CHAPTER XXXII

ROADS FROM SPILSBY

Road to Louth—Partney—Dr. Johnson—His letter on Death of Peregrine Langton—Dalby—Langton and Saucethorpe—View from Keal Hill with Boston Stump—“Stickfoot Stickknee and Stickneck”—The Hundleby Miracle—Raithby—Mavis Enderby—Lusby—Hameringham—The Hourglass Stand—Winceby—Horncastle—The Horse Fair—The Sleaford Road—Hagnaby—East Kirkby—Miningsby—Revesby Abbey—Moorby—Wood Enderby—Haltham—Tumby Wood—Coningsby—Tattershall—Billinghay—Haverholme Priory.

The four roads from Spilsby go north to Louth, and south to Boston, each sixteen miles; east to Wainfleet, eight miles; and west to Horncastle, ten miles. The Wainfleet one we have already described and two-thirds of that from Louth. The remaining third, starting from Spilsby, only goes through two villages—Partney and Dalby. _Partney_ lies low in the valley of Tennyson’s “Cold rivulet,” and those who have driven across the flat meadows between the village and the mill after sundown know how piercingly cold it always seems.

The place has a very long history. Bede, who died in 725, writing twelve hundred years ago and speaking of the Christianising of Northumbria by Paulinus, who was consecrated Bishop of York in 625, and his visit to the province of Lindissi, _i.e._, “the parts of Lindsey” and Lincoln in

## particular, says that the Abbot of Peartaney (= Partney, near Spilsby,

which was a cell of Bardney) spoke to him once of a man called Deda, who was afterwards, in 730, Abbot of Bardney and a very truthful man, “presbyter veracissimus,” and said that Deda told him that he had talked with an aged man who had been baptised by Bishop Paulinus in the presence of King Ædwin, in the middle of the day, and with him a multitude of people, in the River Treenta, near a city called in the language of the Angles, Tiovulfingaceaster; this was in 627. Many have taken the place to be Torksey, though that in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle is Turcesig. Green suggested it was at the ford of Farndon beyond Newark, but it was far more likely to be at Littleborough Ferry, two miles north of Torksey, where the Roman road (“Till bridge Lane”) from Lincoln crossed the river. But certainly Torksey is the nearest point of the river to Lincoln, and the Fossdyke went to it, as well as a road, so that communication was easy and inexpensive, and on the whole I should be inclined to say that Torksey was the place of baptism.

[Sidenote: PARTNEY]

But to return to Partney. In addition to its being a ‘cell’ of Bardney Abbey, we know there was a very fine hospital at Partney, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, before 1138, and among the tombs recently uncovered at Bardney is one of Thomas Clark, rector of Partney, 1505. It appears to have been a market town when Domesday Book was compiled, at a time when Spilsby was of no account; but the Black Death in 1349 or the plague in 1631, when Louth registered 500 deaths in two months, and in the Alford neighbourhood Willoughby also suffered, severely decimated the place, and tradition has it that some clothing dug up eighty years after burial caused a fresh and violent outbreak. Whenever it happened, for no records exist, the consequence was that the glory of Partney as the next market town to Bolingbroke departed, and Spilsby grew as Partney dwindled. Of course the healthy situation of Spilsby had much to do with it. Yet Partney still retains the two sheep fairs on August 1 for fat lambs and September 19 for sheep, and they are the biggest sheep fairs in the neighbourhood. Two other fairs take place, on August 25 and at Michaelmas, and it is noticeable that three of the four are held on the eve of the festivals of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen. In 1437 we find that Matilda, wife of Thomas Chaucer, the eldest son of the poet, had a share of an eighteenth part of the Partney market tolls. Fine brasses to her and her husband exist in Ewelme church, near Oxford. On fair days sheep are penned all along the streets and in adjoining fields, and “Beast” on the second day are standing for half a mile down the Scremby road.

