CHAPTER XXVIII

THE MARSH CHURCHES IN SOUTH LINDSEY

Alford—Markby—Hogsthorpe—Addlethorpe—Ingoldmells—Winthorpe—Skegness—The Bond Epitaph—Croft—The Parish Books—Burgh-le-Marsh—Palmer Epitaph—Bratoft—The Armada—Gunby—The Massingberd Brasses.

Starting from _Alford_, a little town with several low thatched houses in the main street, and a delightful old thatched ivy-clad manor, we will first look into the church which stands on a mound in the centre of the town, to see the very fine rood screen. Before reaching the south porch with its sacristy or priests’ room above, and its good old door, we pass an excellent square-headed window. Inside, the bold foliage carving on the capitals at once arrests the eye. The pillars, as in most of these churches, are lofty, slender and octagonal. The steps to the rood loft remain, and a squint to the altar in the north aisle chapel. On the other side is a carved Jacobean pulpit of great beauty, east of which is a low-side window, and east of that again a tomb with recumbent alabaster figures of Sir Robert Christopher and his wife, date 1668, in perfect condition.

From Alford a road goes north to Louth, branching to the right three miles out, to run to Mablethorpe, the favourite seaside resort of the Tennysons when living at Somersby. But we will follow the road to _Bilsby_, where Professor Barnard keeps his unapproachable collection of Early English water-colours. From here we can reach _Markby_, a curious thatched chapel standing inside a moat, and now disused. Then we can look in at _Huttoft_ to see the extremely fine font which resembles that at Covenham St. Mary, and Low Toynton, near Horncastle; after which, passing by _Mumby_, we will make for the first of the typical Marsh churches at _Hogsthorpe_.

Markby vicarage goes with _Hannah-cum-Hagnaby_ rectory. Once there was an Austin or Black Friars priory at Markby, and at Hagnaby—a hamlet in Hannah or Hannay—an abbey of Premonstratensian or White Canons, which was founded in 1175 by Herbert de Orreby and dedicated to St. Thomas the Martyr.

[Illustration: _Markby Church._]

The registers at _Markby_ are among the earliest in the kingdom, beginning in 1558, those in Hannay dating from 1559. The first year of their institution was 1838.

[Sidenote: THE HUTTOFT FONT]

The _Huttoft_ font is of the fourteenth century, and is four feet eight inches high, so it needs a step like those at Wrangle, Benington, and Frieston, and that at Skendleby. On the bowl are represented the Holy Trinity, the Virgin and Child, the Virgin holding a bunch of lilies, and the Child an apple. On six of the panels are the Apostles in pairs, as at Covenham St. Mary. The under part has angel figures all round supporting the bowl. The shaft has eight panels with figures of popes, bishops, and holy women, and at the base are symbols of the four evangelists. The string-courses show three different roofs to the nave.

[Sidenote: HOGSTHORPE]

_Hogsthorpe_, like most of the churches in the neighbourhood, is built of the soft local green-sand, which is found near the edge of the marsh where the Wolds die away into the level. The tower shows patches of brickwork which give a warm and picturesque appearance. The south porch is here, as is the rule, built of a harder stone, and is handsome and interesting. A pair of oblong stones of no great size are built in on either side above the arch with an inscription in old English letters, beginning, oddly enough, both in this church and in one at Winthorpe a few miles off, with the right hand stone and finishing on the left. The words are, “Orate pro animabus Fratrum et Sororum Guilde Sᶜᵗᵃᵉ Mariæ hujus Ecclesiæ quorum expensis et sumptibus fabricata est haec porticus.” The church has had its roof renewed in pine wood. It also has the worst coloured window glass I have ever seen, an error of local piety.[17] The registers begin in 1558.

[Sidenote: ADDLETHORPE]

From here the road, with countless right-angled turns, runs between the reedy dykes to the Perpendicular church of _Addlethorpe_ (St. Nicolas). Here the south porch is unusually good, with figures of angels on the buttresses and beautiful foliage work carved on the parapet. On the apex is a well-cut crucifix and, as at Somersby, on the back is a small figure of the Virgin and Child. A large holy-water stoup stands just within the door. There is a window in the porch, also a niche and a slab with the following inscription:—

The Cryst that suffered Grette pangs and hard hafe mercy on the sowle of John Godard That thys porche made and many oder thynges dede There-for Jsu Cryst Qwyte hym hys mede.

