Читать книгу Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire - W. F. Rawnsley - Страница 11

Table of Contents

Ewerby—Howell—Use of a Stone Coffin—Heckington—Great Hale—Outer Staircase to Tower—Helpringham—Billinghay—North and South Kyme—Kyme Castle—Ancaster—Honington—Cranwell.

SLEAFORD CHURCH

Six roads go out of Sleaford, and five railways. Lincoln, Boston, Bourne and Grantham have both a road and a railway to Sleaford, Spalding has only a railway direct, and Horncastle and Newark only a road. At no towns but Louth and Lincoln do so many routes converge, though Caistor, Grantham and Boston come very near. The southern or Bourne road we have traced from Bourne, so we will now take the eastern roads to Boston and Horncastle. But first to say something of Sleaford itself. The Conqueror bestowed the manor on Remigius, first Bishop of Lincoln. About 1130 Bishop Alexander built the castle, together with that at Newark, which alone in part survives. These castles were seized by Stephen, and here King John, having left Swineshead Abbey, stayed a night before his last journey by Hough-on-the-hill to Newark, where he died 1216. Henry VIII., with Katherine Howard, held a council here on his way from Grimsthorpe to Lincoln, 1541, dining next day at Temple-Bruer, which he gave in the same year to the Duke of Suffolk. He had here in 1538 ordered the execution of Lord Hussey. Murray’s guide-book tells us that Richard de Haldingham, 1314, who made the famous and curious “Mappa Mundi,” now kept in Hereford Cathedral, was born at Holdingham close by. The church is one of four in this neighbourhood dedicated to St. Denis. The lower stage of the tower dates from 1180. The spire, a very early one, built about 1220, being struck by lightning, was taken down and put up again by C. Kirk in 1884. It is only 144 feet in height. As at Grantham and Ewerby the tower is engaged in the aisles; its lower stage dates from 1180. The nave has eight three-light clerestory windows, with tall pinnacles rising from the parapet. The aisles have a richly carved parapet, without pinnacles; but the beauty and extreme richness of the western ends of the aisles, where they engage with the massive tower, surmounted as they are by turrets, bellcots and pinnacles, and niches, some still containing their statues, is not surpassed in any church in England.

The doorway, which is in the west end of the north aisle, cuts into the fine window above, and opens upon the baptistery.

THE NORTH TRANSEPT

The nave and aisles are all very lofty; and the grand proportions of the church give one the feeling of being in a cathedral. There is an outer north aisle, now screened off by a good modern oak screen, and fitted with an organ and an altar with modern painted reredos depicting the Crucifixion. The tracery of the big window is good, but that in the north transept (there is no south transept) is one of the finest six-light windows to be seen, and is filled with first-rate modern glass by Ward and Hughes. The supporting arch at the west of the north aisle has an inverted arch, as at Wells, to support the tower. At the end of the south aisle, a tall half-arch acts as a buttress to the other side of the tower arch. The chancel was once a magnificent one, but was rebuilt and curtailed at a bad period.

The fine monuments on each side of the chancel arch—one having two alabaster recumbent figures, much blocked by the pulpit, are all of the Carre family; and a curious carved and inscribed coffin lid, showing just the face, and then, lower down, the praying hands of a man, apparently a layman, with long hair, is set up in the transept against the chancel pier. At Hartington in Derbyshire is one showing the bust and praying hands together, and then, lower down, the feet. An old iron chest is in the south aisle, and the church has a very perfect set of consecration crosses both inside and out.

The rood screen is especially fine, in fact, the finest in the country, having still its ancient canopy projecting about six feet, with very graceful carving on the heads of the panels below it. Two staircases in the chancel piers still remain, opening on to the rood loft on either side.

The west end of the church overlooks the market, where there is always a gay scene on Mondays—stalls and cheap-jacks and crowds of market folk making it almost Oriental in life and colour.

The street runs along the south side of the church, across which is seen the excellent but not beautiful Sleaford almshouse.

North Transept, St. Denis’s Church, Sleaford.

EWERBY

Eastwards on the Swineshead road, and within half-a-dozen miles of Sleaford, is a cluster of especially good churches—Ewerby, Asgarby, Heckington, Howell, Great Hale and Helpringham. Four of these six have fine spires, and are seen from a long distance in this flat country. Ewerby is just on the edge of Haverholme Priory Park, and the building rooks who have chosen the trees at the village end of the park for their colony, gave, when we visited it, pleasant notification of the coming spring.

The tower is at the west end, engaged in the two aisles, and, adjoining the churchyard, a little green with remains of the old village cross leaves room for the fine pile of building to be seen and admired. The roof line of nave and chancel is continuous, and the broach spire, a singularly fine one, perhaps the best in England, is 174 feet high. It is probably the work of the same master builder who planned and built Heckington and Sleaford. The tower has a splendid ring of ten bells (Grantham alone has as many) for the completion of which, as for much else, Ewerby is indebted to the Earls of Winchelsea.

