Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

The Blacksmith’s epitaph, mentioned in the account of Bourne Abbey, is also found in the churchyard here, with bellows, forge, and anvil engraved on the stone.

SWINESHEAD

Swineshead is but four miles further on, with Bicker half way. The latter has a far older church than any in the neighbourhood. It is dedicated to St. Swithun. It is a twelfth-century cruciform building with massive piers and cushion capitals and fine moulding to its Norman arches over the two western bays of the nave. The clerestory has Norman arcading in triplets with glass in the centre light. The east window consists of three tall Early English lancets. A turret staircase in the south aisle gives access to another in the tower. The north aisle oak seats have been made out of portions of the rood screen. The Early English font, being supported on four short feet, is interesting, as is a holy water stoup in the porch. This church has been well restored by the Rev. H. T. Fletcher, now ninety-three years of age, who has been rector for half a century. In the last half of the thirteenth century a Christopher Massingberd was the incumbent. It is kept locked on account of recent thefts in the neighbourhood. As you go to Swineshead you pass a roadside pond with a notice, “Beware of the Swans.” The village, like Donington, was once a market town, and has still the remains of its market cross and stocks. The low spire of the church rises from a beautiful battlemented octagon which crowns the tower and is the feature of the building. There is a similar one at the base of the spire of the grand church of Patrington in Holderness. The tower is at the west end of the nave, and at each of its corners are very high pinnacles. The belfry is lighted by unusually large three-light Perpendicular windows, and the clerestory by large windows with Decorated tracery. The south aisle windows, too, are Decorated, those in the north aisle Perpendicular. The roof is old, and though plain in the nave, is richer in the north aisle. The clustered columns in the nave are slender, and the long pointed chancel arch, having no shoulders, is curiously ugly. The old iron chest has been already mentioned.

The Welland at Marsh Road, Spalding.

SUTTERTON

At Swineshead the road goes east to Boston and west to Sleaford. This we will speak of when we describe the six roads out of Sleaford, of which the Swineshead road is by far the most interesting. But we must go back by Bicker, to which the sea once came close up, as testified by the remains of the Roman sea-bank only two miles off; and perhaps, too, by the name “Fishmere End,” near the neighbouring village of Wigton. After seeing Bicker we will retrace our steps through Donington by Quadring and Gosberton, till we reach the “Gate Eau,” then turning to the left, strike the direct Spalding and Boston road. This, after crossing “Quadring Eau-Dyke”—a name which tells a fenny tale—passes over the Roman bank as it leaves Bicker, and making eastwards after its long inland curve from Frieston, proceeds to Sutterton and Algarkirk. The names go together as a station on the Great Northern Railway loop line, and the villages are not far apart. They were both endowed as early as 868, as mentioned in the Arundel MSS. The churches of both are cruciform. Sutterton has a tall spire thickly crocketed, and a charming Transition doorway in the south porch. That of the north is of the same date. The Early English arcades have rich bands of carving under the capitals of their round pillars; the two eastern pillars, from the thrust of the tower, lean considerably to the west; and, showing how much of the building was done in the Transition Norman time, the pointed arch of the chancel is enriched with Norman moulding. The large Perpendicular windows are very good, but the tracery of the Decorated west window is not attractive. The level of the floor has been so filled up that the narrow transept-arch pillars are now buried as much as three feet. The fittings are all pinewood, which gives one a kind of shock in so fine an old church. There are eight bells and a thirteenth-century Sanctus bell with inscription in Lombardic letters. The wood of the massive old iron-bound chest is sadly decayed.

Algarkirk.

THE MAGNIFICENT WINDOWS