SAXBY AND HORKSTOW
Any road which runs by the edge of a curving range of hills is sure to be picturesque; and the continuation of the Wolds south of Elsham, after the Barnetby Gap, where the railway line gets through the Wolds without tunnelling, with the string of villages all ending in “by,” Bigby, Somerby, Searby, Owmby, Grasby, Clixby, Audleby, and Fonaby, which lead the traveller to Caistor, affords pleasant travelling. But it does not come up in varied charm to this western edge of the Wold, which goes farthest north, and ends on the plateau which overlooks the Humber near South Ferriby. On this route the first village from Elsham is Worlaby, and whereas Elsham had once a small house of Austin Canons founded by Beatrice de Amundeville before 1169, and given by Henry VIII. at the Dissolution to the all devouring Duke of Suffolk, Worlaby had its benefactor in John, first Lord Bellasyse, who founded in 1670 a hospital for poor women, of which the brick building still exists. The twisting road with its wooded slopes and curving hollows is here extremely pretty. We next reach Bonby, and soon after come to Saxby All Saints. This is a really delightful village, and evidently under the care of one owner, for all the houses are extremely neat and, with the exception of two proud-looking brick-built houses of the villa type, all have tiled roofs and buff-coloured walls. That the village is grateful to the landlord and his agent, and is also, like Mrs. John Gilpin, of a thrifty mind, is quaintly testified by the inscription on a drinking fountain in the village, with a semicircular seat round one side of it which tells how it was set up “in honour of the 60ᵗʰ year of Queen Victoria’s reign, and of Frederick Horsley, agent for 42 years on Mr. Barton’s estate.” Each of these parishes extends up on to the Wold, and down across the fen, and the map shows this and marks Saxby or Elsham “Wolds” as well as Saxby or Elsham “Carrs”; and in each village a signpost points west “to the bridge,” which goes over the land drain and the Weir Dyke.
In the next village of Horkstow, a big elm stands close to the gates of the churchyard and parsonage. Here the fine air and the bright breezy look of sky and landscape fill one with pleasure, and the snug way in which the churches nestle against the skirt of the wold give a charming air of peace and retirement. The church here is singular in its very sharp rise of level towards the east. You mount up six steps from the nave at the chancel arch, further east are two more steps and another arch, and again further on, two more and another arch. It looks as though the ground had been raised, for the capitals of the pillars on which these last two arches rest are only four feet and a half from the floor. The north arcade is transition Norman, the arches on the Norman pillars, instead of round, being slightly pointed.
QUAINT EPITAPHS
A Colonel of the sixty-third regiment, who died in 1838, has a mural tablet here, which tells us that “In the discharge of his publick duties he was firm and just yet lenient, and as a private gentleman his integrity and urbanity endeared him to all his friends.” This is almost worthy to be placed beside that of the man who on ending “his social career” is stated to have “endeared himself to all his friends and acquaintances by the charm of his manner and his elegant performance on the bassoon.” Curious, what things people used to think proper to put up in churches! One of the oddest is at Harewood in Yorkshire, where, under a bust of Sir Thomas Denison, who is represented in a wig, his widow writes that “he was pressed and at last prevailed on to accept the office of Judge in the Kings Bench, the duties of which he discharged with unsuspected integrity.” Doubtless she meant with an integrity which was above suspicion, but it reads so very much as if those who knew him had never for a moment suspected him of possessing the virtue mentioned. For other examples see Chapter [V.]
After Horkstow we come to South Ferriby, where a chalk road leads along the edge of the cliff towards a little landing stage on the water’s edge, giving a pretty view over the wide estuary to the Yorkshire continuation of the Wold, and the little village of North Ferriby opposite.
The church of South Ferriby, which is dedicated, as many coast churches are, to St. Nicholas, the patron Saint of children and fishermen, has its nave running north and south, and a bit railed off at the north end for the altar, though that is now placed at the south end.
The name suggests a ferry over the Humber, but the locality seems to forbid this, for in no place is the Humber wider until you have almost reached Grimsby, and from Barton to Hessle, about three miles further down stream, it is only about half the width, and there, no doubt, there was a ferry. The reason of this great width is that the Humber has made inroads here and washed away a good deal of land which used to be between Ferriby Hall and the water. This being partly deposited on the “old Warp” sand bank, once the breeding place of many sea birds, has formed a permanent pasture there, now claimed by the Crown and called “Reads Island.”
THE BARTON HOY