The church is dedicated to St. Nicolas, the most popular of all church patrons, who was Bishop of Myra in Lycia in the fourth century. As patron of fishermen he has many sea coast churches, and he is also the peculiar saint of children, who know him by his Dutch name of Santa Klaus. One of the oldest oaks in England is in the churchyard. The chiming church clock, put in in 1869, is a monument to the skill of a clever amateur, Sidney Maddison, Esq., who fitted it with “Dennison’s three-legged escapement,” which was then a new and ingenious invention of the late Lord Grimthorpe.

[Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON]

In 1764 Dr. Johnson walked over from _Langton_ with his friend, Bennet Langton, to see Bennet’s Uncle Peregrine. He died two years later aged eighty-four, and the doctor wrote to his friend: “In supposing that I should be more than commonly affected by the death of Peregrine Langton you were not mistaken: he was one of those I loved at once by instinct and by reason. I have seldom indulged more hope of anything than of being able to improve our acquaintance to friendship. Many a time have I placed myself again at Langton, and imagined the pleasure with which I should walk to Partney in a summer morning, but this is no longer possible. We must now endeavour to preserve what is left us, his example of piety and economy. I hope you make what enquiries you can and write down what is told you. The little things which distinguish domestic character are soon forgotten: if you delay to enquire you will have no information: if you neglect to write, information will be in vain. His art of life certainly deserves to be known and studied. He lived in plenty and elegance upon an income which to many would appear indigent, and to most, scanty. How he lived, therefore, every man has an interest in knowing. His death I hope was peaceful: it was surely happy.”

After Partney the road goes up the hill to _Dalby_. Here the old house where Tennyson’s aunt, Mrs. Bourne, lived, was burnt down in 1841, and the thatched barn-like church swept away in 1862. The charm of the present house lies in its beautiful garden.

Having got on to the chalk wold a fine view opens over the wide vale to the left as far as the next ridge, which stretches from Spilsby to Hagworthingham. About a mile further on, a road goes sharply down to the left into Langton, and across a watersplash to Colonel Swan’s residence at _Sausthorpe_, where again we find cross-roads near the pretty little church built by Gilbert Scott, with a crocketed spire, the only spire in the neighbourhood. The roads lead back to Partney, on to Raithby over the stream, to Horncastle and to Harrington, all by-ways. But to return to our Spilsby and Louth highway. From the turn to Langton we keep rising and see some tumuli on our left, and then another left turn to Brinkhill, where, from a steep and curiously scarped hillside, roads descend right and left to Ormsby and Harrington; but we will keep on the highway for another mile till we find that the Louth road by Haugh goes off to the left, and the Roman road to Burgh to the right, and the way straight forward comes to Well Vale and Milecross hill, and so drops into Alford. The rest of the road to Louth we have described in the Louth chapter.

[Sidenote: KEAL HILL]

The other roads from Spilsby are, south to Boston and west to Horncastle. The Boston road is noticeable for the wonderful view of the fen, with the “Stump” standing far up into the sky, which you get from Keal Hill, where the green-sand ends and the road drops into a plain which is without a hill or even a rise for the next fifty or sixty miles. After Keal the road passes by _Stickford_, _Stickney_ and _Sibsey_—the last having a very handsome transition Norman tower, and a ring of eight bells—and comes into Boston by Wide Bargate. The road is uninteresting throughout, and so monotonous that a story is told of someone driving in a coach in years gone by, when roads were deep and miry, who put his head out and asked the name of each place they came to. “What is this?” “Stickford, sir.” “And this?” “Stickney, sir.” “Stick-foot! Stick-knee! we shall come to Stick-neck next; you had better turn back.”

[Illustration: _Sibsey._]

[Sidenote: WESLEY’S CHAPEL]

[Sidenote: LUSBY]

