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.
CHAPTER XXIX
CHURCHES IN SOUTH LINDSEY
Spilsby to Wainfleet—Little
Steeping—Tomas-de-Reding—Monksthorpe—The Baptists—Thomas
Grantham—Firsby—Thorpe—Churchwarden’s Book—The
“Dyxonary”—Wainfleet—William of Waynflete—Halton Holgate—Sire
Walter Bec—Village Carpentry.
The record of the churches in the marsh land of the South Lindsey
division would not be complete without some mention of Wainfleet. The
Somersby brook, which, winding “with many a curve” through Partney
and Halton, becomes at last “the Steeping river,” is thence cut into
a straight canal as far as Wainfleet, and then, resuming its proper
river-character, goes out through the flats at Wainfleet Haven, near that
positive end of the world, “Gibraltar Point.”
_Little Steeping_ has just undergone a most satisfactory restoration in
memory of its once rector, Bishop Steere, who succeeded Bishop Tozer of
Burgh-le-Marsh as the third missionary bishop in Central Africa, and
there did a great work as a missionary, and also built the first Central
African cathedral in what had previously been the greatest slave market
of the world—Zanzibar. The restorers have had a most interesting find
this year (1912), for the chancel step, when taken up, proved to be the
back of a fine recumbent effigy of a fourteenth century rector. Doubtless
the monument was taken from the arched recess in the north wall of the
chancel and thus hidden to save it from destruction in the sixteenth or
seventeenth century. The masons who fitted it into its new bed had no
scruple in knocking off the inscribed moulding on one side, and a bit of
the carved stone got broken off and was found in the rectory garden.
[Sidenote: LITTLE STEEPING]
The figure represents a robed priest, with feet curiously clothed in what
look like socks. The face is good and in excellent preservation. The
work was probably local, for the ear is of enormous size. The mutilated
inscription read originally: “Tomas de Red_ing priez qe Dieu pour sa
grace_ de sa alme eyt merci.” The letters in italics are missing. Thomas
de Reding was presented to Little Steeping in 1328. There is a very good
font, and the south porch outer arch is remarkable for the very unusual
depth of its hollowed moulding on both of the outer porch pilasters. The
canopied work over the head of the inner doorway is good, but quite of a
different character, and the wide projection of the north arcade capitals
is noticeable. A stone on the outer wall marked “1638 W P & R G” gives
the date of a destructive restoration, when tomb slabs were cut up for
window-sills and some ruthless patchwork put in on the north side of
both aisle and chancel. A good rood screen with canopy has been put in,
old work being used where possible, and a new churchyard cross erected
on the old base, with figures of St. Andrew and the Crucifixion, under a
canopy like that at Somersby. The octagonal font in rich yellow stone has
figures difficult to make out, and a small niche over the north-east pier
of the nave arcade is to be noted; probably it contained some relic or
image. The stone brackets for the rood loft remain, but there is no trace
left of the staircase. The seats and pulpit of dark stained deal are
interesting, as they were all made by Bishop Steere himself. The tower is
patched with the old two-inch bricks, which always look well, and with
some of the larger modern kind, which seldom do.
Our best way now is to return to the Spilsby-and-Firsby road at _Great
Steeping_, which will take us past _Irby_ to _Thorpe-St.-Peter_ and
_Wainfleet_.
[Sidenote: THE BAPTISTS]
The hamlet of _Monksthorpe_ in Great Steeping parish indicates by its
name the fact that Bardney Abbey had an estate here. No trace now remains
of the manor built by Robert de Waynflete, when he retired in 1317 from
the abbey and had the proceeds of the estates in Steeping and Firsby and
two cells in Partney and Skendleby assigned to him for the maintenance
and clothing of himself and family. But part of the moat is visible,
and one may see here in a chapel enclosure a baptist’s pool bricked
and railed round on three sides with one end open and sloping to the
water, for the Baptists walked into the pool and did not believe in the
efficacy of infant baptism. This was doubtless one of the places which
was ministered to by the famous leader of the “General Baptist Church”
who suffered such shameful and repeated persecution in the days of
Cromwell and Charles II., Thomas Grantham, for he was a native of Halton,
where the name still exists, and throughout a long life showed himself
a man of a truly religious and eminently courageous heart, of whom his
native village may well be proud. He died in 1692, aged seventy-eight, at
Norwich, and was buried inside the church of St. Stephen, as a memorial
to him set up therein states, “to prevent the indecencies threatened to
his corpse,” such as, we read on a tombstone in Croft churchyard, had
been perpetrated on the body of his friend and fellow-Baptist, Robert
Shalders, whose body was disinterred on the very day of his funeral by
inhabitants of Croft, and dragged on a sledge and left at his own gates.
Doubtless the clergyman was privy to this, so hot was the feeling for
religious persecution in those days, and took credit to himself for it,
for in the parish book of Croft we may read as follows:—
“Dec 20th, 1663. These persons here underwritten, viz. Roger
Faune, Gent., Robert Shalders, Anne Montgomerie, Cicilie
Barker, Alice Egger, were excommunicated in the parish church
of Croft the day and year above written,
“per me R. Clarke Curate Ibid
Philip Neave ⎫
John Wells ⎭ Churchwardens.”
[Sidenote: THORPE]
[Sidenote: CHURCHWARDEN’S BOOK]
Two miles east of Steeping a good road to the right goes to _Firsby_,
where is a small church built by Mr. G. E. Street to show how an entirely
satisfactory building adapted to the needs of quite a small parish could
be put up at a very small cost. The whole church cost under £1,000,
and was built in less than six months, and opened November 5, 1857. In
_Thorpe_ we find a graceful font, a well-carved Perpendicular screen and
a good Jacobean pulpit. The place belonged after the Conquest to the Kyme
family. The Thorpe churchwardens’ book commences in 1545, and in 1546
contains such items as these about the rood light and the light in the
Easter Sepulchre:
“Anᵒ regᵒ regˢ Hen. VIII, xxxvij.
“By thys dothe ytt appr what Symon Wylly̅son & Roger
Hopster hath payᵈ & layd for the cherche cocernyng the
rode lyght & ye Sepulture lyght in ye xxxvj yere of ye rene
off ower Soffera̅t lorde king He̅r̅y ye viij.
fyrst payd by yᵉ hands off yᵉ forsayd Rogʳ for
one powd waxe makyng and a half agenst
lent j½d
Item payd to Gu̅rwycke Wyffe for brede and
ale to ye waxe makyng for yᵉ supulture lyght xiiijd
Item payd for j powde waxe maykyng for the
rode lyght aga̅s̅t estʳ jd
Item payd to yᵉ clark for kepping off yᵉ sepulture
lyght ijd.”
In the reign of Edward VI the churchwardens seem to have had a jumble
sale of all the odds and ends in the church, which they called the
“offalment” or rubbish.
“Anᵒ Reg E. VIᵗⁱ Vᵗᵒ.
“Howffulment in the church soulde & delyvered by ye hands of
John Greene & Robert Emme cherche masters.”
Amongst the various items of metal and woodwork, vestments, chests,
books, &c., we have:—
“Item off John Wolbe yᵉ elder for an Albe and an old
pantyd cloth iiijˢ
Item to John Wolbe all yᵉ boks in yᵉ cherche ijˢ iiijᵈ
Item sowlde to Wᵐ Keele ij altar clothes, a robe vˢ
Item sowlde to Sir John Westmels curate, ij robes iiijˢ
Item Sowlde Wᵐ Sawer ij corporaxs[23] wᵗ otre ofelment iijˢ vijiᵈ”
They were probably restoring their church, for we have two years later:—
“Itᵐ pᵈ for a wayn and iiij beasts for sand to the cherche viijᵈ”
This was in the first and second year of Queen Mary, and they were then
busy putting back what they had sold in Edward’s reign, making side
altars, etc., hence we find:—
“Itᵐ pᵈ for yᵉ clothe yᵉ roode was paynted on xiiijᵈ
Itᵐ pᵈ for paentyng off the roode ijˢ viijᵈ
Itᵐ pᵈ to yᵉ man that mayd the syd aulters in wageys xijᵈ
Itᵐ pᵈ to Thomas hymlyn Wyffe for meat & dryncke too them
that mayd the saide aulters ijˢ viijᵈ
Itᵐ pᵈ to yᵉ man that makg. the Roode in prte of paementt xijᵈ”
Other interesting items are—
“Itᵐ payd to yᵉ players off ca̅dylmesse day viijᵈ
Itᵐ payd in yᵉ same year to yᵉ players whytche playd off yᵉ
Sonday next after Sant Mathyes day vjᵈ”
One might make quite an amusing “story of a dictionary” from the various
entries in the Thorpe churchwardens’ book about an Elliott’s Dictionary
which, in the middle of the sixteenth century the vicar bequeathed to
his successors _in perpetuo_. It is described as “one boke called a
dyxonary,” and evidently exercised both vicar and wardens a good deal
until one vicar bethought him of the device of “delivering” it to the
parish to be kept along with various volumes of homilies, and expositions
and the paraphrases of Erasmus.