Over the buttresses of the north aisle are gargoyles holding scrolls; one has on it “Of Gods saying comes no ill,” another—

God : for : ihs : m’̅c̅y : bryng : he̅ : to : blys : Yᵗ : ha̅ : p̅d̅ : to : ys :

Cut with a knife on the western pilaster of the porch is—

“January 1686 Praise God.”

The glory of this church is its wealth of old wood work, in which it is not surpassed by any in the county, though its neighbour, Winthorpe, runs it hard.

[Illustration: _Addlethorpe and Ingoldmells._]

The chancel here, as at the older Decorated church of Ingoldmells, which is within half a mile, has been pulled down, and the rood screen acts as a reredos. There are two extremely good parclose screens, and old benches with carved ends throughout the church. Another fine oak screen goes across the tower arch, inscribed, “Orate pro animabus Johannis Dudeck Senior et uxor̅ ejus.” The noble roof is the original one. The pulley-block for lowering the rood light is still visible on the easternmost tie-beam but one, as it is also at Winthorpe and Grimoldby. A new rafter at the west end has painted on it, “Struck by fireball June 27, 1850.”

The Boston wool trade is alluded to in the epitaph “Hic jacet Ricardus Ward qdm. Mr̅ctor Stapali Calais MCCCCXXXIII.”

A slab in the north aisle to Thomas Ely, 1783, has a singular inscription on it:—

“Plain in his form but rich he was in mind, Religious, quiet, honest, meek and kind.”

Evidently a real good fellow though he _was_ plain.

[Sidenote: CHURCHWARDEN’S ACCOUNTS]

The following extracts from the churchwarden’s accounts between the years 1540 and 1580 are curious.

Itm payde to the Scolemʳ (Schoolmaster) of Allforde for wryting of Thoms Jacson Wylle iiijᵈ Itm payde unto Thoms Wryghte for dressynge the crosse ijᵈ Itm payde for a horsse skyne for bellstryngs ijˢ iᵈ Itm payde to the players iiijᵈ Itm reseuyd (received) for ye Sepuller lyghte gatheryd in ye cherche iiˢ iᵈ Itm reseuyd for ye wyttworde[18] of Rycharde Grene xijᵈ Itm Receuyd of Anthony Orby for his wyffs yereday[19] xijᵈ Itm payde un to Wyllm Craycrofte for the rente of ye Kyrke platte ijˢ vᵈ Itm payde for washing the corporaxys[20] iiijᵈ Itm payd for a ynglyghe sultʳ [an English psalter] xxᵈ Receuyd of Thomas Thorye for o̅n̅ thrughestone iijˢ iiijᵈ Itm payde for the Sepulcre xˢ Itm for a paire of Sensors xˢ iiijᵈ Receuyd of John Curtus for his Wyff lying in ye churche viˢ viijᵈ Receuyd[21] of ye said John for o̅n̅ thrughstone xxᵈ It Recd for ye sowll of John Dodyke xiiiˢ It Recd for ye sowll of Syr Gregory Wylk viᵈ Impmus [In primis] payd for certeffyenge of ye Rodloffe xijˢ Itm payd for dyssygerenge [_query_ dressing] of ye Rod loffte iijˢ iiijᵈ It given to ye men of mumbye chappelle for carryinge of ye lytle belle to Lincolne xijᵈ It Layde oute for a lytle booke of prayer for Wednesdays and frydayes iijᵈ

The church has six bells.