The Horncastle road from Spilsby goes out along the green-sand by _Hundleby_, from the tower of which I remember a man falling to the ground and receiving no hurt at all, the nearest approach to a miracle any one need wish to experience. Much of the money for the re-building of the church was raised by the untiring industry and beautiful needlework of Mrs. Ed. Rawnsley of Raithby; for _Raithby_, with its pretty broken ground and ornamental water and its beautifully kept church filled with good modern glass, was for half a century the home of the Rev. Edward Rawnsley. The old stable adjoins the churchyard, and by an anomalous arrangement the loft over the stable is fitted up as a Wesleyan chapel, the use of it for that purpose having been granted _in perpetuo_ to John Wesley by his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Carr Brackenbury. The road goes on straight from here by _Hagworthingham_ or turns to the left to _Mavis Enderby_, and so strikes a parallel route, both of them unite at the top of the hill which runs down by High Toynton into Horncastle. The name _Mavis_ was originally Malbyse, a name more characteristic than complimentary, for it means evil beast. The word byse, or bys, exists in Bison, and the name of the unpleasant one is found again in the village of Acaster Malbis, near York. There is nothing of special interest on the “Hag” road, but the Mavis Enderby road leads us to Lusby and Winceby; of these _Lusby_ has a most interesting little church, thoroughly well restored, with a good deal of Norman work and some unmistakable Saxon work in it. There are two blocked doorways on the north-west, one with Norman zigzag moulding in green-sand showing how durable a material it is when properly laid and not exposed to wet. Some singular arcading of a very early type is seen on the west of the walls on either side of the round-headed chancel arch, which is not in the centre of the wall. It has been renewed in green-sand of various colours. This work may have been Saxon, for there was a church here when Domesday Book was written, and there is certainly a definite bit of “Long and Short” work on the right hand side of the blocked south doorway, and a fragment of a Saxon stone inside, closely resembling the Miningsby Stone, but it is difficult to speak with certainty, as the early Normans made use of Saxon ornamentation. Outside there are two courses of big basement stones running on both sides of the nave—one bevelled and set back a little. Inside is a low-side window, two or three aumbreys, two arched recesses for tombs, a niche near the chancel arch, and a very good stone head of a queen projecting from the south-east window in the nave. There is also a remarkable little “Keyhole” window high up in the north wall of the chancel. The masonry is rough and amorphous, but very solid. The old rood-screen of three arches is very handsome. Under the Communion table is a sepulchral slab with an inscription in old lettering, mostly obliterated, from which the brass tablet has been removed and put up on the wall. It is singular, being a dialogue between a deceased wife and her husband:—

[SHE] My fleshe in hope doth rest and slepe In earth here to remain; My spirit to Christ I give to kepe Till I do rise againe.

[HE] And I with you in hope agre Though I yet here abide; In full purpose if Goddes will be To ly doune by your side.

Going on two miles along the Roman road to Horncastle we come to _Hameringham_. Here, as at _Lusby_, there is no tower, but a little slated bell-turret. Two large arches and one beautiful little pointed arch at the west end on small octagonal pillars divide the nave from the aisle. The western pillar is of the local green-sand, and dates from the thirteenth century. The other pillar is of whitish stone, and the small eastern respond is of the same. These date from the fourteenth century, and have boldly foliaged capitals. Close together on the abacus are two distinct marks of bullets which must have come in through the aisle window. There is a good fifteenth century font, and on the Jacobean pulpit is the original hour-glass stand, and with an old church hour-glass in it. These stands are still to be seen at Bracebridge, Leasingham, Sapperton and Belton in the Isle of Axholme. The traces of a blocked priest’s door are visible on the north side. Oddly enough the dressings of the porch, etc., are of red sandstone from Dumfries. It is a good hard stone, but there is much to be said for always, if possible, using the stone of the country.

[Sidenote: WINCEBY FIGHT]

[Sidenote: HORNCASTLE]