But it is time to leave Thorpe; and two miles will bring us to
_Wainfleet_ which, as its name declares, though now a couple of miles
from the sea, was once a haven for sea-going ships, for “Fleet” means
a navigable creek. This little place gave its name in the fifteenth
century to a great man, William of Wainfleet, or Waynflete, Headmaster
of Winchester, and first headmaster and Provost of Eton, successor to
Cardinal Beaufort as Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England
under Henry VI. He was a great builder, for he possibly planned, and
certainly completed, Tattershall Castle, built Tattershall church, and
founded Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1457, the first college to admit
commoners, a wise and far-seeing innovation of Waynflete’s; and in his
native town erected in 1484 the Magdalen College School, a fine brick
building seventy-six feet by twenty-six with its gateway flanked by
polygonal towers recalling the entrance to Eton College. In the south
tower is a remarkable staircase, and in the north a bell.
[Sidenote: WAINFLEET]
His adoption of St. Mary Magdalen as the patron of his school at
Wainfleet and his college at Oxford may have originated in his having
been appointed by Cardinal Beaufort to the mastership and chantry of St.
Mary Magdalen hospital on Magdalen Down outside Winchester.
The bishop lived to the reign of Richard III., and died in 1486. He
erected a monument to his father, Richard Patten. The son is called
either Patten or Barbour, for he bore both names indifferently, though he
soon discarded them both for the name of his birthplace, as was commonly
done from the eleventh to the sixteenth century; his brother also taking
the name of Waynflete. This monument was in the original church of All
Saints, for the second church of St. Thomas had long been destroyed. But
All Saints’ church, built cruciform and with a light wooden spire on
account of the soft nature of the soil on which it stood, was destined to
the same fate, for the foolish inhabitants having, in 1718, put a heavy
brick tower to it, with five bells in it, the weight brought a great part
of the building to ruin. Subsequently it was pulled down, and the present
church was set up at some distance from the old site in 1820, when the
inhabitants added vandalism to their folly and wantonly demolished this
fine tomb. The broken bits were collected and placed in the Magdalen
School, and later were, by the intervention of the rector of Halton
Holgate, Rev. T. H. Rawnsley, obtained for the President and Fellows of
the Bishop’s College at Oxford, and are now on the north side of the
altar in the College Chapel. The figure has its feet resting on a bank of
flowers and its head on a cushion and pillow supported by his two sons,
John the Monk and William the Bishop. The face of the latter resembles
the father, but is not so broad or so old as that of John. It is to be
noted that Lincolnshire has produced two Bishops of Winchester, each of
them the founder of a college at Oxford—Bishop Fox and Bishop Waynflete.
The town is older than Boston and existed in Roman days, possibly under
the name of Vannona, and apparently a Roman road ran from Doncaster to
Wainfleet, passing through Horncastle and Lusby. Certainly “Salters
road,” which crosses the East Fen, was a Roman road, and the Romans made
a good deal of salt from the sea-water in the immediate neighbourhood of
Wainfleet. In the charter rolls of Bardney Abbey (_temp._ Henry III.) we
read that Matthew, son of Milo de Wenflet, paid annually “to God, Saint
Oswald and the Monks of Bardney 4 shillings and eighteen sextaires of
salt by the old measure” for the land he held in the village of Friskney.
Later we find that (_temp._ Edward II.) Hugh le Despencer held lands in
Wainfleet in 1327, and we know that a Robert le Despencer did so in Burgh
in the time of Edward I. In the reign of Edward III. Wainfleet furnished
two ships and forty seamen for the invasion of Brittany.
_Wainfleet St. Mary’s_ lies one and a half miles to the south. The church
is a massive structure with five arches on the north and four on the
south of the nave.
We have now completed the round of the Marsh churches, and in so doing,
on leaving Gunby, we struck into the Spilsby and Wainfleet road, just
where the Somersby brook, there called the Halton river, is crossed by
an iron bridge. This we did not cross, but keeping always to the left
bank we followed the stream to Wainfleet. We must now go back and cross
this iron bridge, and trace the road thence for four miles and a half
to Spilsby. This will take us on to the Wold. We shall only pass one
village, but this is one of infinite charm.
[Sidenote: HALTON HOLGATE]
[Sidenote: THE HOLLOW-GATE BRIDGE]
_Halton Holgate_ stands on the very edge of the Wold, where the
green-sand terminates, and looks far across the Fen to Boston. The name
of the village is always properly pronounced by the natives Halton
Hollygate, _i.e._, hollow gate or way; for the descending road has been
cut through the green-sand rock, and where the cutting is deepest a
pretty timber footbridge is thrown over it, leading from the rectory to
the churchyard. The garden lawn has, or had, two fine old mulberry trees.
These were once more common—for in the reign of James I. an order went
out for the planting of mulberry trees in all rectory gardens with a view
to the encouragement of the silk trade by the breeding and feeding of
silkworms, whose favourite diet is the mulberry leaf. From the garden,
“Boston stump” is visible eighteen miles to the south. The church is a
particularly handsome one with massive well-proportioned tower, and large
belfry windows, eight three-light clerestory windows on either side and a
fine south porch of Ancaster stone. The rest is built of the beautifully
tinted local green-sand, with quoins of harder Clipsham stone. Inside it
is spacious, with lofty octagonal pillars. It is seated throughout with
oak, and has several good old oak poppy-heads and some large modern ones
copied from Winthorpe and carved by a Halton carpenter. Here it is worth
notice that for the last hundred years Halton has never been without
wood-workers of unusual talent.
[Illustration: _Bridge over the Hollow-Gate._]
[Sidenote: HALTON CHURCH]
South of the chancel two tall blocked arcades, leading to a Lady chapel
long pulled down, were opened by the Rev. T. Sale, rector in 1894, who
had reseated the chancel and filled the east window with good stained
glass. The chapel, which now holds the organ, was rebuilt in memory of
the two previous rectors, Rev. T. H. Rawnsley (1825-1861) and R. D.
B. Rawnsley (1861-1882), and their wives Sophia Walls and Catharine
Franklin. The fine effigy of a Crusader, called Henry de Halton, had
been buried for safety and forgotten, like that of the priest at Little
Steeping, and the sepulchral slab with Lombardic lettering, of Sir Walter
Bec, of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, is the oldest
monument in the neighbourhood. The inscription is: “Sire Walter Bec jist
ici de ki alme Dieu ait merci.” There is a fine peal of six bells, and a
“tingtang,” a thing very common in Lincolnshire, and reminiscent of the
pre-Reformation Sanctus bell.
We have so often seen, owing to the negligence of church authorities,
damp church walls, and wet streaming down from gutter or stack-pipe,
which is blocked with growing grass or sparrows’ nests, to the great
detriment of the building, that it is pleasant to record the useful
activity of the Halton churchwardens, of whom one has carved, and the
other put together, a fine oak screen, with the names and dates of all
the known rectors, churchwardens and clerks of the parish.
[Illustration: _Halton Church._]
In the north wall of the chancel is a priest’s door, which has always
been in constant use. It is a beautiful bit of Perpendicular work with
an exceptionally good hood-moulding and lovely carving of waved foliage
in the spandrels. These north side doors are sometimes called “Devils’
doors,” as they were not only to let the priest in but also to let the
Devil out, being left open at baptisms to let him fly out when the infant
renounces the Devil and all his works, and becomes the child of grace.
The idea that the north was the Devil’s side had possibly something to
do with the repugnance, hardly yet quite overcome, to a burial on that
side of the churchyard.
[Sidenote: LOCAL WORKMANSHIP]
An avenue of elms, planted by the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley about 1830,
starting from the “Church Wongs,”[24] leads past the tower at the west
to the Hollow-gate road, close to where a pit was dug by the roadside
to get the sandstone for repairing the tower; and to-day, as we pass
along to Spilsby, we shall see a wall of sandstone rock exposed on the
right of the road, and a lot of blocks cut out and hardening in the
air preparatory for use at Little Steeping, and we shall naturally be
reminded of the words of Isaiah, “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn,
and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.”
We have said that the restoration of Halton Holgate church was carried
out by the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley about 1845, and it is remarkable that
it was done so extremely well; for at that particular time the art of
architectural restoration was almost at its lowest. As far as they went
there were no mistakes made by the restorers at Halton, and the carved
work for the seats was copied from the best models to be seen in any
Lincolnshire church, and executed under the eye of the rector and his
son, Drummond Rawnsley, by a Halton carpenter. That is just as it should
be, and just as it used to be, but it is not often possible of attainment
now.
Jesus College chapel at Cambridge underwent a much needed restoration at
the same bad period, _i.e._, in 1849, and here too, by the genius of the
architect, excellent work was done, some good old carving being preserved
and very cleverly matched with new work well executed, and by a very
curious coincidence, the shape of some of the poppy-heads and the plan
of the panel carving is almost identical with that which was executed at
Halton, after the Winthorpe pattern.
