We have seen that the Wolds, starting from the Humber, run in two parallel ridges; that on the west side of the county reaching the whole way from north to south, but that on the east only going half the way and ending abruptly at West Keal, near Spilsby.
All that lies east of the road running from Lincoln by Sleaford and Bourne to Stamford, and south of a line drawn from Lincoln to Wainfleet is “Fen,” and includes the southern portion of South Lindsey, the eastern half of Kesteven, and the whole of Holland.
In this Fen country great houses are scarce. But the great monasteries clung to the Fens and they were mainly responsible for the creation of the truly magnificent Fen churches which are most notably grouped in the neighbourhood of Boston, Sleaford and Spalding. In writing of the Fens, therefore, the churches are the chief things to be noticed, and this is largely, though not so entirely, the case in the Marsh district also. Hence I have ventured to describe these Lincolnshire churches of the Marsh and Fen at greater length than might at first sight seem warrantable.
PERIODS OF ARCHITECTURE
It would make it easier to follow these descriptions if the reader were first to master the dates and main characteristics of the different periods of architecture and their order of sequence. Thus, roughly speaking, we may assign each style to one century, though of course the style and the century were not in any case exactly coterminous.
| 11th | Century | Norman | ⎫ | With round arches. |
| 12th | ” | Transition | ⎭ | |
| 13th | ” | Early English (E.E.) | ⎫ | With pointed arches. |
| 14th | ” | Decorated (Dec.) | ⎬ | |
| 15th | ” | Perpendicular (Perp.) | ⎭ |
CHAPTER II
STAMFORD
The North Road—Churches—Browne’s Hospital—Brasenose College—Daniel Lambert—Burghley House and “The Peasant Countess.”
The Great Northern line, after leaving Peterborough, enters the county at Tallington, five miles east of Stamford. Stamford is eighty-nine miles north of London, and forty miles south of Lincoln. Few towns in England are more interesting, none more picturesque. The Romans with their important station of Durobrivæ at Castor, and another still nearer at Great Casterton, had no need to occupy Stamford in force, though they doubtless guarded the ford where the Ermine Street crossed the Welland, and possibly paved the water-way, whence arose the name Stane-ford. The river here divides the counties of Lincoln and Northamptonshire, and on the north-west of the town a little bit of Rutland runs up, but over three-quarters of the town is in our county. The Saxons always considered it an important town, and as early as 664 mention is made in a charter of Wulfhere, King of Mercia, of “that part of Staunforde beyond the bridge,” so the town was already on both sides of the river. Later again, in Domesday Book, the King’s borough of Stamford is noticed as paying tax for the army, navy and Danegelt, also it is described as “having six wards, five in Lincolnshire and one in Hamptonshire, but all pay customs and dues alike, except the last in which the Abbot of Burgh (Peterborough) had and hath Gabell and toll.”