CHAPTER VIII
SLEAFORD
Ewerby—Howell—Use of a Stone Coffin—Heckington—Great Hale—Outer Staircase to Tower—Helpringham—Billinghay—North and South Kyme—Kyme Castle—Ancaster—Honington—Cranwell.
SLEAFORD CHURCH
Six roads go out of Sleaford, and five railways. Lincoln, Boston, Bourne and Grantham have both a road and a railway to Sleaford, Spalding has only a railway direct, and Horncastle and Newark only a road. At no towns but Louth and Lincoln do so many routes converge, though Caistor, Grantham and Boston come very near. The southern or Bourne road we have traced from Bourne, so we will now take the eastern roads to Boston and Horncastle. But first to say something of Sleaford itself. The Conqueror bestowed the manor on Remigius, first Bishop of Lincoln. About 1130 Bishop Alexander built the castle, together with that at Newark, which alone in part survives. These castles were seized by Stephen, and here King John, having left Swineshead Abbey, stayed a night before his last journey by Hough-on-the-hill to Newark, where he died 1216. Henry VIII., with Katherine Howard, held a council here on his way from Grimsthorpe to Lincoln, 1541, dining next day at Temple-Bruer, which he gave in the same year to the Duke of Suffolk. He had here in 1538 ordered the execution of Lord Hussey. Murray’s guide-book tells us that Richard de Haldingham, 1314, who made the famous and curious “Mappa Mundi,” now kept in Hereford Cathedral, was born at Holdingham close by. The church is one of four in this neighbourhood dedicated to St. Denis. The lower stage of the tower dates from 1180. The spire, a very early one, built about 1220, being struck by lightning, was taken down and put up again by C. Kirk in 1884. It is only 144 feet in height. As at Grantham and Ewerby the tower is engaged in the aisles; its lower stage dates from 1180. The nave has eight three-light clerestory windows, with tall pinnacles rising from the parapet. The aisles have a richly carved parapet, without pinnacles; but the beauty and extreme richness of the western ends of the aisles, where they engage with the massive tower, surmounted as they are by turrets, bellcots and pinnacles, and niches, some still containing their statues, is not surpassed in any church in England.
The doorway, which is in the west end of the north aisle, cuts into the fine window above, and opens upon the baptistery.
THE NORTH TRANSEPT
The nave and aisles are all very lofty; and the grand proportions of the church give one the feeling of being in a cathedral. There is an outer north aisle, now screened off by a good modern oak screen, and fitted with an organ and an altar with modern painted reredos depicting the Crucifixion. The tracery of the big window is good, but that in the north transept (there is no south transept) is one of the finest six-light windows to be seen, and is filled with first-rate modern glass by Ward and Hughes. The supporting arch at the west of the north aisle has an inverted arch, as at Wells, to support the tower. At the end of the south aisle, a tall half-arch acts as a buttress to the other side of the tower arch. The chancel was once a magnificent one, but was rebuilt and curtailed at a bad period.
The fine monuments on each side of the chancel arch—one having two alabaster recumbent figures, much blocked by the pulpit, are all of the Carre family; and a curious carved and inscribed coffin lid, showing just the face, and then, lower down, the praying hands of a man, apparently a layman, with long hair, is set up in the transept against the chancel pier. At Hartington in Derbyshire is one showing the bust and praying hands together, and then, lower down, the feet. An old iron chest is in the south aisle, and the church has a very perfect set of consecration crosses both inside and out.
The rood screen is especially fine, in fact, the finest in the country, having still its ancient canopy projecting about six feet, with very graceful carving on the heads of the panels below it. Two staircases in the chancel piers still remain, opening on to the rood loft on either side.