From the account of the charities left in Addlethorpe we find that in 1554 a gift of land was sold for £4 an acre, but in 1653 an acre situated in Steeping let for 15_s._

[Sidenote: INGOLDMELLS]

The adjoining parish with its mellifluous name of _Ingoldmells_, (pronounced Ingomells), has had its suffix derived from the Norse _melr_, said to mean the curious long grass of the sandhills. It might perhaps be more correctly considered as the same suffix which we have on the Norse-settled Cumbrian coast at Eskmeals, or Meols, where it is said to mean a sandy hill or dune, a name which would well fit in with the locality here. Thus the whole name would mean the sand-dunes of Ingulf, a Norse invader of the ninth century. A farmer we met at Winthorpe, next parish to Ingoldmells, alluded to these sandhills when he said, “It is a sträange thing, wi’ all yon sand nobbut häfe a mile off, that we cant hav nowt but this mucky owd cläy hereabouts: not fit for owt.” But the Romans found the clay very useful for making their great embankment along the coast.

_Ingoldmells_ church, though good, is not so fine as Addlethorpe; but it has a very interesting little brass, dated 1520, to “William Palmer wyth ye stylt,” a very rare instance of an infirmity being alluded to on a brass. The brass shows a crutched stick at his side. The porch has a quatrefoil opening on either side, and a niche; and a curious apse-like line of stones in the brick paving goes round all but the east side of the fine front. Round the base of the churchyard cross is a later inscription cut in 1600, J. O. Clerk. “Christus solus mihi salus,” and figures run round three sides of the base, beginning on the north 1, 2, 3; and on the east 4, 5, 6; none on the south, but on the west 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, at the corner 10; and again on the north, 11, 12. Doubtless it was a form of sundial, the cross shaft throwing its shadow in the direction of the figures. Of the four bells one has fallen and lies on the belfry floor. One has on it, according to Oldfield, “Wainfleet and the Wapentake of Candleshoe, 1829,” “Catarina vocata sum rosa _pulsata_ mundi” (I am called Catherine, the beaten rose of the world); and on another is the rhyme—

“John Barns churchwarden being then alive Caused us to be cast 1705:”

At Partney a bell has the same Catarina legend, but with _dulcata_ (= sweet) instead of _pulsata_. S and C are often interchanged, and I think the ‘p’ is really a ‘d’ upside down on the Ingoldmells bell, especially as the bell is of about the same date and was also cast by the same man—Penn of Peterborough. I must admit, however, that _pulsata_ on a bell with a clapper has something to be said for it; still, _dulcata_ (sweet) is the obviously proper epithet for rose.

[Illustration: _The Roman Bank at Winthorpe._]

[Sidenote: THE SEA BANKS]

[Sidenote: RICH OAK CARVING]

From this church the road runs to the sea bank near Chapel, and gets quite close to it. You can walk up the sandy path amongst the tall sand-grass and the grey-leaved buckthorn, set with sharp thorns and a profusion of lovely orange berries, till from the top you look over to the long brown sands and the gleaming shore, where a retiring tide is tumbling the cream-coloured breakers of a brown sea. Returning to the road we go for some distance along the old Roman bank, which we leave before reaching Skegness in order to get to _Winthorpe_ (_St. Mary_). This Decorated church was restored in 1881 by the untiring energy of “Annie Walls of Boothby,” but not so as to spoil its old woodwork, which is remarkably fine. In the body of the church all the seats have their old carved fifteenth century bench ends, and in the chancel are four elaborately carved stall-ends. In one of these, amidst a mass of foliage, St. Hubert is represented kneeling, as in Albert Dürer’s picture, before a stag who has a crucifix between his antlers, from which the Devil, who appears just behind him, in human shape but horned, is turning away. The poppyhead above this panel is exquisitely carved with oak leaves and acorns, and little birds, with manikins climbing after them. The old roof, with the rood-light pulley-block visible on one of the tie-beams, still remains, and the rood screen, too, though its doors have been foolishly transferred to another screen at the west end, and ought to be put back in their place; and at the end of each aisle, as at Addlethorpe, are good parclose screens. Within one of these, the roof of the north aisle has a painted pattern on the rafters and good carved bosses once painted and gilt.

The seventeen steps to the rood loft are all there, also an aumbrey; and we are told that one of the chantries was founded and endowed by Walter De Friskney, 1316, and dedicated to St. James.

In the south wall of the tower is a singular fireplace, originally used for baking the wafers.

