Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

THE ST. POLL TOMBS

North of Snelland is Snarford, which we should visit, not so much to see the four inner arches of the church tower, which are Norman, as to inspect the wonderful tombs of the St. Poll family. The earliest is in the chancel, where Sir Thomas lies on an altar tomb in plate armour, with helmet under his head, bearing as crest an elephant and castle; he wears both sword and dagger, and holds in his hand a book. They seem to have been a literary family, for his wife, in a long flowing robe with girdle and a peculiar head-dress, also holds a book, and the side panels have a projection on each face also supporting a book. A son and a daughter are kneeling below; and a canopy supported on pillars and having a richly moulded cornice bears, over each pillar and between the pillars, kneeling figures—ten in all. Shields of arms enclosed in wreaths form further decorations, but both this, which is dated 1582, and the other large monument in the north chantry are much defaced, and the heavy canopies look as if they might fall and destroy the figures beneath them at any moment. It is no good shouting “police!” but where is the archdeacon? This north chantry has been boarded off from the church, which has an ugly effect. The monuments in it are first to Sir George St. Poll, 1613, and his wife Frances, daughter of Chief Justice Sir Christopher Wray of Glentworth, whom he married in 1583. This is very large, being eleven and a half feet in height and width. Sir George reclines on his elbow; he, also, is in armour, his wife is by his side; and below is their little daughter Mattathia, with cherubs weeping and resting their inverted torches on skulls. The wife, after putting up this monument, took for a second husband Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick; and opposite to the monument of herself and her first husband she re-appears as the Countess of Warwick, on a round tablet, with medallions of herself and the earl, her second husband, who died in 1618. His first wife was Lady Penelope Devereux, by whom he had two sons, Robert and Henry, and two daughters, Lettice and Essex. A brass on the south side of the chancel has a quaint Latin inscription, by the Snarford parson, telling us that Frances Wray, after marriage, was twelve years without issue, and then had a daughter who died before reaching her second birthday, “cut off while on her way to Bath.” This was a terrible loss of a most precious treasure, and he mentions that he had christened her Mattathia, and goes on to tell us that the “mother passes no day without tears of poignant anguish,” and ends with “How I wished, alas in vain, that I the writer, instead of thee, had been the subject of a funeral elegy. John Chadwick, Sept. 9th, 1597.”

“Hos tibi jam posui versus Mattathia Sct. Poll,

Qui primum in sacro nomina fonte dedi.

Quam vellem (at frustra), te nempe superstite, scriptor

Essem funerei carminis ipse mihi.”

THE BUSLINGTHORPE BRASS

Close to the St. Poll monument in the chantry is a stone in memory of George Brownlow Doughty, 1743, who married a Tichborne heiress, and took the name in addition to his own. From Snarford, less than four miles brings us to Buslingthorpe, where is a Crusader’s effigy, which, like the priest at Little Steeping, had been turned upside down and used as a paving-stone, possibly for the sake of saving it from destruction. This may be Sir John de Buslingthorpe, c. 1250. But the great treasure of the church is a brass half-effigy on a coffin-lid, which also had been buried, and was only recovered in 1707. This represents a knight in armour, holding a heart and wearing remarkable scaled gauntlets. The inscription in Norman French is without date, but reads: “Issy gyt Sire Richard le fiz sire John de Boselyngthorp,” and is probably not later than 1290. This is earlier than the somewhat similar brass in Croft Church, which is assigned to 1300 or 1310, but is not so early as the fine brass of Sir John d’Abernoun at Stoke d’Abernon in Surrey, which is dated 1277. Anyhow, it is the earliest in Lincolnshire. From here, less than four miles brings us back on to the Market Rasen road at Linwood, only two miles from Rasen.

LINWOOD

Instead of going by Snarford and Buslingthorpe we might have reached Rasen by a more direct route from Snelland through Wickenby to Lissington. Here the road divides, the right hand going to Legsby and Sixhills, and then turning left-handed to join the Louth and Rasen road at North Willingham; or, if the day is clear, the traveller can go straight on from Sixhills and climb the Wold, which with a rise of one hundred feet will give him a view and bring him to the crown of the same road at Ludford. The left-hand road from Lissington will bring us to Rasen viâ Linwood. This is a pretty road just elevated above the flat, whence the church spire is visible for a long way. This interesting church, dedicated to St. Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, A.D. 251, is of the Early English period with Perpendicular tower. The brasses, which are good, have been removed from the south chantry to the north aisle and placed at the west end. We have John Lyndewode, wool stapler, and his wife, under a double canopy, date 1419. In his shield are three Linden leaves, which shows the name of the village to mean ‘the Linden (or Limetree) wood.’ There is also one to their son John, a wool stapler, dated 1421, and a figure of a bishop in the south chancel window, probably commemorates another son William, who became Bishop of St. David’s. A cross-legged effigy of a knight has been torn from its matrix. The old Lyndewode Manor once stood close to the church.