CHAPTER XXX
SPILSBY AND ITS BYWAYS
Spilsby Market-town—The Churches and Willoughby Chapel—The
Franklins—The Talk of the Market—Lincolnshire Stories and
Others—Byways—Old Bolingbroke—Harrington Church—The Copledike
Tombs—The Hall—Bag-Enderby—Remarkable Font—Somersby—The
Churchyard Cross—The Brook—Ashby Puerorum.
[Sidenote: SPILSBY CHURCH]
Spilsby is the head of a petty-sessional division in the parts of
Lindsey. The name is thought by some to be a corruption of Spellows-by,
to which the name of Spellows hill in the neighbourhood gives some
colour. The old gaol, built in 1825, had a really good classic portico
with four fluted columns and massive pediment. Most of the buildings
behind this imposing entrance were pulled down after fifty years, and
all that it leads to now is the Sessions House and police station. The
long market-place is interrupted in one place by a block of shops, and
in another by a mean-looking Corn Exchange; but at one end of it still
stands an elegant, restored market cross, and at the other a bronze
statue by Noble of Sir John Franklin, the most famous of Spilsby’s sons,
the discoverer of the “North West Passage.” His hand rests on an anchor,
and on the pedestal are the words: “They forged the last link with their
lives.” Just beyond the town a fine elm-tree avenue leads to Eresby, the
seat whence the Willoughby family take their title. In Domesday Book,
1086, Spilsby and Eresby are said to belong to the Bishop of Durham. His
tenant Pinco, or one of his sons, the Fitz Pincos, acquired it; and about
1166 a Pinco heiress married Walter Bec, whose grandson has a sepulchral
slab in Halton church, _c._ 1243. In 1295 a John, the son of Walter,
was created Baron Bec of Eresby, the younger brothers being Antony,
Bishop of Durham, and Thomas, who was consecrated Bishop of St. David’s
at Lincoln in 1280. Lord Bec died in 1302, in which year Sir William of
Willoughby (near Alford), who had married his daughter and heiress Alice,
obtained a charter for a market at Spilsby every Monday. Their son Robert
was the first Baron Willoughby De Eresby, who died in 1316. His son John
fought at Crécy 1346, and in 1348 founded the College of the Holy Trinity
at Spilsby, and the chantry which, when he and his successors in the
fourteenth and sixteenth centuries with their huge altar tombs filled
up the chancel of the old church, even blocking up the entire chancel
arch with the stone screen of the Bertie monument, became eventually the
chancel of the parish church. For the old church consisted of a nave and
chancel into which the west door opened direct; it had probably a narrow
north aisle, and certainly a large south aisle was added with the Trinity
chapel at the east end of it. This aisle and chapel are now the nave and
chancel of the church, which was restored in Ancaster stone in 1879, and
a new south aisle added, the tower alone remaining of green-sand with
lofty hard-stone pinnacles. In this the bells have just been re-hung,
in December, 1913. John, second Baron Willoughby (1348), also the third
(1372), who fought at Poictiers, and the fourth, with his second wife,
Lady Neville, at his side (1380), have huge altar tombs with effigies in
armour; he died 1389. A brass commemorates his third wife (1391), and
another fine one, said to be Lincolnshire work, the fifth baron and his
first wife (1410). Both these ladies being of the family of Lord Zouch.
The gap between the fifth and the tenth Lord Willoughby is accounted for
thus:—
[Sidenote: WILLOUGHBY D’ERESBY]
The sixth Lord was created Earl of Vendome and Beaumont and died 1451.
His second wife was Maud Stanhope, co-heiress of Lord Cromwell of
Tattershall. The seventh and eighth, best known by their other title
of Lord Welles, were both put to death for heading the Lincolnshire
rebellion against Edward IV., the father by an act of bad faith on the
king’s part, who had taken him, together with Dymoke the Champion, out of
the Sanctuary in Westminster; and the son because, in revenge, joining
Sir Thomas de la Launde, he had fought the Yorkists and been defeated
at the battle of Loose-coatfield near Stamford, 1470. The ninth lord
was William, who was descended from a younger son of the fifth Baron
Willoughby, since Richard Hastings, whom Joan, the sister and heiress of
the eighth Lord Welles, had married, left no issue. There is a monument
in Ashby church near Spilsby, though in a very fragmentary condition, to
William and also to Joan and Richard Hastings. William married Katherine
of Aragon’s maid-of-honour, Lady Mary Salines, for his second wife, and
by a will, dated Eresby 1526, desired to be buried and have a monument
erected to himself and his wife at Spilsby, but this was never done. The
stone screen with its supporting figures of a hermit, a crowned Saracen,
and a wild man, erect, set up in 1580, is in memory of his daughter and
heiress, Katherine Duchess of Suffolk, and her second husband, Richard
Bertie, her first husband being that Charles Brandon who obtained so huge
a share of the estates confiscated by Henry VIII. in Lincolnshire. They
lived at Grimsthorpe, on the west side of the county, which the king had
given to Katherine’s parents; and thenceforth that became the chief seat
of the Willoughby family, and the series of monuments is continued in
Edenham church. But there is one more monument, in what is now called the
Willoughby chapel at Spilsby. This is to a son of the duchess, Peregrine
Bertie, tenth Baron Willoughby; he died at Berwick in 1601, and was
buried at Spilsby as directed in his will; his daughter, Lady Watson,
died in 1610, and, as she wished to be buried near her father, Sir Lewis
Watson of Rockingham erected a monument to both father and daughter, the
latter reclining on her elbow, with the baby, which caused her death, in
a little square cot at her feet. Peregrine was so named because he was
born abroad, his parents having fled from the Marian persecutions. His
wife was the Lady Mary Vere who brought the office of chamberlain into
the Willoughby family. It was claimed by her son Robert, the eleventh
baron, who in 1630 was made Earl of Lindsey, and thus the barony became
merged in the earldom, the fourth earl being subsequently created Duke of
Ancaster.
Eresby Manor was burnt down in 1769, and only the moat and garden wall
and, at the end of the avenue, one tall brick-and-stone gate-pillar
surmounted by a stone vase remain. At the suppression of the college and
chantries the Grammar School was founded on the site of the college, just
to the north of the church, Robert Latham being the first master, in
1550.
At the south-west end of the church are three tablets to three remarkable
brothers born in Spilsby towards the end of the eighteenth century.
[Sidenote: THE FRANKLINS]
Major James Franklin, who made the first military survey of India, and
contributed a paper to the Geological Society in 1828, died in 1834. Sir
Willingham Franklin who, after a distinguished career at Westminster and
Oxford, died, with wife and daughter, of cholera, 1824, at Madras, where
he was judge of the Supreme Court. And Sir John Franklin, the famous
Arctic navigator, who fought at Trafalgar and Copenhagen, and died in
the Arctic regions on June 11, 1847, before the historic disaster had
overtaken the crews of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_. His statue stands in
his native town, and also in Hobart Town, where he lived for a time as
Governor of Tasmania, and is one of the two statues in London which
were set up by the nation. On his monument in Westminster Abbey are the
beautiful lines by his friend and neighbour, and relative by marriage,
Alfred Tennyson.
Not here! the white North has thy bones; and thou,
Heroic sailor-soul,
Art passing on thy happier Voyage now
Towards no earthly pole.
The other brother, Thomas Adams Franklin, raised the Spilsby and Burgh
battalion of volunteer infantry in 1801. Major Booth followed his good
example and raised a company at Wainfleet to resist the invasion by
Napoleon, and the men of the companies presented each of them with a
handsome silver cup. Five Franklin sisters married and settled in the
neighbourhood; and Catharine, the daughter of Sir Willingham, married
Drummond, the son of the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley, vicar of Spilsby. Thus
quite a clan was created, insomuch that forty cousins have been counted
at one Spilsby ball. Drummond succeeded his father as rector of Halton,
and very appropriately preached the last sermon in the old church at
Spilsby at the closing service previous to its restoration, speaking from
the pulpit which his father had occupied from 1813 to 1825. His sermon,
a very fine one, called “The Last Time,” was from 1 St. John ii. 18, and
was delivered on Trinity Sunday, 1878.
[Sidenote: LINCOLNSHIRE STORIES]
The time to visit Spilsby is on market day, when, round the butter cross,
besides eggs, butter and poultry, pottery is displayed “on the stones,”
stalls are set up where one may buy plants and clothes, and things hard
to digest like “bull’s eyes,” as well as boots and braces, and near
“the Statue” at the other end, are farm requisites, sacks, tools, and
the delightful-smelling tarred twine, as well as all sorts of old iron,
chains, bolts, hinges, etc., which it seems to be worth someone’s while
to carry from market to market. It is here that the humours of the petty
auctioneer are to be heard, and the broad Doric of the Lincolnshire
peasant. In the pig market below the church hill you may hear a man
trying to sell some pigs, and to the objection that they are “Stränge
an’ small,” he replies, “Mebbe just now; but I tell ye them pigs ’ull
be greät ’uns,” then, in a pause, comes the voice from a little old
woman who is looking on without the least idea of buying, “It ’ull be
a straänge long while fust,” and in a burst of laughter the chance of
selling that lot is snuffed out, or, as they say at the Westmorland dog
trials, “blown off.”