In the north chantry is an altar slab with three consecration crosses on it, and a sepulchral slab to “Ricardus Arglys (Argles?), Presbyter, De Bynington” (near Boston) who died on the 20th of November, 1497; and there are, in the nave, brasses to Richard Barowe with his wife Batarick and their three children, 1505, and to Robert Palmer, 1515, doubtless a relative of “W. Palmer with ye stylt” in Ingoldmells.

The inscription on the former is “Richard Barowe sumtyme marchant of the stapyll of Calys, and Batarick his wyfe, the which Richard decissyd the XX day of Apryle the yere of owre Lord A.MCCCCC and fyve, on whose soullys Ihu̅ have mercy Amen for charitie.”

The Barrows were an old and notable family, one of them was Master of the Rolls and Keeper of the Great Seal, 1485. They were long settled at Winthorpe, and in 1670 Isaac Barrow was Bishop of St. Asaph, and his nephew was well known to history as the Master of Trinity, 1672-1677, and a celebrated divine.

[Sidenote: WINTHORPE]

One of Robert Palmer’s descendants, Elizabeth of Winthorpe, married George Sharpe, who was Archbishop of York in 1676, so Winthorpe furnished a bishop and an archbishop’s wife in the same decade.

William Palmer was apparently part donor of the south porch of Winthorpe, which is very like those at Addlethorpe and Hogsthorpe, having a gabled and crocketed parapet carved with graceful flowing foliage; and on the two stones, lettered in Early English as at Hogsthorpe, are the lines:—

Robert Lungnay and Wyll’ P alm’: thay payd for thys God in hys mercy bryng them to his blys.

Over the east gable of the nave is a sanctus bell-cot, and in the tower are four good bells, three of which are thus inscribed:—

1. 1604 I sweetly tolling do men call to taste of meat that feeds the soul.

2. Jesus be our speed.

3. Antonius monet ut Campana bene sonet.

In the west of the south aisle is the well-carved head of the churchyard cross, of which, as usual, only half of the shaft remains. On the head is a crucifixion, and on the other side the Virgin and Child. This head was found in 1910 a mile and a quarter from the church. It closely resembles that still standing intact at Somersby.

Opposite, in the west end of the north aisle, are two bases of columns belonging to a former church of the thirteenth century, which church is first mentioned in the donation of it by William de Kyme to the abbey of Bardney, 1256.

The registers of the church begin in 1551.

From the foregoing it will be seen how extremely interesting these Marsh churches are, and these four are not the only ones in this part of the Marsh, _Croft_ and _Burgh_ being both within three or four miles of _Winthorpe_. _Theddlethorpe_, north of these, is a finer building, as is _Burgh-le-Marsh_; but I doubt if any other church has such a wealth of old carved woodwork as Addlethorpe or Winthorpe. There is, cut on the south-east angle of Winthorpe tower, a deep horizontal line with the letters “H.W. 1837.” This indicates the level of high-water mark on the other side of the sea bank, and as the mark on the tower is eight feet nine inches from the ground, though the 1837 tide was an exceptionally high one, it gives some idea of what this part of the Marsh must at times have been in the days before the Romans made their great embankment. A plan for improving the drainage of the land at Winthorpe was made as early as 1367, and a rate was exacted of 1_s._ an acre.

[Sidenote: SKEGNESS HOUSE]

_Skegness_, now, next to Cleethorpes, the best known and most frequented by excursion “trippers” of all the east coast places, used to be fifty years ago only a little settlement of fishermen who lived in cabins built on the strip of ground between the road and the ditches on each side. A lifeboat shed and an old sea-boat set up on its gunwale for a shelter, with a seat in it, and a flagstaff close by, used chiefly for signalling to a collier to come in, were on the sea bank. Behind it was an hotel, and one thatched house just inside the Roman bank, built by Mr. Edward Walls about 1780. This was cleverly contrived so that not an inch of space was wasted anywhere. It was only one room thick, so that from the same room you could see the sun rise over the sea and set over the Marsh. It was here that Tennyson saw those “wide-winged sunsets of the misty marsh” that he speaks of in “The Last Tournament,” and took delight in their marvellous colouring.