The next village is _Winceby_, where “Slash Lane” commemorates the place of Cromwell’s cavalry-battle in 1643. In the south chapel of _Horncastle_ church, some four miles on, we shall see a goodly array of scythes on long straight handles, which are said to have been used with deadly effect in this fight. This church has five three-light clerestory windows on each side of the nave, but in the chancel, six on the south and only five on the north side, the eastmost one being larger than the rest. There is an outside belfry staircase with a cone to it built against the middle of the south wall of the tower. Inside, the pilasters of the tower arch die away into the arch moulding without capitals. The brass in the north wall, to Lionel Dymoke, is remarkable (date 1519); and in the north chapel a tomb to Sir Ingram Hopton “who paid his debt to Nature and duty to his King and Country in the attempt of seizing the arch rebel in the bloody skirmish near Winceby, October 6, 1643.” This should be October 11. The arch rebel was Cromwell, who was unhorsed and nearly taken prisoner by Sir Ingram. He afterwards slept at Horncastle in a house in West Street. This battle secured Lindsey and the Wolds for Cromwell, Boston and the Fens were never Royalist. The River Bain, which rises in Kelston near the Louth and Rasen road, gave its name to the Roman station of Banovallum. It flows through Gayton-le-Wold, Biscathorpe, Donington-on-Bain and Goulceby to Horncastle, and out by Coningsby and Tattershall to the River Witham, and it makes a peninsula at Horncastle, whence the name of Hyrn-ceaster, = the camp at the horn or bend. Portions of a Roman wall still exist near the market-place, and at the south-west corner of the churchyard. The manor was sold in 1230 to the Bishop of Carlisle for the use of the see; it served as a refuge when border invasions made the diocese of Carlisle undesirable as a peaceful home, and during the fourteenth century was the usual episcopal residence.

The celebrated horse fair is not what it used to be. Lincoln fair is more accessible, and is now the more important of the two. But it still affords two or three days of wild excitement, with horses tearing about the streets. At one time the fair lasted three weeks. August was a thirsty month, and the number of beer-houses had to be increased _pro. tem._ to meet the need of both buyers and sellers; so five-shilling licenses were issued called bush or bough licenses, a bush being hung out for a sign, a custom once common in England and still prevalent on the Continent. Hence, the proverb, “Good wine needs no bush,” _i.e._, no advertisement. The Hon. Edward Stanhope of Revesby, who was Minister for War in 1868, has a statue in the market-place, near the house in which the Sellwoods lived, two of whom, Louisa and Emily, married Charles and Alfred Tennyson.

Leaving the market-place for the Lincoln road you pass what is an unusual feature in a town—an elm tree overhanging the street, and having in it several rooks’ nests. It is near the “Fighting Cocks” inn. There is a similar tree loaded with nests in the town of Staines.

When the river was used for navigation there was a high arched bridge with a towing-path under it, and the bridge, though now flat, is still called “the bow bridge.”

At that time the church was filled with box pews and lofts, and the front row of pews in the lofts were sold to different families by auction and would fetch as much as £80, the second row reaching £40. But though there were ardent churchgoers in the town, the villages around were very indifferently served, having in quite a dozen instances in that one neighbourhood no parsonage house and consequently no resident parson.

It is interesting to know that a good deal of the carving in the church was done less than fifty years ago by a carpentry class of young men who took lessons for the purpose from a clever carver called Thomas Scrivener.

But we have one other road to speak of, which is the way from Spilsby to Sleaford.

The Boston road from Spilsby, after it reaches the edge of the green-sand, where it suddenly breaks down at West Keal into the level fen, divides at the foot of the hill, and the right-hand road goes westwards by Hagnaby, East Kirkby, Revesby, Coningsby, Tattershall and Billinghay to Sleaford. This is all a level road. _Hagnaby Priory_, two miles from West Keal, is the residence of Mrs. Pocklington Coltman. The house is modern, in fact, there never was a priory here, but near Alford there was once an abbey of Hagnaby, so the name is suggestive of Priors.

[Sidenote: EAST KIRKBY]

Another two miles brings us to _East Kirkby_; the turn to the right takes us to the church which, having been entrusted to the capable hands of Mr. W. D. Caröe, is a model of what church restoration should be. He has put square-headed clerestory windows in the chancel with good effect. The tower has a beautiful two-light early Decorated window. The piers of the nave are remarkably slender. There is a good font, and the early Perpendicular rood screen is a very graceful one. In the north wall of the chancel is a two-light low-side window and a curious recess, possibly an Easter Sepulchre. It is covered with diaper work, and with wild geranium, oak leaves and acorns excellently carved in stone, and below this, some half-figures of the three Maries, each holding a heart-shaped casket, of spices perhaps for embalming. A basin projecting from the front is thought to have been a receptacle for the Easter offerings. A similar basin, as Mr. Jeans in Murray’s Guide points out, is attached to the tomb of Edward II. at Gloucester. A little further on is the tiny church of _Miningsby_, only to be approached by footpaths over grass fields. It has in it a pre-Norman slab of very uncommon character with figure-of-eight intertwined knot work and a herring-bone border. A fragment with similar figure-of-eight work is in Mavis Enderby church, on a coped stone which has been cut to make a door-step, and a smaller bit like it is in Lusby church—probably all the work of the same Saxon mason. In a house near the church is a stone with the initials “L. G., 1544,” which must refer to the Goodrich family; for East Kirkby was the birthplace of Thomas Goodrich, Bishop of Ely, 1534, Lord Chancellor, 1550, and coadjutor in the first Communion Office with Cranmer.