[Sidenote: MORE STORIES]
There is an unconscious humour about the older Lincolnshire peasants
which makes it very amusing to be about among them, whether in market,
field or home. My father never returned from visiting his parish without
some rich instance of dialect or some humorous speech that he had heard.
Finding a woman flushed with anger outside her cottage once, and asking
her what was amiss, he was told “It’s them Hell-cats.” “Who do you call
by such a name?” “Them Johnsons yonder.” “Why? What have they been
doing?” “They’ve been calling me.” “That’s very wrong; what have they
been calling you?” “They’ve bin calling me Skinny.” At another time a
woman, in the most cutting tones, alluding to her next-door neighbours
who had an afflicted child, said, “We may-be poor, and Wanty [her
husband] says we _are_ poor, destitutely poor, and there’s no disgraäce
in being poor, but _our_ Mary-Ann doant hev fits.” Another time, when
my sister was recommending a book from the lending library describing a
voyage round the world, and called “Chasing the Sun,” a little old woman
looked at the title and said, “Naäy, I weänt ha’ that: I doänt howd wi
sich doings. Chaäsing the Sun indeed; the A’mighty will soon let ’em know
if they gets a chevying him.” In the same village I got into conversation
one autumn day with a small freeholder whose cow had been ill, and asked
him how he had cured her, he said, “I got haafe a pound o’ sulphur and
mixed it wi’ warm watter and bottled it into her. Eh! it’s a fine thing
I reckon is sulphur for owt that’s badly, cow or pig or the missis or
anythink.” Then, with a serious look he went on, “There’s a straänge
thing happened wi’ beans, Mr. Rownsley.” “What’s that?” “Why, the beans
is turned i’ the swad” (= pod). “No!” “Yees they hev.” “How do you mean?”
“Why they used to be black ends uppermost and now they’r ’tother waay
on.” “Well, that’s just how they always have been.” “Naay they warn’t. It
was ’81 they turned.” They _do_ lie with the attachment of each bean to
the pod, just the way you would not expect, and having noticed this he
was convinced that up to then they had really lain the way he had always
supposed they did, so difficult is it to separate fact from imagination.
The similes used by a Lincolnshire native are often quite Homeric, as
when an old fellow, who was cutting his crop of beans, the haulm of
which is notoriously tough, resting on his scythe said, “I’d rayther
plow wi two dogs nor haulm beans.” Then they have often a quiet, slow
way of saying things, which is in itself humorous. I remember a labourer
who was very deaf, but he had been much annoyed by the mother of a man
whose place he had succeeded to. He was working alongside of his master
and _apropos_ of nothing but his own thoughts, he said, “Scriptur saäys
we should forgive one another; but I doänt knoä. If yon owd ’ooman fell
i’ the dyke I doänt think _I_ should pull her out. I mowt tell some ’un
on her, but I doänt think I should pull her out howiver.” There is some
kindliness in that, though in quantity it is rather like the Irishman’s
news: “I’ve come to tell you that I have nothing to tell you, and there’s
some news in that.” But the Lincolnshire native is a trifle stern; even
the mother’s hand is more apt to be punitive than caressing. “I’ll
leather you well when I gets you home, my lad,” I have heard a mother say
to a very small boy, and I have heard tell of a mother who, when informed
that her little girl had fallen down the well, angrily exclaimed, “Drat
the children, they’re allus i’ mischief; and now she’s bin and drownded
hersen I suppose.”
In Westmorland it is the husband who _will_ take too much at market
on whom the vials of the wrath of the missis are outpoured, and they
generally know how to “sarve” him. One good lady, on being asked
“How_ever_ did you get him ower t’wall, Betty?” replied “I didna get him
ower at a’—I just threshed him through th’ hog-hole” (the hole in the
wall for the sheep, or hoggetts, to pass through).
Speaking of tippling, there is no more delightful story than this from
Westmorland, of a mouse which had fallen into a beer vat and was swimming
round in despair, when a cat looked over, and the mouse cried out, “If
ye’ll git me oot o’ this ye may hev me.” The cat let down her tail and
the mouse climbed up, and shaking herself on the edge of the vat, jumped
off and went down her hole, and on being reproached by the cat as not
being a mouse of her word, answered, “Eh! but ivry body knaws folks will
say owt when they’re i’ drink.”
[Sidenote: OLD BOLINGBROKE]
There are several pretty little bits of country near Spilsby, but the
most interesting of the by-ways leads off from the Horncastle road
at Mavis Enderby, and, going down a steep hill, brings us to _Old
Bolingbroke_, a picturesque village with a labyrinth of lanes circling
about the mounded ruins of the castle, where, in 1366, Henry IV. “of
Bolingbroke” was born. It was built in 1140 by William de Romara, first
Earl of Lincoln, and was, till 1643, when Winceby battle took place, a
moated square of embattled walls, with a round tower at each corner. Here
Chaucer used to visit John of Gaunt and the Duchess Blanche of Lancaster,
on whose death, in 1369, he wrote his “Book of the Duchess.” The castle,
after the Civil Wars, sank into decay, and the gate-house, the last of
the masonry, fell in 1815. The road onwards comes out opposite Hagnaby
Priory. William de Romara, who three years later founded Revesby Abbey,
had for his wife the second Lady Lucia, the heiress of the Saxon
Thorolds, an honoured name among Lincolnshire families. She brought him,
among other possessions, the manor of Bolingbroke. Her second husband was
the Norman noble, Ranulph, afterwards earl of Chester. The Thorolds were
descended from Turold, brother of the Lady Godiva. There apparently were
two _Lady Lucias_, whose histories are rather mixed up by the ancient
chroniclers. The earlier of the two was, it seems, the sister of the
Saxon nobles, Edwin and Morcar, and of King Harold’s queen Ealdgyth. Her
hand was bestowed by the conqueror upon his nephew, Ivo de Taillebois (=
Underwood), who became, according to Ingulphus and others, a monster of
cruelty, and died in 1114.
[Sidenote: HARRINGTON]
There are several by-ways to the north-west of Spilsby, which all
converge on _Harrington_. Here the church contains several monuments of
interest. At the east end of the nave, a knight in chain armour with
crossed legs and shield is said to be Sir John Harrington (_circa_
1300); and against the chancel wall, but formerly on the pavement, is
the brass of Margaret Copledike (1480). Her husband’s effigy is missing.
Under the tower window is the monument to Sir John Copledike (1557),
and in the chancel south wall a canopied tomb with a brass of Sir John
Copledike (1585). Opposite is a Jacobean monument, which testifies to
the illiteracy of the age with regard to spelling, to Francis Kopaldyk,
his wife and two children (1599). In the time of Henry III. it was spelt
Cuppeldick. A Perpendicular font with the Copledike arms stands against
the tower arch.
Close to the church is Harrington Hall, with its fine old brick front
and projecting porch. Hanging over the doorway is a large dial with
the Amcotts arms, a curiously shaped indicator, and the date 1681. On
either side of the porch which runs up the whole height of the house, are
twelve windows, under deep, projecting, corbelled eaves. Inside is an old
oak-panelled room, most richly carved. The house is the property of the
Ingilby family, and at present the residence of E. P. Rawnsley, Esq., who
has been for many years Master of the Southwold Hunt.
Somersby is but two miles off, and we may without hesitation turn our
thoughts to the terraced garden of this delightful old hall when we read
in Tennyson’s “Maud”:—
“Birds in the high Hall-garden
When twilight was falling,
Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,
They were crying and calling.”
The poet loved to tell how, when he was reading this and paused to ask,
“Do you know what birds those were?” a lady, clasping her hands, said,
“Oh, Mr. Tennyson, was it the nightingale?” though in reading it he had
carefully given the harsh caw of the rooks.
[Sidenote: BAG ENDERBY]
To get from here to _Somersby_ you pass through _Bag Enderby_, where
there is a fine church, now in a very ruinous state. The very interesting
old font, which stands on two broken Enderby tombstones, has some unusual
devices carved on it, such as David with a viol, and the Virgin with the
dead Christ. One, the most remarkable of all, is a running hart turning
back its head to lick off with its long tongue some leaves from the tree
of life growing from its back. This symbolism is purely Scandinavian; and
that it could be used on a Christian font shows how thoroughly the two
peoples and their two religions were commingling.[25] The large number
of villages about here ending in “by”—Danish for hamlet—is sufficient
evidence of the number of settlers from over the North Sea who had taken
up their abode in this part of the county.