The house rose up from the level behind and below the bank, and the back door was on the ground floor, with a porch and hinged leaves to shut out the terrific wind from N. and E. or N. and W. as required, but on the sea front, access was obtained by a removable plank bridge from the bank top which landed you on the first floor. Here was the summer home of all our family—a children’s paradise—when you ran straight out bare-foot on to the sandy bank and so across the beautiful hard sands and through the salt-water creeks down to the sea. This at high water was close at hand with tumbling waves and seething waters, but at low tide, far as eye could reach was nothing but sand, with the fisherman’s pony and cart, and his donkey and boy at the other end of the shrimp net, moving slowly like specks in the distance along the edge of the far-retreating sea.

This enchanting desolation is now the trippers’ play ground, with stalls and donkeys and swings and sham niggers and a pier and lines of shops. It must be admitted that it has all its old health-giving breezes, and also a fine garden and a cricket field and golf links of the very best. A new line from Lincoln has just been opened (July 1st, 1913), which runs through Coningsby, New Bolingbroke and Stickney, to join the old loop line between Eastville and Steeping, and for a shilling fare will bring thousands from Lincoln, Sheffield and Retford, to have a happy day of nine hours at what the natives call “Skegsnest.”

We have seen that the Romans had a bank all along this coast to keep out the sea, and besides their five roads from Lincoln, one of which went to Horncastle, they had a road from Horncastle to Wainfleet; and a road, part of which we have noticed, from Ulceby to Burgh and Skegness. Skegness lies midway between Ingoldmells, which is the most easterly point of the county, and _Gibraltar Point_, from which the coast sweeps inland and forms the northern shore of the Wash. Across, on the further side of this, was the Roman camp at Brancaster (Branodunum), and here at Skegness there seems to have been a Roman fort which has now been swallowed up by the sea.

[Sidenote: OLD POTTERIES]

Near Ingoldmells, about fifty years ago, the sea, at low water, laid bare some Roman potteries, so called, from which the Rev. Edward Elmhirst got several specimens of what were called “thumb bricks.” These were just bits of clay the size of sausages, but twice as thick, some as much as two and a half inches thick and four inches high, which had been squeezed in the hand, the impress of the fingers and thumb being plainly visible; the extremities, being more than the hand could take, were rather bigger than the middle. They were flat enough at each end to stand, and had doubtless been used to place the pottery on when being burnt in the kiln.

It is more than probable that these potteries were pre-Roman. They are about a quarter of a mile south of the Ingoldmells outfall drain, and half way between high and low-water mark. They are only exposed now and then, and appear to be circular kilns about fifteen feet in diameter, with walls two feet thick, and now only a foot high. The reason of their existence is found in a bed of dark clay which underlies all this coast.

The only pot found has been a rough, hand-made jar with rolled edge and marks of the stick or bone with which the outside had been scraped and trimmed. Now, doubtless the Romans used the wheel. Moreover, these kilns are far outside the Roman bank, and not likely, therefore, to be for Roman use. Tree roots are found in the walls and inside the circle of the kilns, of the same sort as those of which at one time a perfect forest existed, the stumps of which are sometimes visible at low tide. At the time the Romans made their sea bank the sea must have come right over this forest, so that we may perhaps say that those thumb-bricks bear the impress of the fingers of the earliest inhabitants of Britain, and are therefore of extraordinary interest.

On the eastern side of South Lindsey the running out of the roads, from Burgh and Wainfleet, to the coast always seemed to point to the existence of some Roman terminus near Skegness. Some years after he had noted this as probable, the Rev. E. H. R. Tatham, who has made a study of Roman roads in Lincolnshire, discovered that in the court rolls of the manor of Ingoldmells, the mention is made of a piece of land called indifferently in a document dated 1345, “Chesterland,” or “Castelland”; and again in 1422, four acres of land in “Chesterland” are mentioned as being surrendered by one William Skalflete (Court Rolls, p. 248), this land is never mentioned again, and the presumption is that it was swallowed by the sea. And in 1540 Leland mentions a statement made to him, that Skegness once had a haven town with a “castle,” but that these had been “clene consumed and eaten up with the se.”