[Sidenote: REVESBY]

The next place on the Spilsby and Sleaford road is _Revesby Abbey_ (Hon. R. Stanhope), a fine deer park with a modern house, built by J. Banks-Stanhope, Esq., 1848. The previous house had been the residence of the great naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., who died in 1820, and took part with Rennie in devising and carrying out the drainage of the East Fen. The abbey, founded in 1143 by W. de Romara, Earl of Lincoln, was colonised from Rievaulx, and was itself the parent of Cleeve Abbey in Somerset. The abbey was a quarter of a mile south-east of the present church, in which are preserved the few fragments now extant of a building which was once 120 feet long and sixty feet wide. The Hon. Edward Stanhope in 1870 discovered the tombs and bodies of the founder and his two sons. The founder, who had become a monk, had requested to be buried “before the high Altar,” and his tomb was inscribed, “Hic jacet in tumba Wiellielmus de Romare, comes Lincolniae, Fundator istius Monasterii Sancti Laurentii de Reivisbye.” The site of his re-burial is marked by a granite stone. Among the abbey deeds is one by which the Lady Lucia’s second husband, Ranulph Earl of Chester, gives to the abbey “his servant Roger son of Thorewood of Sibsey with all his property and chatells.” I don’t suppose that Roger found the abbey folk bad to work for; they certainly did much for the good of the neighbourhood, notably in keeping up the roads and bridges, which was one of the recognised duties of religious houses; but all this came to an end when in 1539, like so many other Lincolnshire estates, it was granted by Henry VIII. to his brother-in-law the Duke of Suffolk. The Duke died in 1545, and was buried at Windsor; his two sons both died in one day, July 16, 1551, in the Bishop of Lincoln’s house at Buckden.

The road past the park gates is very wide, with broad grass borders on either side, and a fine row of wych elms bordering the park, at each end of which are some model farm buildings of the best Lincolnshire kind; and, to take us more than a thousand years back, we have two large tumuli quite close to the road. There were three, but one, after being examined by Sir Joseph Banks in 1780, was levelled in 1892; later the existing two were explored and one was found to contain a clay sarcophagus, which possibly once contained the remains of a British king.

[Sidenote: MOORBY]

Just past the tumuli is the inn, at the four cross-roads. That to the left runs absolutely straight for eleven miles to Boston; to the right is the Horncastle road through Moorby and Scrivelsby, with the barn-like church of _Wilksby_ in a grass field behind Moorby. Both these churches have good fonts; that at _Moorby_ is the later of the two, having two crowned and two mitred heads at the four corners, and with very remarkable figures of the Virgin and Child learning, with open book and scourge; the sun and moon being depicted on either side looking on complacently, evidently they had never heard of the Montessori system, also there are six kneeling figures and two angels watching the dead body of the donor. A stone in the vestry, about fourteen inches by eight, exhibits two women and a man vigorously dancing hand in hand to the bagpipes, all in fifteenth century head-dresses and costumes. Moorby is in the gift of the Bishop of Manchester, it having been assigned presumably by Carlisle when the new see was carved out of parts of older ones. How Carlisle came to have patronage here may be briefly told. On St. George’s Day, April 23—a day memorable as the birth and death day of Shakespeare, and the death day of Wordsworth—in the year 1292, John-de-Halton, who may well have come of the family who gave the name to Halton Holgate near Spilsby, being then Canon of Carlisle, was elected bishop. Within a month, a fire having destroyed the cathedral and all the town, he set to work and rebuilt the cathedral, and encouraged others to rebuild the town; and by the year 1297 Robert Bruce swore fealty to the king in his presence in the newly risen pile. He was a man of mark, and was mediator between Edward I. and John of Balliol in the claim to the Scottish throne. He planned Rose Castle, the palace of the Bishops of Carlisle. In 1307 he received at his cathedral, from the sick king’s hands, the horse-litter which had brought him to the north; and within a few days saw the king, who had bravely mounted his charger at the cathedral door, borne back a dead man on the shoulders of his knights from Burgh Marsh (pronounced Berg) on the Solway shore. In 1318 he was driven from his diocese by Robert the Bruce, and came to the manor of Horncastle, which, as mentioned above, had belonged to the see since 1230, and got the Pope to attach the living of Horncastle and with it that of Moorby and probably some others to his see as a means of support for him whilst in exile and poverty, and up to the middle of last century Horncastle so remained, whilst Moorby is now in the gift of the Bishop of Manchester. John de Halton died in the year 1324.