[Illustration: _Somersby Church._]
The green-sand, which underlies the chalk, and of which almost all the
churches are built, crops out by the roadside in fine masses both here
and at Somersby and Salmonby, as it does too at Raithby, Halton, Keal,
all in the immediate neighbourhood of the chalk wolds. Inside the church,
slabs on the floor of the chancel retain their brass inscriptions to
Thomas and Agnes Enderby (1390), and Albinus de Enderby, builder of the
tower (1407); and on the wall is a monument to John and Andrew Gedney
(1533 and 1591). The latter represented in armour and with his wife and
family of two sons and two daughters. The wife, whose name is spelt first
Dorithe, then Dorathe, “died the 7th of June 1591 and Andrew ____” the
blank being left unfilled.
The knives and scourges of Crowland Abbey (_see_ Chap. XLI.) are seen
in the old glass. The custom of giving little knives to all comers at
Crowland on St. Bartholomew’s Day was abolished by Abbot John de Wisbeche
in the reign of Edward IV. In the tower is a fine peal of disused bells.
[Sidenote: SOMERSBY CROSS]
Dr. Tennyson held this living with _Somersby_. This is a smaller
building, but it retains in the churchyard a remarkable and perfect
cross, a tall, slender shaft with pedimented tabernacle, under which are
figures, as on the gable cross at Addlethorpe and on the head of the
broken churchyard cross at Winthorpe—the Crucifixion is on one side and
the Virgin and Child on the other.
From Somersby there are two roads to Horncastle—each passes over the
brook immortalised in “In Memoriam” and in the lovely little lyric, “Flow
down cold rivulet to the sea,” and branching to the left, one passes
through Salmonby, where Bishop William of Waynflete is said to have been
rector. This is doubtful, but probably he was presented to the vicarage
of Skendleby by the Prior of Bardney in 1430. The other and prettier
road goes by _Ashby Puerorum_ and _Greetham_, and both run out into the
Spilsby and Horncastle road near _High Toynton_. Ashby Puerorum (or
Boys’ Ashby) gets its name from an estate here bequeathed to support the
Lincoln Minster choir boys. At this place, and again close by Somersby,
the hollows in the Wold which this road passes through are among the
prettiest bits of Lincolnshire.
CHAPTER XXXI
SOMERSBY AND THE TENNYSONS
Tennyson’s Poetry descriptive of his home—Bronze Bust of the
Poet—Dedication Festival—A Long-lived Family—Dialect poems.
This little quiet village, tucked away in a fold of the hills, with
the eastern ridge of the Wolds at its back and the broad meadow valley
stretching away in front of it and disappearing eastwards in the
direction of the sea, had no history till now. It was only in 1808 that
Dr. George Clayton Tennyson came to Somersby as rector of Somersby and
Bag Enderby, incumbent of Beniworth and Vicar of Great Grimsby. He came
as a disappointed man, for his father, not approving, it is said, of his
marriage with Miss ffytche of Louth (a reason most unreasonable if it
was so) had disinherited him in favour of his younger brother Charles,
who became accordingly Charles Tennyson d’Eyncourt of Bayons Manor near
Tealby.
Dr. Tennyson’s eldest son George was born in the parsonage at Tealby,
in 1806, but died an infant. Frederick was born at Louth in 1807, and
the other ten children at Somersby. Of these, the first two were Charles
(1808) and Alfred (1809).
They were a family of poets; their father wrote good verse, and their
grandmother, once Mary Turner of Caister, always claimed that Alfred got
all his poetry through her. Her husband George was a member of Parliament
and lived in the _old_ house at Bayons Manor.
[Sidenote: THE TENNYSONS]
From the fourteenth century the Tennysons, like their neighbours the
Rawnsleys, had lived in Yorkshire; but Dr. Tennyson’s great-grandfather,
Ralph, had come south of the Humber about 1700 to Barton and Wrawby
near Brigg, and each succeeding generation moved south again. Thus,
Michael, who married Elizabeth Clayton, lived at Lincoln, and was the
father of George, the first Tennyson occupant of Bayons Manor. He had
four children: George Clayton, the poet’s father; Charles, who took the
name of Tennyson d’Eyncourt; Elizabeth, the “Aunt Russell” that the poet
and his brothers and sisters were so fond of; and Mary, the wife of John
Bourne of Dalby, of whom, though she lived so near to them, the Somersby
children were content to see very little, for she was a rigid Calvinist,
and once said to her nephew, “Alfred, when I look at you I think of the
words of Holy Scripture, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire.’” At Somersby, then, the poet and all the children after Frederick
were born in this order: Charles, Alfred, Mary, Emilia, Edward, Arthur,
Septimus, Matilda, Cecilia, Horatio. They were a singularly fine family,
tall and handsome, taking after their father in stature (he was six feet
two inches) and after their mother (a small and gentle person, whose
good looks had secured her no less than twenty-five offers of marriage)
in their dark eyes and Spanish colouring. She was idolised by her eight
tall sons and her three handsome daughters, of whom Mary, who became Mrs.
Ker, was a wonderfully beautiful woman. Frederick, who outlived all his
brothers, dying at the age of ninety-one after publishing a volume of
poems in his ninetieth year, alone of the family had fair hair and blue
eyes. Matilda is alive still at the age of ninety-eight.
[Sidenote: DR. KEATE AND WELLINGTON]
The three elder sons all went to the Grammar School at Louth in 1813,
when Alfred was but seven. Frederick went thence to Eton in 1817, and to
St. John’s, Cambridge, in 1826; Charles and Alfred stayed at Louth till
1820, and they left it with pleasure for home teaching. Few could have
been better qualified to teach than the Doctor. He had a good library
and he was a classical scholar; could read Hebrew and was not without
a knowledge of mathematics, natural science and modern languages; also
he was a rigid disciplinarian, and, like all good schoolmasters, was
held in considerable awe by his pupils. I should like to have heard him
had anyone in his day outlined to him as the method of the future the
Montessori system. This power of terrifying a whole class and causing
each one of a set of ordinarily plucky English lads to feel for the space
of half an hour that his heart was either in his mouth or in his shoes,
would be incredible, were it not that there are so many English gentlemen
now living who have experience of it. How well I remember the terrible,
if irrational, state of funk which the whole of any class below the
upper sixth was always in, when going up for their weekly lesson to that
really most genial of men, Edward Thring, and it was the same elsewhere,
and given the same sort of circumstances, the grown-up man could feel as
frightened as the boy; witness this delightful story of the Iron Duke.
No one could call him a coward, but on his return from Waterloo he went
down on the fourth of June to Eton, and first told some one in his club
that he meant to confess to Keate that he was the boy who had painted the
Founder’s Statue or some such iniquity, the perpetrator of which Keate
had been unable to discover. His friend extracted a promise that after
his interview he would come and report at the club. He came, and being
questioned by a group of deeply interested old Etonians, he said, “Well,
it was all different, not at all like what I expected. I seized the
opportunity when Keate came to speak with me by the window and said, “You
remember the Founder’s Statue being defaced, sir?” “Certainly. Do you
know anything about it?” he said sharply. “_No, sir._” “You don’t mean
to say you said that?” “Certainly I do, and what is more, every one of
you would, in the circumstances, have said just the same,” and then and
there they all admitted it; so difficult is it to shake off the feelings
of earlier days. And yet he was not naturally terrible, and I who write
this, never having been under him, have, as a small boy, spoken to Keate
without a shadow of fear.
This reminds me of a remark of Gladstone’s, who was giving us
some delightful reminiscences of his days at Eton, and, speaking
enthusiastically of Alfred Tennyson’s friend, Arthur Hallam, when on my
saying that I had spoken with Keate, he turned half round in his chair
and said, “Well, if you say you have seen Keate I must believe you, but
I should not have thought it possible.” He had forgotten for the moment
that Keate, after retiring from Eton, lived thirteen years at Hartley
Westpall (near Strathfieldsaye), where my father was curate.
To return to Somersby. We read in the memoir of the poet an amusing
account, by Arthur Tennyson, of how the Doctor’s approach when they were
skylarking would make the boys scatter.
[Sidenote: EARLY VOLUMES]
In 1828 Charles and Alfred went up to Trinity, Cambridge. Frederick was
already a University prize-winner, having got the gold medal for the
Greek ode, and Charles subsequently got the Bell Scholarship, and Alfred
the English Verse prize. The boys’ first poetical venture was the volume
“Poems by Two Brothers,” published in 1826 by Jackson of Louth, who
gave them £20, more than half to be taken out in books. To this volume
Frederick contributed four pieces, the rest were by Charles and Alfred.
The latter used very properly to speak with impatience of it in later
years as his “early rot.” And it is quite remarkable how comparatively
superior is the work done by Alfred as a boy of fourteen, and how little
one can trace in the two brothers’ volume of that lyrical ability which
in 1830 produced _Mariana_ and _The Arabian Nights_, _The Merman_, _The
Dying Swan_ and the _Ode to Memory_. The majority of these poems were
written at Cambridge, but there is much reference to Somersby in at least
two of them, and the song, “A Spirit haunts the year’s last hours,” was,
we know, written in the garden there with its border of hollyhocks and
tiger-lilies. In the _Ode to Memory_ he invokes her to arise and come,
not from vineyards, waterfalls, or purple cliffs, but to
“Come from the Woods that belt the grey hill side,
The seven elms, the poplars four
That stand beside my father’s door,
And chiefly from the brook that loves
To purl o’er matted cress and ribbèd sand.