[Sidenote: ROMAN CASTRUM]

These terms “Chester” and “caster” point to a Roman fort or “castrum,” and the fact that the names “Chesterland” and “Castelland” exist in medieval documents dealing with the land in the immediate neighbourhood seems to go a long way towards confirming Mr. Tatham’s conjecture of the existence of a Roman fort near Skegness, over which the sea has now encroached.

[Sidenote: AN EARLY BRASS]

[Sidenote: CROFT]

From Skegness we will now turn inland, and after about four miles reach _Croft_ (All Saints) by a road which keeps turning at right angles and only by slow degrees brings a traveller perceptibly nearer to the clump of big, shady trees which hide the church, parsonage and school. Large trees grow in all parts of the forlorn churchyard, and the church when opened has a musty, charnel-house smell, but one soon forgets that in amazement at the fine and spacious fourteenth century nave and clerestory, its grand tower and its large and lofty fifteenth century Perpendicular chancel and aisles. The wide ten-foot passage up the nave between the old poppy-head seats fitly corresponds to the large open space round the font, which rises from an octagonal stone platform as big as that of a market cross. There is a quantity of old woodwork besides the seats. A good rood-screen—though like all the others, minus its coved top and rood-loft—shows traces yet of its ancient colouring; birds and beasts of various kinds are carved both as crockets above and also in relief on the panels below, and two good chantry screens fill the eastern ends of the aisles. A very fine Jacobean pulpit and tester was put up by Dr. Worship, the vicar from 1599 to 1625, in memory of his wife Agnes, whom he describes in a brass on her tomb, dated 1615, as “a woman matchless both for wisdom and godlyness.” The two greatest treasures in brass are the extremely fine eagle lectern, its base supported by three small lions, which was found in the moat of the old Hall, the seat of the Browne family, flung there probably for safety and then forgotten; and a notable half-effigy, head and arms only, of a knight in banded mail, with a tunic over the hauberk, and hands joined in prayer. The legend round him is in Norman French, but his name is lost; the date is said to be 1300, so that this is, next to that at Buslingthorpe, the earliest brass in the county.

The Browne family are perpetuated in the chancel, where on the north wall are two similar monuments of kneeling figures facing each other, both erected about 1630. The first is to Valentine Browne, a man with a very aquiline nose, and his wife Elizabeth (Monson), with effigies in relief of their fifteen children. He is described as “Treasurer and Vittleter of Barwick, and Dyed Treasurer of Ireland.” Barwick is “The March town of Berwick-on-Tweed.” The tomb was erected _c._ 1600 by his second son John who lived at Croft, and whose effigy is on the other tomb along with his wife Cicely (Kirkman), of whom we are told “she lived with him but 20 weeks and dye without issue ætatis 21 Ano Domini 1614,” just a year before Agnes Worship, the vicar’s wife. Another monument, a marble slab eighteen inches square, has this inscription:—

“Here lyeth Willyam Bonde Gentleman, whoe dyed An̅o Dom̅ 1559 leaving two sonnes, Nicolas Docter in Divinitie, and George Docter in physicke, the elder sonne, who dyed the ____ et etatis ____ and here is buryed. THE which in remembrance of his most kynd father haith erected this lytle moniment”

Bondus eram Doctor Medicus nunc vermibus esca, Corpus terra tegit, spiritus astra petit, Ardua scrutando, cura, morbis, senioque Vita Molesta fuit: Mors mihi grata quies.

The guide-books say that this was erected by Nicolas, D.D., who afterwards became president of Magdalen College, Oxford. But clearly it was by George the M.D., and he left spaces for his own death date, which were never filled; perhaps he is not buried at Croft, but he must have been near his end when he wrote the Latin lines which are all about himself, and may be thus translated—

I was Bond a Physician, now I am food for worms, The earth covers my body, my spirit seeks the stars, From difficult studies, anxiety, diseases and old age Life was a burden; death is a welcome rest to me.

