When we had mounted the precipice again from the water, and paid our naul to the inexorable ferryman, we had several clayey lakes to ride over, unpassable in winter. Two roads[85] lead you to the town, a sorry ragged place, where upon the stocks is wrote, Fear God, honour the King. The church is set respecting no points of the compass, and just under the side of a precipice, so that you may almost leap from it upon the steeple: when we climbed the hill, it was a long while before we could find the way to Barton; and scarce could the people direct us to it, though but two miles off: at length, after wandering some time backward and forward, we hit upon the road, and, as men escaped the Stygian pool, with pleasure surveyed Barton, riding all the way through corn-fields, overlooking the Humber and Hull. Barton from hence makes a pretty prospect, having two churches, several mills, and the houses pleasantly intermixed with trees. This hill is wholly chalk, and answered on the opposite shore by another of the same nature. This is at present the passage across the Humber to Yorkshire, and we pleased ourselves at this time only with the distant view of it, and the neighbouring Hull: we could see the flag upon the castle.
Barrow. British temple.
At Barrow we were surprised with a castle, as the inhabitants call it, upon the salt marsh: upon view of the works I wondered not that they say it was made by Humber when he invaded Britain, in the time of the Trojan Brutus; for it is wholly dissonant from any thing I had seen before: but after sufficient examen I found it to be a temple of the old Britons, therefore to be referred to another occasion. A little eastward hence we visited Thornton college, a great abbey founded by William le Gros earl of Albemarle 1139, the gate-house is very perfect; a vast tower, TAB. XVIII. 2d Vol.or castle, wherein all methods of Gothic architecture for offence and defence are employed: there is a great ditch before it, across which a bridge with walls on each hand, and arches that support a broad battlement to defend the access: before it two low round towers: this stands oblique to the building, like the bridge at the tower-gate, the better to keep off assailants by arrows shot through many narrow loop-holes: there was a portcullis at the great gate, and behind it another gate of oak: there are no windows in front: over it are three old clumsy statues in as ordinary niches: a woman seeming a queen, or the virgin Mary: to the right, a man with a lamb; I suppose, St. John baptist: to the left, a bishop or abbot with a crosier: the lamb is introduced in several other places: in the battlements above the gate are the figures of men cut in stone, as looking down: on both sides this tower goes a strong wall embattled, supported by internal arches, with towers at proper distances: along the ditch within the gate are spacious rooms and stair-cases of good stone and rib-work arches. Upon taking down an old wall there, they found a man with a candlestick, table and book, who was supposed to have been immured. When you enter the spacious court, a walk of trees conducts you to the ruins of the church: part of the south-east corner is left between the choir and transept, and behind that some of the chapter-house, which was octagonal: the whole plan of the church is easily discoverable, and round about it the foundations of a quadrangle, and lodgings, to the south of which now stands a dwelling-house, which I suppose was the abbot’s lodge: here are great moats and fish-ponds, subterraneous vaults and passages; the whole monastery being encompassed by a deep ditch and high rampart, to secure the religious from robbers, because near the sea. A mile east of Thornton are the ruins of another great castle, called Kelingholme. In Goswel parish northward is Burham, a chapel now become a farm-house, which belonged to the monastery: in the same parish, near the Humber, is Vere court, which belonged to the ancient family of that name. Good land hereabouts, well wooded: they find Roman coins all about. Two miles west of Thornton is a great Roman camp, called Yarborough. Ro. town.Yarborough, which surveys the whole hundred denominated from it, and all the sea-coast. Vast quantities of Roman coins have been found here: Mr. Howson, of Kenington hard by, has pecks of them, many of Licinius.[86]
18·2d.
Inside view of Thornton College gate house July 26 1724
Stukeley delin.
I Harris Scul.