...
O! hither lead thy feet!
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
Of the thick fleecèd sheep from wattled folds,
Upon the ridgèd wolds.”
This is reminiscent of Somersby.
Then again, Memory calls up the pictures of “the sand-built ridge of
heaped hills that mound the sea” at Mablethorpe, and the view over “the
waste enormous marsh.”
In 1831 Dr. Tennyson died, aged fifty-two, and his sons left Cambridge.
His widow lived on for thirty-four years, dying at the age of
eighty-four, in 1865. They stayed on in the Somersby home till 1837,
and a new volume came out in 1832, with a whole array of poems of rare
merit, showing how much the poet’s mind had matured in that last year
at Cambridge. This volume, like the Louth volume, is dated for the year
after that in which it was really published. It carried Alfred to the
front rank at once, for in it was _The Lady of Shalott_, _The Palace of
Art_, _The Miller’s Daughter_, _Œnone_, _The May Queen_, _New Year’s
Eve_, _The Lotus Eaters_, _A Dream of Fair Women_, and the _Lines to
James Spedding_, on the death of his brother Edward. Only think of all
these wonderful poems in a thin book of 162 pages written before he was
twenty-three.
[Sidenote: THE LINCOLNSHIRE COAST]
To Mablethorpe and Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast we find frequent
allusions in many poems, _e.g._, he speaks in _The Last Tournament_ of
“the wide-winged sunset of the misty marsh,” and when the Red Knight in
drunken passion, trying to strike the King overbalances himself, he falls—
“As the crest of some slow arching wave,
Heard in dead night along that table shore,
Drops flat, and after, the great waters break
Whitening for half-a-league, and thin themselves,
Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,
From less and less to nothing.”
A most accurate picture of that flat Lincolnshire coast with its
“league-long rollers,” and hard, wet sands shining in the moonlight. In
another place he speaks of “The long low dune and lazy-plunging sea.”
In his volume of 1832 there are many pictures drawn from this familiar
coast, _e.g._, in _The Lotus Eaters_, _The Palace of Art_, _The Dream of
Fair Women_; and in his 1842 volumes he speaks of
“Locksley Hall that in the distance overlooks the sandy flats And the
hollow ocean ridges roaring into cataracts.”
A relative of mine was once reading this poem to the family of one
of those Marsh farmers who had known “Mr. Alfred” when a youth, and
who lived in the remotest part of that coast near the sandy dunes and
far-spread flats between Skegness and “Gibraltar Point”; but she had not
got far when at the line—
“Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime,
With the fairy tales of science——”
she was stopped by the farmer’s wife. “Don’t you believe him, Miss,
there’s nothing hereabouts to nourish onybody, ’cepting it be an owd
rabbit, and it ain’t oftens you can get howd of them.”
[Sidenote: IN MEMORIAM]
_In Memoriam_ has many cantos descriptive of Somersby, both of the happy
summer evenings on the lawn, when Mary
“brought the harp and flung
A ballad to the bright’ning moon,”
or of the walks about home with Arthur Hallam—
by “Gray old grange or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,
Or simple stile from mead to mead,
Or sheepwalk up the windy wold.”
Or the winter nights when
“The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.”
And nothing could be more full of tender feeling than this farewell to
the old home in Canto CI., beginning—
“Unwatched, the garden bough shall sway,
The tender blossom flutter down,
Unloved, that beech will gather brown,
This maple burn itself away.”
And in Canto CII.—
“We leave the well-beloved place
Where first we gazed upon the sky;
The roofs that heard our earliest cry
Will shelter one of stranger race.
We go, but ere we go from home
As down the garden walks I move,
Two spirits of a diverse love
Contend for loving masterdom.
One whispers ‘here thy boyhood sung
Long since its matin song, and heard
The low love-language of the bird
In native hazels tassel-hung.’
The other answers, ‘yea, but here
Thy feet have strayed in after hours
With thy lost friend among the bowers,
And this hath made them trebly dear.’
These two have striven half the day,
And each prefers his separate claim,
Poor rivals in a loving game,
That will not yield each other way.
I turn to go: my feet are set
To leave the pleasant fields and farms;
They mix in one another’s arms
To one pure image of regret.”
[Sidenote: ARTHUR HALLAM]
Other sections speak of Arthur Hallam, and as each Christmas comes round,
or each birthday of his friend, the poet’s feelings are voiced in such a
way that, if we read it with care, the poem gives us a good deal of the
author’s own life history.
Arthur Hallam died on September 15, 1833, at Vienna, and his remains
were brought home at the end of the year and interred at Clevedon in
Somersetshire on January 4, 1834.
“The Danube to the Severn gave
The darken’d heart that beat no more;
They laid him by the pleasant shore
And in the hearing of the wave.”
Immediately after his death Tennyson had turned to work as the one solace
in his overwhelming grief, although, but for those dependent on his aid,
such as his sister Emily who was betrothed to Hallam, he said that he
himself would have gladly died. He wrote the fine classic poem _Ulysses_,
in which he voiced the need he felt of going forward and braving the
struggle of life, and then, before it had reached England, he wrote the
first section of _In Memoriam_ No. 9 addressed to the ship with its sad
burden.
“Fair ship that from the Italian shore
Sailest the placid ocean plains
With my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
Spread thy full wings and waft him o’er.”
At some later time, possibly many years later, for _In Memoriam_ was
sixteen years in the making, he added section 10—“I hear the noise about
thy keel”—which carries on the subject, and also alludes to Somersby
church
“where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God.”
For the time he wrote no more sections, but busied himself with _The
Two Voices_, only towards the end of 1834 he wrote section 30, which
he afterwards prefaced by sections 28 and 29, all describing the sad
first Christmas of 1833, the first since Arthur’s death. In 28 he hears
the bells of four village steeples near Somersby rising and sinking on
the wind. He had more than once wished that he might never hear the
Christmas bells again, but the sound of church bells had always touched
him from boyhood, just as the words “far, far away” which always set him
dreaming. In section 29 he bids his sisters, after decorating the church,
make one more wreath for old sake’s sake, to hang within the house.
Then section 30 tells how they wove it.
“With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;”
After this we hear how they made a “vain pretence”
“Of gladness with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.”
They attempt the usual Christmas games, but they have no heart for them,
and all pause and listen to the wind in the tree-tops and the rain
beating on the window panes. Afterwards they sit in a circle and think of
Arthur, they try to sing, but the carols only bring tears to their eyes,
for only last year he, too, was singing with them. After this Alfred sits
alone and watches for the dawn which rises, bringing light and hope.
[Sidenote: LEAVING SOMERSBY]
Section 104 brings us to another Christmas. Four years have elapsed
since that last described. The Tennysons have left Somersby, with what
regret they did so is beautifully told in the four sections immediately
preceding this. And now, listening as of old for the Christmas bells, he
hears not “four voices of four hamlets round,” but only
“A single peal of bells below,
That wakens at this hour of rest
A single murmur in the breast,
That these are not the bells I know.”
The following section continues the subject. They are living at High
Beech in Essex “within the stranger’s land.” He thinks of the old home
and garden and his father’s grave. The flowers will bloom as usual, but
there, too, are strangers,
“And year by year our memory fades
From all the circle of the hills.”
The change of place
“Has broke the bond of dying use.”
They put up no Christmas evergreens, they attempt no games and no
charades. His sister Mary does not touch the harp and they indulge in no
dancing, though it was a pastime of which they were extremely fond. But
as of old Alfred looks out into the night and sees the stars rise, “The
rising worlds by yonder wood,” and receives comfort. All this points to
the sad year 1837, when they left the well-beloved place of his birth.
And now in section 106 we have a New Year’s hymn of a very different
character. It has a jubilant sound, and was certainly written some years
after its predecessors. In 1837 he was in no mood to say “Ring happy
bells across the snow.” But there is no allusion in this splendid hymn
to Arthur Hallam at all, and in the following section they keep Arthur’s
birthday, not any more in sadness, but
“We keep the day, with festal cheer,
With books and music, surely we
Will drink to him, whate’er he be
And sing the songs he loved to hear.”
But to return to Somersby.
[Illustration: _Tennyson’s Home, Somersby._]
[Sidenote: THE OLD HOME]
The quaint house with its narrow passages and many tiny rooms, the
brothers’ own particular little western attic with its small window
from which they could see the ‘golden globes’ in the dewy grass which
had “dropped in the silent autumn night,” the dining-room and its tall
gothic windows with carved heads and graceful gables, the low grey tower
patched with brick, just across the road, (for the “noble tall towered
churches” spoken of in _The Memoir_ are not in this part of the county,)
and the pre-Reformation (not “Norman”) cross near the porch, all these
may still be seen much as they were one hundred years ago.