There is a note in the church accounts to the effect that the old bell was (re-)cast at Peterborough by Henry Penn in 1706 and inscribed “prepare to die.”

This church is, for spaciousness and for the amount of good old woodwork, and for its monuments, one of the very best. As we leave it we notice carved on the door, “God save the King 1633.”

I believe that Bishop Hugh-de-Wells who was appointed Bishop of Lincoln in 1209, but who, mistrusting King John, did not take up the work of his See till 1218, when John was dead, was a native of Croft.

The parish books of _Croft_ show “The dues and duties belonginge and appertaininge unto the office of the clarkes of Crofte. A.D. 1626.”

He collected the Easter gratuities of the neighbours in the parish; he got twenty shillings a year for looking after the clock, “to be paid by the churchwards.”

“For skowringe and furbishinge the eagle or ‘brazen lectorie’ 2/6 by the yeare. Sixpence for ‘evry marriadge,’ fourpence ‘for the passinge bell ringeinge for every inhabitant &c. that are deceased.”

And “Item the privilege of makeinge the graves for the deceased before any other yf he will take the paines and canne doe yt.”

[Sidenote: THE PARISH CLERK]

Evidently the clerks were old men and not always capable of wielding the spade and pick; and now comes an entry which lets one into the secret of why the registers were often so ill-kept. Instead of the entries being made by the parson at the time, the clerk put them down “from time to time,” and they were copied from his notes once a year. Under this system, of course, there were both mistakes and omissions, often for many months and even years together.

This is the entry:—

“Itm for the Register keepinge from tyme to tyme of all Christnings Marriadges and burialles from Ladyday to Ladyday until they be ingrossed: two shillings and sixpence a year.”

Possibly “from tyme to tyme” may mean on each occasion, but it sounds precarious.

His fixed salary, besides fees, was, in 1773, thirty shillings and two strikes (—4 bushels) of corn out of the two quarters (—sixteen bushels) which was given from the glebe every Easter to the poor by the parson.

The Sexton’s wages at the same date were given thus:—

as Sexton 2. 10. 0. for dogs wipping 0. 7. 6. Dressing church round 0. 2. 0. For oyle 0. 2. 4. For ringing the bell at 8 and 4 1. 0. 0. ------------- 04. 01. 10.

The “Parish Clerk” in Lincolnshire was, as a rule, a rougher-looking individual than he appears in Gainsborough’s splendid picture in the National Gallery, but he was generally an original character, both in word and deed. I heard of one in Ireland who announced, “There will be no sarmon this afternoon as the Bishop has been providentially prevented from praching,” and many a quaint saying is recorded of those Lincolnshire clerks of the last century. Boys were their special aversion. In the old days at Spilsby the clerk kept a stick, and during the sermon would go down to the west end of the building, and the sound of his weapon on the boys’ heads quite waked up the slumberers in the seats nearer the pulpit. One hears of a clerk putting a stop to what he considered an unnecessary afternoon service and saying to the clergyman, “We ha’en’t no call to hev sarvice just for you and me, sir.” “Oh, but I thought I saw some people coming in.” “Just a parcel of boys, sir; but I soon started they.” But it is not the clerks only who show an intelligent interest in the parson and the services, though from generations of somewhat slovenly performance, the churchgoers had difficulty at first in appreciating the high-church ritual which here and there they saw for the first time. One kindly old woman on seeing in one of the Fen churches some unexpected genuflexions and bows, said afterwards, “I _was_ sorry for poor Mr. C., he was that bad of his inside that he couldn’t howd hissen up.” And another I knew of who, when asked how they got on with the new ritualistic clergyman, and whether he hadn’t introduced some new methods, replied, “Oh, yis, he antics a bit; but we looves him soä we antics along wi’ him.”