[Illustration: _Coningsby._]

[Sidenote: WOOD ENDERBY AND HALTHAM]

[Sidenote: CONINGSBY]

If we went west from Moorby we should pass by _Wood Enderby_, the only church in this neighbourhood with a spire, as Sausthorpe is in the Spilsby neighbourhood, and should reach _Haltham_ on the road from Horncastle to Coningsby. Here the small church with its old oak seats has an early Norman doorway with a quaintly carved tympanum. Going north from Moorby we should pass Scrivelsby, but this must have a chapter to itself, so we will get back to the main road at Revesby and go through _Mareham-le-fen_ to _Coningsby_, passing _Tumby_ Wood, the home of the wild lily-of-the-valley and the rare little smilacina or _Maianthemum bifolium_, which also grows near Horncastle. Across the entrance to Coningsby, the Great Northern Railway Company have just built a new line from Lincoln to Skegness, by which tens of thousands of “trippers” will be taken for a shilling and turned out to enjoy the sea shore and the splendid expanse of hard sand. Skegness, once a delightful solitude, is now disfigured by all that appertains to those who cater for the hungry multitudes.

[Illustration: _Tattershall and Coningsby._]

[Sidenote: HAVERHOLME PRIORY]

From the bridge over the Bain at the other end of Coningsby village a pretty picture of water and willows is crowned by the view of Tattershall church and castle, both of which are described later. _Coningsby_ church, built, like Tattershall, all of Ancaster stone, has a singular tower which stands on tall arches and allows free passage under it from three sides. In the west of this tower is a large circular window. Passing through _Tattershall_ village with its open space and market cross, near which three roads meet, and where the Horncastle canal unites the Bain and Witham, we cross the Lincoln and Boston railway, and also the River Witham which, from the next station of Dogdyke, was cut straight by Rennie, and runs like a great dyke to Langrick, and then with only two bends to Boston. At Dogdyke is a bit of undrained swamp, the home of several good bog-plants, such as the bladderwort, water-violet, meadow-rue (Ophelia’s “Herb o’ Grace”) and the bog-stitchwort. The road on to Sleaford, across the fen for fourteen miles, is quite uninteresting, except for the very Dutch appearance of the village of _Billinghay_ on the banks of a large drain called the Billinghay Skirth, near which, at _North Kyme_, we pass alongside the old Roman Carr Dyke, and, crossing it, arrive at _Anwick_, which has a pretty church with broach spire and good Early English doorway. Here, on our left, on the River Slea, is _Haverholme Priory_ (Countess of Winchelsea), founded 1137 by Bishop Alexander, who afterwards moved the rheumatic Monks to Louth Park, and gave the priory to his chaplain Gilbert, founder of the order of Gilbertines, who had also a priory at Alvingham near Louth. There is nothing left of the priory, in which it is said that Archbishop Thomas à Becket once took refuge from Henry II. Four more miles bring us to Sleaford, whose spire has long been visible across the flats.

[Illustration: _Tattershall Church._]

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