Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

Not far from Gosberton station is Cressy Hall, a modern red brick house, built on the site of a very ancient one. It had been a manor of the Creci family from Norman times, and passed from them to Sir John Markham, who entertained there the Lady Margaret, mother of Henry VII.

Dr. Stukeley, towards the end of the eighteenth century, saw the old oak bedstead on which she slept. It was then in a farm-house, called Wrigbolt, in the parish of Gosberton, and was very large and shut in all round with oak panels carved outside, two holes being left at the foot big enough to admit a full-grown person—a sort of hutch in fact. The property subsequently came to the Heron family, who lived there for three centuries. They kept up a large heronry there, and we read of as many as eighty nests in one tree, but since the family left the manor, at the beginning of last century, the birds have been dispersed.

QUADRING

The next village to Gosberton is Quadring, a curious name, said to be derived from the Celtic Coed (= wood). The western tower and spire are well proportioned, and the tower is quite remarkable for the way in which it draws in, narrowing all the way up from the ground to the spire. The rich embattled nave parapet and the rood turrets and staircase are also noticeable, and, as usual with these Lincolnshire churches, a fine row of large clerestory windows gives a very handsome appearance. This church has in it a fine chest; as have Gosberton and Sutterton. The latter very plain, and both with three iron straps and locks, while at Swineshead is a good iron chest of the Nuremberg pattern.

Four miles will bring us to Donington, once a market town and the centre of the local hemp and flax trade, of which considerable quantities were grown both here and round Pinchbeck. It was the flax trade that attracted the Custs to Pinchbeck in the fifteenth century.

DONINGTON

Up to the last century Donington had three hemp fairs in the year, in May, September, and October, and the land being mostly wet fen, the villagers kept large flocks of geese, one man owning as many as 1,000 “old geese.” These, besides goslings, yielded a crop of quills and feathers, and the poor birds were plucked five times a year. The sea shells in the soil indicate that before the sea banks were made the land was just a salt-water fen, and it is probable that the men of Donington had a navigable cut to the sea near Bicker or Wigtoft, for the Roman sea-bank from Frieston curved inland to Wigtoft and thence ran to Fossdyke, and the sea water no doubt came up to the bank.

The Romans did much for this village, which lies between their sea-bank and the Carr Dyke. The former kept out the sea water, and the latter intercepted the flood water from the hills. This was more effectually done later by the Hammond Beck, which, coming from Spalding, ran northwards a parallel course to the Roman Dyke, and with the same purpose, but some four or five miles nearer to Donington, after passing which place it bends round to the east and goes out at Boston. Thus farming was made possible, and potatoes now have taken the place of flax and hemp.

FLINDERS AND FRANKLIN

A large green, bordered by big school buildings, now fills the Market Square. The church, dedicated to St. Mary and the Holy Rood, is late Decorated and Perpendicular, and has a splendid tower and spire 240 feet high, which stands in a semi-detached way at the south-east of the south aisle and is surmounted by a very fine ball and weathercock. The lower stage forms a groined south porch, over which as well as on each buttress are large canopied niches for statues, and over the inner door is a figure of our Lord. The pillars in the nave are octagonal. There is a large rood bracket, and the rood staircase starts, not from behind the pulpit, but from the top of the chancel step. The walls of the Early English chancel are of rough stone, with no windows on the north, but the east window is a grand five-light Perpendicular one, and three large windows of the same style are at the west end. In all of these the tracery is unusually good. A doorway at each side of the altar shows that the chancel once extended further, and there is a curious arched recess at the north-east corner with high steps, the meaning of which is a puzzle. A little kneeling stone figure is seen in the wall of the north aisle. The responds of the nave arcades, both east and west, have very large carved bosses. The roof is old and quite plain. In the church are many memorial slabs to members of the Flinders family, among them one to Captain Matthew Flinders,[34] 1814, one of the early explorers, who, in the beginning of last century, was sent to map the coast of Australia, and having been captured by the French, was kept for some years in prison in Mauritius.