[Sidenote: BURGH-LE-MARSH]

From Croft we turn north to _Burgh-le-Marsh_ (SS. Peter and Paul) whose fine lofty tower, with its grand peal of eight bells, stands on the extreme edge of the Wold and overlooks the marsh, and, like “Boston Stump,” is visible far out to sea, The exterior is very fine, and the church, like Croft, has retained its chancel, so ruthlessly destroyed in the case of Addlethorpe and Ingoldmells. The nave is wide and lofty, but the pillars poor. It is all Perpendicular, and has much interesting screen work which has been a good deal pulled about, even as late as 1865, the year in which similar destruction was wrought at Ingoldmells. The rood screen now stands across the tower arch, and the chancel screen is a patchwork. There are two porches, north and south, the latter of brick, a good pulpit and a canopied font-cover which opens with double doors, dated 1623. On the north aisle wall is a plain brass plate with the following dialogue in Latin hexameters:—

Quis jacet hic? Leonardus Palmerus Generosus. Quae conjux dilecta fuit? Catherina. Quis haeres? Christopherus (cui nupta Anna est). Quis filius alter? Robertus. Gnatae quot erant? Tres, Elizabetha Ac Maria, ac Helena. An superant? Superant. Ubi mens est Defuncti? Rogitas. Dubio procul astra petivit. obiit Die Martis octavo Anno Domi 1610. ætatis suæ 70.

Who lies here? Leonard Palmer, Gentleman. Who was his beloved wife? Catherine. Who his heir? Christopher (whose wife was Anna). Who was his second son? Robert. How many daughters were there? Three, Elizabeth and Mary and Helen. Are they living? Yes. Where is the spirit of the departed? You ask. Doubtless it has sought the stars. He died Mar. 8, 1610, aged 70.

[Sidenote: BRATOFT]

At Burgh the straight road from Skegness to Gunby turns to the left to pass through _Bratoft_. This church with picturesque ivy-clad tower has a good font, a chancel and parclose screens, and the rood-loft doorway. It has been well restored in memory of C. Massingberd, Squire of Gunby, and contains a very curious painting on wood which now hangs in the tower; it was once over the chancel arch, and by its irregular shape it is clear that it was originally made to fit elsewhere. It is signed Robert Stephenson. The Armada is shown as a red dragon, between four points of land marked England, Scotland, Ireland and France with the following lines:—

Spaine’s proud Armado with great strength and power Great Britain’s state came gapeing to devour, This dragon’s guts, like Pharoa’s scattered hoast Lay splitt and drowned upon the Irish coast. For of eight score save too ships sent from Spaine But twenty-five scarce sound returned again non Nobis Domine.

Bratoft Hall, the residence of the Bratofts and Massingberds, was built in a square moated enclosure of two acres, which stood in a deer park of two hundred acres. It was taken down in 1698, and the Hall at Gunby built about the same time. The bridge over the moat of two brick arches was standing in 1830 intact.

[Sidenote: GUNBY]

The twisting byeways lead from here back into the Skegness, Burgh, and Spilsby road. The Hall at _Gunby_[22] is a fine brick mansion, the home of the Massingberds. A pretty little church stands in the park, in which are two very valuable brasses of the Massingberd family, one dated 1405, of a knight, Sir Thomas, in camail and pointed Bascinet, and his lady Johanna, in a tight dress and mantle. The other of William Lodyngton, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, in his judicial robes, 1419. The Massingberd brass has had its incised inscription beaten out, and, with a new inscription in raised letters, has been made to serve for another Thomas and Johanna Massingberd in 1552, the figures, costumed as in 1400, serving for their parsimonious descendants of 150 years later. A precisely similar case of appropriation by two Dallisons with dates 1400 and 1546 and 1549, may be seen in Laughton church near Gainsborough; and again on a stone slab of the Watson family in Lyddington, Rutland. About 1800 Elizabeth Massingberd, sole heiress of Gunby, married her neighbour, Peregrine Langton, son of Bennet Langton, the friend of Dr. Johnson, who on marriage took the name of Massingberd. Their grandson was the Algernon Massingberd, born 1828, who left England in 1852, and since June, 1855, was never again heard of. In 1862 his uncle, Charles Langton Massingberd, took possession of the estate.

From Gunby various small by-roads lead literally in all directions; you can take your choice of eight within half a mile of the park gates, and Burgh station, on the Boston and Grimsby line, is only just outside the boundary.

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