious house to receive both men and women; this was granted him, and so he became the founder of the only pure English order of monks and nuns, called after him, the Gilbertines. Eugenius III. suffered a good deal at the hands of the Italians, who at that time were led by Arnold of Brescia, the patriotic disciple of Abelard, insomuch that he was constrained to live at Viterbo, Rome not being a safe place for him; but he seems to have thought rather well of the English, for he it was who picked out the monk, Nicolas Breakspeare, from St. Alban’s Abbey and promoted him to be Papal legate at the Court of Denmark, which led eventually to his becoming Pope Adrian IV., the only Englishman who ever reached that dignity. The elevation does not seem to have improved his character, as his abominable cruelty to the above-mentioned Arnold of Brescia indicates. Eugenius, however, is not responsible for this, and at Gilbert’s request he instituted a new order in which monks following the rules of St. Augustine were to live under the same roof with nuns following the rules of St. Benedict. Their distinctive dress was a black cassock with a white hood, and the canons wore beards. What possible good Gilbert thought could come of this new departure it is difficult to guess. Nowadays we have some duplicate public schools where boys and girls are taught together and eat and play together, and it is not unlikely that the girls gain something of stability from this, and that their presence has a useful and far-reaching effect upon the boys, besides that obvious one which is conveyed in the old line

“Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros;”

but these monks and nuns never saw one another except at some very occasional service in chapel; even at Mass, though they might hear each other’s voices in the canticles, they were parted by a wall and invisible to each other, and as they thus had no communication with one another they might, one would think, have just as well been in separate buildings. Gilbert thought otherwise. He was a great educator, and especially had given much thought to the education of women, at all events he believed that the plan worked well, for he increased his houses to the number of thirteen, which held 1,500 nuns and 700 canons. Most of these were in Lincolnshire, and all were dissolved by Henry VIII. Gilbert was certainly both pious and wise, and being a clever man, when Bishop Alexander moved his Cistercians from Haverholme Priory to Louth Park Abbey, because they suffered so much at Haverholme from rheumatism, and handed over the priory, a chilly gift, to the Gilbertines, their founder managed to keep his Order there in excellent health. He harboured, as we know, Thomas à Becket there in 1164, and got into trouble with Henry II. for doing so. He was over 80 then, but he survived it and lived on for another five and twenty years, visiting occasionally his other homes at Lincoln, Alvingham, Bolington, Sixhills, North Ormsby, Catley, Tunstal and Newstead, and died in 1189 at the age of 106. Thirteen years later he was canonised by Pope Innocent III., and his remains transferred to Lincoln Minster, where he became known as St. Gilbert of Sempringham. Part of the nave of his priory at Sempringham is now the Parish Church; it stands on a hill three-quarters of a mile from Pointon, where is the vicarage and the few houses which form the village. Much of the old Norman work was unhappily pulled down in 1788, but a doorway richly carved and an old door with good iron scroll-work is still there. At the time of the dissolution the priory, which was a valuable one, being worth £359 12s. 6d., equal to £3,000 nowadays, was given to Lord Clinton. Campden, 300 years ago, spoke of “Sempringham now famous for the beautiful house built by Edward Baron Clinton, afterwards Earl of Lincoln,” the same man to whom Edward VI. granted Tattershall. Of this nothing is left but the garden wall, and Marrat, writing in 1815, says: “At this time the church stands alone, and there are but five houses in the parish, which are two miles from the church and in the fen.”

CHAPTER V
SOUTH-WEST LINCOLNSHIRE AND ITS RIVERS

The Glen—Burton Coggles—Wilsthorpe—The Eden—Verdant Green—Irnham Manor and Church—The Luttrell Tomb—Walcot—Somerby—Ropsley—Castle Bytham—The Witham—Colsterworth—The Newton Chapel—Sir Isaac Newton—Stoke Rochford—Great Ponton—Boothby Bagnell—A Norman House.

I have said that the whole of the county south of Lincoln slopes from west to east, the slope for the first few miles being pretty sharp. The only exception to the rule is in the tract on the west of the county, which lies north of the Grantham and Nottingham road, between the Grantham to Lincoln ridge and the western boundary of the county. This tract is simply the flat wide-spread valley of the Rivers Brant and Witham, which all slopes gently to the north. North Lincolnshire rivers run to the Humber; these are the Ancholme and the Trent; but there is a peculiarity about the rivers in South Lincolnshire; for though the Welland runs a consistent course eastward to the Wash, and is joined not far from its mouth by the River Glen, that river and the Witham each run very devious courses before they find the Eastern Sea. The Glen flowing first to the south then to the north and north-east, the Witham flowing first to the north and then to the south with an easterly trend to Boston Haven.

THE GLEN AND THE EDEN

Both these streams are of considerable length, the course of the Glen measured without its windings being five and thirty miles, and that of the Witham as much again.

All the other streams which go from the ridge drain eastwards into the fens, and they effectually kept the fens under water until the Romans cut the Carr Dyke, intercepting the water from the hills and taking it into the river.