marcia quarto dies, extat ei Requies.
The tower is the highest (100 yards) and noblest in Europe, flattering a weary traveller with its astonishing aspect even at ten miles distance. It is easily seen forty mile round this level country, and farther by sea: the lantern at top is very beautiful, and the thinness of the stone-work is admirable. There was a prodigious clock-bell, which could be heard six or seven miles round, with many old verses round it: about the year 1710 they knocked it in pieces, without taking the inscription. Twenty yards from the foundation of this tower runs the rapid Witham, through a bridge of wood. On the south side of the church-yard was, some few years ago, a curious monument[25] (as they say) of one of the builders of the church, in stone, of arched work, but now intirely demolished; and in the market place in my memory was an old and large cross, with a vault underneath, TAB. III. 2d vol.steps all around it, and at top a stone pyramid of thirty foot high, but at this time quite destroyed. I found here an old brass seal of William Chetwynd, with his coat of arms, A fesse lozengé between three mullets, which I gave to the honourable gentleman of that name. Several frieries here, black, white and grey; of which little remains. Oliver Cromwell, then a colonel, lay in Boston the night before he fought the battle of Winceby near Horncastle, Oct. 5. 1643. In North Holland they have a custom of pulling geese twice a year; which has not escaped Pliny’s notice, X. 22. There is nothing left of the adjacent Swineshed abbey, founded by Rob. Greisly, but a yew-tree and a knightly tomb fixed in the wall of the new house. Here king John sickened in his journey to Sleeford castle and Newark castle, where he died.
East of Boston was a chapel called Hiptoft, and in the town a church dedicated to St. John, but demolished. Here was a staple for wool and several other commodities, and a vast foreign trade: the hall was pulled down in my time. The great hall of St. Mary’s Guild is now the place of meeting for the corporation and sessions, &c. Here was born the learned John Fox the martyrologist. Queen Elizabeth gave the corporation a court of admiralty all over the sea-coast hereabouts.
Abundance of rare sea-plants grow near this coast: many species of sea-wormwoods, scurvy-grass, crithmum marinum, atriplex marinum, &c. of which we may expect a good account from Dr. Blair of Boston; as also of many rare fishes caught hereabouts, Raja, needle-fish, star-fish, &c. and of the stickle-back oil is made in very large quantities, the invention of the Ichtyophagi, Pliny XV. 7. Carum vulgare, Caraway, grows plentifully in the pastures all about Boston. Sambucus foliis variegatis baccis albis, Elder-tree with gilded leaves and white berries, in Boston Fen-ends: a gilded ivy in Mr. Pacey’s garden. Apium palustre Italicum, Selery vulgo dictum, in all the ditches of Holland. Paronychia folio rutaceo, Rue-leaved whitlow-grass, on the north side of walls and houses. A barberry-tree without stones, in Alderchurch parish. Asparagus sylvestris, wild asparagus, in Gorham wood, Whaplode. Many rare plants in the east fen, such as stratiotes azoides, fresh water fengreen. In the boggy grounds about Tattersall, Trifolium palustre, ros solis, virga aurea, myrtus brabantica, pinguicula, asphodelus, adianthum aureum. In the park, androsæmum, tutsan: in the ditches hard by, valeriana sylvestris: in the heaths, many sorts of erica: solanum lethale about Cowhurn.
Kirton.
Pass we from Boston by Kirkton, famous for apples, denominated from its fair church built by Alexander, that magnificent bishop of Lincoln, after the manner of a cathedral with a transept. It has a handsome tower standing upon four pillars in the middle of the cross, with a noble ring of five large bells. I observe, this building is set upon the ruins of a former church, part whereof is visible at the west end: and in most of the churches in this country the same may be discovered, from the different manner of the architecture; the most ancient having small windows arched semicircularly; what is additional, to be known by the pointed Gothic arches. This church is very neat both within and without: upon the font is this inscription:
+ Orate pro anima alani burton qui fontem istum fieri fec. a. d. mccccii.
Against the north wall is the monument of a person in armour, and round it this inscription,
+ Orate pro anima Iohannis de Meres.
The family of the Meres has flourished much hereabouts.