[Sidenote: THE CHURCH RE-OPENED]
True, the church has been lately put in good repair, and a fine bronze
bust of the poet placed in the chancel. This was unveiled, and the
church re-opened on Sunday, April 6, 1911, being the fulfilment of the
plan projected on the occasion of the centenary celebration two years
previously. On that Sunday the little church was more than filled with
neighbours and relatives who listened to sermons from the Bishop of
Lincoln and the Rev. Canon Rawnsley. Next day was Bank Holiday, and
in a field near the rectory hundreds of Lincolnshire folk of every
kind—farmers, tradespeople, gentry, holiday makers—assembled to do honour
to their own Lincolnshire poet, and for a couple of hours listened
intently to speeches about him and laughed with a will at the humours of
the “Northern Farmer” read in their own native dialect, just as the poet
intended; whilst the relatives of the poet and those who were familiar
with his works looked with glad interest upon a scene of rural beauty
which brought to the mind the descriptions in _The Lady of Shalott_,
seeing on the slopes before them the promise of crops soon to “clothe
the wold and meet the sky,” while far away to the left stretched the
valley which pointed to Horncastle, the home of the poet’s bride, and
on the right was the churchyard where the stern “owd Doctor” rests, and
the church where for five and twenty years he ministered. The whole
was a remarkable assemblage and a remarkable tribute, and the setting
was a picture of quiet English rural life, one which the poet himself
must often have actually looked out upon, and such as he has himself
beautifully described in _The Palace of Art_:—
“And one an English home—gray twilight pour’d
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep—all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace.”
[Sidenote: A LONG-LIVED FAMILY]
The spirit of the poet seemed still to be a haunting presence in the
place, and as then, so now and for all time his works speak to us. But
three-quarters of a century have passed since a Tennyson has had his
home in Somersby. They left in 1837, and though Mary went back at times
to see the “beloved place,” Alfred never set eyes on it again. Charles
married in that year Louisa Sellwood, whose mother was a sister of Sir
John Franklin, and thirteen years later Alfred married her sister Emily.
They left Somersby; but Lincolnshire still kept possession of Charles,
who took the name of Turner in addition to his own, and ministered
happily at Grasby near Caistor, being both vicar and patron of the
living; and he and his wife both died there in the spring of 1879, at the
comparatively early age, for a Tennyson, of seventy-one, for the family
have been a remarkably long-lived one.
The Mother died in 1865, aged 84
Charles ” ” 1879 ” 71
Mary ” ” 1884 ” 74
Emilia ” ” 1889 ” 78
Alfred died on October 6, 1892 ” 83
Emily Lady Tennyson died in 1896 ” 83
Frederick ” ” 1898 ” 91
Arthur died in June, 1899 ” 85
Horatio died in October, 1899 ” 80
Cecilia died in 1909 ” 92
Matilda, who was born before Cecilia and Horatio, still survives. I
went to see her in the summer of 1913. I found her well and full of
early memories. She was a girl in the schoolroom when she first saw
Arthur Hallam, an event of which she had a vivid recollection. I said,
“I suppose you get out every fine day for a drive.” “Oh,” she said, “I
go out for a walk every day and take the dog.” I thought that rather
wonderful at her age. “Yes, I am ninety-seven,” she said, “and I mean
to live to be 105.” I told her how Queen Victoria, who was always
looking forward to reunion with the dear departed—but ever a ceaseless
worker—used to say, “my dear, you should always act as if you were going
to live for ever.”
[Sidenote: THE MASTER’S OPINION]
Alfred, who succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850, was raised to
the Upper House in 1884. He is buried in Westminster Abbey side by side
with his great contemporary, Robert Browning, and on his grave was laid
a wreath of bay-leaves from a tree derived from the bay which flourishes
over Virgil’s tomb near Naples, and on the wreath were Tennyson’s
own magnificent lines, written at the request of the Mantuans for the
nineteenth centenary of their poet’s death (1881).
“I salute thee, Mantovano,
I that loved thee since my day began,
Wielder of the stateliest measure
Ever moulded by the lips of man.”
[Sidenote: THE POET’S RANGE OF KNOWLEDGE]
The recent appearance (October, 1913) of a notable volume of Tennyson’s
poems, introduced by a Memoir and concluding with the poet’s own notes,
may well serve as the text for some remarks on his poems generally. The
volume bound in green cloth is priced at 10_s._ 6_d._ The Memoir is
somewhat abbreviated from the two interesting volumes published by his
son in 1897, which appeared again as the first four volumes of Messrs.
Macmillan’s fine twelve-volume edition of 1898. There are, however, a
few additions, notably a letter from the Master of Trinity, Cambridge,
telling how he once, years ago, asked Dr. Thompson, the Master, whether
he could say, not from later evidence, but from his recollection of
what he thought at the time, which of the two friends had the greater
intellect, Hallam or Tennyson. “Oh, Tennyson,” he said at once, with
strong emphasis, as if the matter was not open to doubt. This is very
high praise indeed, for Gladstone said that Hallam was far ahead of
anyone at Eton in his day, and Monckton Milnes thought him the only man
at Cambridge to whom he “bowed in conscious inferiority in all things.”
The Notes first appeared in the very pleasant “Annotated Edition”
edited also by Hallam Lord Tennyson within the last five years. The
present generation can never know the delight of getting each of those
little green volumes which came out between ’32 and ’55, and sequels to
which kept following till ’92. But for general purposes it is far more
convenient to have a one-volume edition, such as we have had for some
time now. This new edition, however, with its Memoir, gives us what,
as the years go by, is more and more valuable, enabling us to read
the poet in his verses and to know what manner of man he was, and how
his environment affected him at the different stages of his life. The
Notes add an interest, and though it is seldom that in any but the _In
Memoriam_ Cantos any explanation is needed to poems that are so clear
and so easily intelligible, one gains information and finds oneself here
and there let into the author’s secrets, which is always pleasant. The
book runs to over a thousand pages, and is so beautifully bound that it
lies open at any page you choose. There is an interesting appendix to the
Notes, giving the music to “The Silent Voices,” composed by Lady Tennyson
and arranged for four voices by Dr. Bridge for Lord Tennyson’s funeral
at the Abbey, October 12, 1892. Also a previously unpublished poem of
his later years, entitled “Reticence.” She is called the half-sister of
Silence, and is thus beautifully described:—
“Not like Silence shall she stand,
Finger-lipt, but with right hand
Moving toward her lip, and there
Hovering, thoughtful, poised in air.”
Then comes a facsimile of the poet’s MS. of “Crossing the Bar,” finally,
besides the usual index of first lines, the book ends with an index to
_In Memoriam_, and, what we have always wanted, an index to the songs.
Undoubtedly in the future this new edition will be the Tennyson for the
library shelf, and a very complete and compact volume it is. Personally,
I like the little old green volumes, but if I were now recommending an
edition not in one volume, I would say, “Have the Eversley or Annotated
Edition in nine volumes, which exactly reproduces the page and type of
those old original volumes with the added advantage of the Notes.” It
is hardly to be expected that the spell with which Tennyson bound all
English-speaking people for three generations should not in a measure be
relaxed, but though we have a fuller chorus of singers than ever before,
and an unusually appreciative public, the attempt so constantly made to
decry Tennyson has no effect on those who have for years found in him a
charm which no poet has surpassed, and, indeed, it will be long before a
poet arises who has, as Sir Norman Lockyer observes, “such a wide range
of knowledge and so unceasing an interest in the causes of things and the
working out of Nature’s laws, combined with such accuracy of observation
and exquisite felicity of language.” Let me give one more criticism, and
this time by a noted scholar, Mr. A. Sidgwick, who speaks of his “inborn
instinct for the subtle power of language and for musical sound; that
feeling for beauty in phrase and thought, and that perfection of form
which, taken all together, we call poetry.” That perfection was the
result of labour as well as of instinct. He had an ear which never played
him false, hence he was a master of melody and metre, and he was never
in a hurry to publish until he had got each line and each word right. “I
think it wisest,” he wrote to one of his American admirers, “for a man
to do his work in the world as quietly and as well as he can, without
much heeding the praise or dispraise.” He was a lover of the classics,
and in addressing Virgil on the nineteenth centenary of his death, as
quoted above, he himself alludes to this. Without being what we call a
great scholar, in his classic poems he is hard to beat, while in his
translations of Homer he certainly has no equal. Then in his experiments
in classic metres, whether in the “Metre of Catullus” or in the Alcaics
in praise of Milton, his perfect accuracy is best understood if we turn
to the similar experiments by living poets, who never go far without a
blunder, at least none that I have ever read do.
