RETIREMENT OF THE WASH
The Marsh country is far the most interesting, and it is clear both from the nature of the land and from the names of the places that the Wash used to come several miles further inland than it does now, running up between Algarkirk and Gosberton as far as Bicker, and penetrating up the Welland estuary to “Surfleet seas end,” and up the Moulton river to “Moulton seas end,” to Holbeach Clough, to Lutton Gowt, which is north of Long Sutton on the Leam, and to the Roman bank which is still visible at Fleet and again further east between Cross-Keys and Walpole. This bank probably came by Tydd St. Mary, through which a Roman road from Cowbit also passed. But this was long ago, and many centuries elapsed before this Spalding and Lynn road, passing between Marsh and Fen, came into being, with its many magnificent churches, mostly the work of great monastic institutions between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and therefore built with exceptional magnificence.
MOULTON
After Weston less than two miles, through a country brightened by the many red and white chestnut trees in bloom, brings us to Moulton, lying a little to the south of the main road. Here we have a beautiful Perpendicular tower and crocketed spire, reminding one, by its graceful proportions, of Louth, though not much more than half the height. The nave has six bays of Transition Norman work with pillars both round and clustered, resting on large millstone-like bases, the two western piers having tall responds built into them, which probably supported the arch of an earlier tower. The Early English carved foliage on the capitals is like that at Skirbeck, or in the Galilee Porch at Ely and the transept of York Cathedral. Some most graceful old work has been restored in the lower part of the rood-screen, and a new and well-designed canopy added. The doorway to this rood-loft is on the south side. A curious old oak alms-box is near the south door, and against the western pier of the north arcade is a singular font which has been displaced by a modern square one of no particular merit. In the older one the bowl stands on the trunk of a tree carved in stone, on either side of which are figures about three feet high of Adam and Eve, and the Serpent is curling round the tree.[36] The wooden cover with the figure of a stout Rubens angel flying and grasping the top has fallen into disrepair. A list of the vicars from 1237 is in the north aisle.
The clerestory windows are handsomely arcaded outside, with round Norman arcading on the south and pointed arcades on the north side, and ugly Perpendicular windows inserted at intervals which occupy the space of two arcades.
The great beauty of the church is the Perpendicular tower and spire, built about 1380. It has four stages, and over the great west window are some canopied niches, two of which still contain their statues. The buttresses have also niches and canopies, and the tower finishes with a rich battlement and pinnacles which are connected with the spire by light flying-buttresses; the whole is beautifully proportioned, and as it stands in a very wide street one can get a satisfactory view of it.
The dividing of each side by set-off string courses, three on the west and four on the north and south sides, the canopy work of the buttresses at each stage, the pleasing varieties in the size of the windows, the canopied arcading on the west front, the panelled parapet and deep cornice, the elegant pinnacles at the corners of the coped battlements from which the light flying-buttresses spring up to the richly ornamented spire, all help to delight and satisfy the eye in a manner which few churches in any county can hope to rival.
In a bridge half a mile from the church on the south side of a lane called ‘Old Spalding Gate,’ or ‘Elloe Stone lane,’ at the fifth milestone from Spalding, still stands the Elloe Stone.
The Shire Mote or hundred court of the Elloe Wapentake, which is a huge one embracing the whole of Holland between the Welland and the Nene, used to be held at the four cross-roads near this stone, in pre-Norman times. The manor courts were introduced by the Normans.
Boy Scouts were very much in evidence when we were in Moulton; they number over thirty there alone, and I never saw a smarter lot.