Algarkirk, the church of Earl Alfgar, stands within half a mile of Sutterton, in a park. The parish is a huge one, and the living was, till recently, worth £2,000 a year, but having been purchased from the Berridge family and presented to the Bishop of Lincoln, its revenues have gone largely to endow new churches in Grimsby, and the present incumbent has only one quarter of what his predecessors had. Like Spalding, Algarkirk had double aisles to the transepts, but the eastern aisle on the south side has been thrown into the transept. The Decorated windows of each transept are very fine ones, and those at the east and west ends of the nave are extremely large and good, that at the west filling the whole of the wall space. The clerestory has ten three-light windows, and the transepts have similar ones. Outside, the nave, aisles and transepts are all battlemented, which gives a very rich appearance. The fittings are all of oak, and there are six bells. Every window below the clerestory has good modern stained glass, and, taken as a whole, the church is one of the most beautiful in the county.
AT ALGARKIRK
It was Easter time when we visited Algarkirk, and the rookery in the park at the edge of the churchyard was giving abundant signs of busy life. The delightful cawing of the rooks is always associated in my mind with the bright spring time in villages of the Lincolnshire wolds. In the churchyard I noticed the name of Phœbe more than once, but I doubt if the parents, when bestowing this pretty classic name on their infant daughter at the font, ever thought of her adding to it, as the tombstone says she did, the prosaic name of Weatherbogg.
At Sutterton two main roads cross, one from Swineshead to Holbeach, crossing the Welland near Fosdyke; the other from Boston to Spalding, crossing the Glen at Surfleet.
From Swineshead two very dull roads run west to Sleaford, and north to Coningsby and Tattershall, to join the Sleaford and Horncastle road. This, after crossing the old Hammond Beck, sends an off-shoot eastwards to Boston, whose tower is seen about four miles off. It then crosses the great South-Forty-foot drain at Hubbert’s bridge, named after Hubba the Dane, and the North-Forty-foot less than a mile further on, and, passing by Brothertoft to the Witham, which it crosses at Langrick, runs in a perfectly straight line through Thornton-le-Fen to Coningsby. An equally straight road goes parallel to, but four miles east of it, from Boston by New Bolingbroke to Revesby.
From what we have said it will be seen that the road from Spalding northwards is thickly set with fine churches; but that which goes eastwards boasts another group which are grander still. They are all figured in the volume of “Lincolnshire Churches,” which deals with the division of Holland. This was published in 1843 by T. N. Morton of Boston, the excellent drawings being by Stephen Lewin. His drawing of Kirton Old Church shows what an extremely handsome building it was before Hayward destroyed it in 1804.
MEANING OF ‘PINCHBECK’
One ought not to close this Chapter without some reference to the term “pinchbeck,” meaning sham, literally base metal, looking like gold, and used for watchcases.[35] Some Pinchbeck natives still have it that it was a yellow metal found rather more than a century ago near Pinchbeck, and now exhausted. But fen soil has no minerals, and really it was a London watchmaker, who was either a native of Pinchbeck or else called Pinchbeck, who invented the alloy of 80 parts copper to 20 of zinc. I remember hearing of a case at Spilsby sessions, where a man was accused of stealing a watch. The robbed man was asked, “What was your watch? a gold one?” “Nöa, it wëant gowd.” “Silver then?” “Näay, it wëant silver, nither.” “Then what was it?” “Why, it wor pinchbeck.”
On a later occasion the thief, asking the same “lawyer feller” to defend him, said, by way of introduction, “You remember you got me off before for stealing a watch.” “For the alleged stealing of a watch, you mean.” “Alleged be blowed! I’ve got the watch at home now.”