[Sidenote: THE DIALECT POEMS]
To the Lincolnshire folk, his dialect poems, written in the dialect
which was current in his youth at Spilsby and in the country about it
(and still used there, I am glad to say, though not so universally or
so markedly as of yore), give genuine pleasure, and are full of humour
and of character, and it is a tribute to his accurate ear and memory
that, after an absence of some twenty-seven years, he should have got
the Lincolnshire so correct. He did it all right, but for fear he might
have forgotten and got wrong, he asked a friend to look at it and
criticise; unfortunately the friend lived in the north of the county and
knew not the dialect of “Spilsbyshire,” so he altered it all to that
which was spoken about Brigg, which is more like Yorkshire, and it had
to be put back again. But some of the northern dialect has stuck, and
in “The Northern Farmer Old Style” the ‘o’ is seen in ‘moind,’ ‘doy,’
‘almoighty,’ etc., where the Spilsby sound would be better rendered by
using an ‘a.’ This ‘o’ is never found in any of his subsequent dialect
poems, and in a note to the text in the “Northern Cobbler” the poet
points out that the proper sound is given by ‘ai.’
[Sidenote: FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS]
One sign of the remarkable way in which our Lincolnshire poet has made
himself the poet of the English-speaking race is the extraordinary number
of familiar quotations which he has given us. For the last fifty years in
book and newspaper, in speech and sermon, some line or some phrase of his
has constantly occurred which the user felt certain that his hearer or
readers would recognise, until our literature has become tessellated with
Tennysonian expressions, and they have always given that satisfaction
which results from feeling that in using his words we have said the thing
we wished to say in a form which could not be improved upon. In this
respect of “daily popularity and application,” I think Shakespeare alone
excels him, though Pope and Wordsworth may run him close.
[Illustration: _Little Steeping._]
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._]
CHAPTER XXXIII
SCRIVELSBY, DRIBY, TUMBY AND TATTERSHALL
The Hereditary Grand Champion of England—History of
the Dymokes—Siward the Saxon—Simon de Dryby—The Abbot
of Kirkstead—Robert de Tateshalle—John and William de
Bernac—Ralph, Baron Cromwell builds the brick Castle and
founds the College and Almshouses at Tattershall—The Carved
Mantelpieces—Bishop Waynflete’s brick buildings—Esher
Place—Tattershall Church—Stained Glass Windows—The Brasses—The
Castle safe at last.
SCRIVELSBY.
The manor which carried with it the title for its possessor of
“Hereditary Grand Champion of England,” was a very interesting old house
till the year of the Coronation of George III., when it was destroyed
by fire. An arched gateway remains near the house, where once a moat,
drawbridge, and portcullis protected the courtyard. The picturesque Lion
Gateway at the entrance to the park from the Horncastle road, opposite
to which under some trees are seen the village stocks, was set up by
Robert Dimoke about 1530. It is built of rough stones but has a fine
stone lion, passant and crowned, above it, and a rebus of an oak tree
(Dim oak) carved at the side of the archway. The manor with this peculiar
privilege attached was given by the Conqueror to his steward “Robert the
Dispenser,” Lord of Fontenaye and ancestor of the De Spencers and the
Marmions.
Sir Walter Scott speaks of the Marmion of his poem, though he was an
imaginary character and of much later date, as—
“Lord of Fontenaye
Of Lutterward and Scrivelbaye
Of Tamworth tower and town.”
[Sidenote: MARMIONS OF SCRIVELSBY]
[Sidenote: DYMOKES OF SCRIVELSBY]
In the Scrivelsby parish church of St. Benedict is a mutilated recumbent
stone figure clad in chain-mail with sword and shield, and by his side
a lady in the severe costume of the time, with muffled chin and plain
head-dress. The warrior is Philip Marmion, the last of the Marmions
of Scrivelsby, who died 1292, the family having acted as champions
from the time of William the Conqueror to Henry III. Together with the
championship, Philip Marmion had the right of free-warren and gallows at
his manor at Scrivelsby.
[Illustration: _The Lion Gate at Scrivelsby._]
Philip having no son, his estates were divided among his four daughters.
His second daughter, Mazera, married a Ralph Cromwell, ancestor of the
Lord Cromwell who built Tattershall Castle, and the Scrivelsby estate
fell to Joan, the youngest, who married Sir Thomas Ludlow. His son,
Thomas, left one daughter, Margaret, who married Sir John Dymoke and
brought the Championship in 1350 into the family, which has held it now
for upwards of 560 years. It was probably their son John who married the
daughter of Sir Thomas Friskney, whence descended the Dymokes of Friskney
and Fulletby.
At the coronation of Edward II., 1307, and Edward III., 1327, the
Championship appears to have been in commission, but at that of Richard
II., 1377, Sir John Dymoke claimed it in right of his wife. Baldwin
Freville counter-claimed as Lord of Tamworth, but the office was awarded
to Sir John.
There are many Dymokes buried both in the church and churchyard, the most
notable monument being an altar tomb in the chancel with a brass on it
of Sir Robert Demoke. Edward IV. had beheaded his father along with Lord
Welles after he had taken them under pledge of safety out of sanctuary
at Westminster, and he tried to make amends by heaping favours on the
son, who lived in five reigns—Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., Henry
VII., and Henry VIII.; and acted as Champion at the coronation of the
last three, in 1483, 1485, and 1509. The brass presents him in armour and
spurred, but bareheaded and with short neck, long flowing hair, and a
huge beard; he stands on a lion, and the inscription runs thus:—
“Here liethe the body of Sir Robert Demoke of Scrivelsby Knight
and Baronet who departed out of this present lyfe the XV day
of April in ye yere of our Lord God MDXLV upon whose sowle
almighte god have m’ci Amen.”
The words “Knight and Baronet” have puzzled many, but in spite of the
fact that Sir Brien Stapilton at Burton Joice, Notts., and Sir Thomas
Vyner at Gautby, Lincolnshire, 1672, are described as Knight and Baronet,
and though they may have been first Knights and then Baronets, in this
case of Sir Robert Dymoke, of 1545, it can hardly have been so, for the
title baronet was not in use until after 1603, and we must suppose that
the words were originally “Knight Banneret,” a distinction which was
conferred on Sir Robert by Henry VIII., and that the present wording was
probably a correction by an ignorant restorer in the seventeenth century,
after damage done in the civil wars. The eldest son of the Champion who
had been so unjustifiably put to death by Edward IV., was Lionel, who
died before his father, and whose brass in Horncastle church represents
him kneeling on a cushion in full armour, holding a scroll in his hand,
date 1519. The figure is kneeling in a stiff attitude, armed and spurred,
and bareheaded, a scroll from his mouth says:—
“_S’cta Trinitas Unus Deus Miserere nob_:”
The inscription on the brass is:—
“_In honore S’cte et individue Trinita̅s orate p’ ’aia Leonis
Dymoke milit’ q’ obijit xvij die Me’se Augusti ao D’ni
M’cccccxlx: cui ai’e p’ piciet’ DE’ Amen._”
Below on either side were figures of two sons and three daughters. The
sons are now missing.
[Sidenote: THE CHAMPION]
Lionel’s brother Robert was only ten when he obtained the title. He was
succeeded by his son Edward, who performed the office of Champion for the
three children of Henry VIII. His son Robert, though never acting at any
coronation, deserves mention as a martyr, in Elizabeth’s reign, to his
religious convictions. This queen, always dreading a Romish reaction in
favour of her rival, Mary Queen of Scots, allowed a Puritanical bishop
to persecute any Catholic in his diocese, and Robert, though in feeble
health, was stout of heart and kept firm to his faith and died a prisoner
at Lincoln, 1580.
The mother of Edward Dymoke who was Champion to Charles II. was buried
at Leverton in 1640. Sir Edward was summoned in 1660 before the
Parliamentarians at Westminster and accused of “delinquency” because
he bore the Royalist title of King’s Champion. He was fined £7,000,
an enormous sum for the time, and he had to pay between four and five
thousand. Hence the impoverishment of the Dymoke family. He lived to see
the Restoration, and officiated for Charles II. in 1660, dying in 1663.
He was knighted in 1661 “for his loyalty and great sufferings both in
person and estate.”
A brass plate commemorates his son, Sir Charles Dymoke, who died in
1686. He officiated at the coronation of James II. in 1685, and getting
off his horse in order to walk up to kiss the king’s hand he fell full
length. Whereupon the queen said, “See, love, what a weak Champion you
have!” He was buried at Scrivelsby, November, 1686.
[Sidenote: WESTMINSTER HALL]
Of other memorials there is a marble bust to Lewis, the Champion to
George I. and II., in 1714 and 1727, who died in 1760, Ætat. 90. His
widow Jane endowed a school at Hemingby “to teach the children of the
poor of the parish to read, write, spin and card wool.” Finally, there
is a memorial to John, Champion in 1761 to George III. Henry Dymoke who
acted for his father, a clergyman, on the accession of George IV., 1821,
was the last who rode into Westminster Hall in bright armour and flung
down his glove and dared to mortal combat any who disputed the right and
title of the king. Then, having backed a little, he turned his horse and
rode out, holding in his hand the gold cup in which the king had pledged
him and he had in turn drunk to the health of his majesty. Since then the
quaint historic ceremony has fallen into abeyance, but the title of “the
Hon. the King’s Champion” remains, and at the coronation of Edward VII.
he was appointed to carry the royal banners. _Sic transit gloria mundi._
[Sidenote: THE CEREMONY]