Internally, the walls are mostly built of very small stones, like those in a roadside wall. In the tower are good Decorated windows, in the lower of which, on the western face, is a stained glass window. This was struck by lightning in 1909, and all the faces of the figures were cut right out, the rest of the glass being intact. A lightning-conductor is now installed, but the faces are not yet filled in.

There is a most beautiful little window at the west end of the north aisle. Under the tower are three finely proportioned arches, and a stone groined roof. The ten bells are rung from the ground. The nave pillars are clustered, each erected on an earlier transition-Norman base; and the base of the font is also Norman. The porch is unusual in having a triangular string-course outside the hood-moulding. Besides the Market Cross, there are parts of two others, in the church and churchyard. There is a grand old recumbent warrior, probably Sir Richard Anses, with fourteenth century chain mail and helmet, and gorget, but the most interesting thing of all is a pre-Norman tomb-cover on the floor of the north aisle, with a rude cross on it, and a pattern of knot-work all over the rest of the slab. This is covered by a mat, but it certainly ought to have a rail round it for permanent protection, for it is one of the most remarkable stones in the county. An old oak chest with carved front is in the vestry. The whole church is well-cared-for, but at present only seated with chairs.

HOWELL PORCH

From Ewerby, two miles bring us to Howell, a small church with neither spire nor tower, but a double bell-gable at the west end of the nave; the porch is Norman, and a large pre-Norman stone coffin slab has been placed in it. The transition pillars have huge mill-stone shaped bases; and there is only a nave and north aisle. On the floor of the aisle is a half figure of a mother with a small figure of her daughter, both deeply cut on a fourteenth century stone slab. It is curious to come on a monument to “Sir Charles Dymok of Howell, 2nd son to Sir Edward Dymok of Scrielsby”—whose daughter married Sir John Langton. The tomb, with coloured figures of the knight and his lady kneeling at an altar, was put up about 1610 by his nephew, another Sir Edward Dymok.

There is a broken churchyard cross, the base inscribed to John Spencer, rector, 1448. The church is dedicated to St. Oswald. Ivy is growing inside the nave, having forced its way right through the wall—a good illustration of the mischief that ivy can do.

The mention of the stone coffin in Howell church porch calls to mind a similar case in a Cumberland church, where the sexton, pointing it out to a visitor, said: “Ah think thet a varra good thing; minds ’em o’ their latter end, ye knaw; an’ its varra useful for umberellas.”

Heckington is a town-like village on the main road, and its splendid church, which faces you at the end of the street, as at Louth, is one of the wonders of Lincolnshire. It is entirely in the Decorated style, with lofty spire and four very high pinnacles. It owes its magnificence to the fact that the great abbey at Bardney, which had a chantry here, obtained a royal licence in 1345 to appropriate the church. Certainly it is the most perfect example of a Decorated church in the kingdom.

The nave is remarkably high and wide, and the building of it, as in the case of Wilfrid’s great church at Hexham, apparently took thirty-five years. The dimensions are 150 feet by eighty-five, and the masonry, owing probably to the leisurely way in which it was built, is remarkably good throughout. The statue niches have a few of their figures still. The porch, with its waved parapet richly carved, with a figure of our Lord above, still has its original roof. On either side are double buttresses, each with its canopied niche; and the nave ends with handsome turrets. The transept windows are very fine, and the seven-light east window, a most superb one, is only surpassed in its dimensions and beautiful tracery by those at Selby and Carlisle. It is filled with good glass by Ward and Hughes, put up in memory of Mr. Little, by his wife, 1897.

Heckington Church

HECKINGTON

A massive timber gallery crosses the west end, above the tower arch, giving access to the belfry above the groined roof of the tower. The clock struck while we were in the church, and gave evidence of at least one of the peal being of unusual magnificence of tone.

THE EASTER SEPULCHRE

On the south side of the chancel is one window beneath which is a canopied credence table; and west of this, three tall and richly carved sedilia with figures of our Lord and the Virgin Mary and Saints Barbara, Katherine and Margaret; but the gem of the building is the Easter sepulchre on the north side, where there are no windows. This is only surpassed by one at Hawton, near Newark. Below are the Roman guards asleep, in fourteenth century armour. On each side of the recess for the sacred elements, which once had a door to it, are two figures of women and a guardian angel, and above them, the risen Christ between two flying angels. This is a truly beautiful thing, enshrined in a worthy building.

Outside is a broken churchyard cross, and the slender chancel buttresses are seen to have each a niche for a figure. The magnificent great “Dos-D’Âne” coping-stones on the churchyard wall, both here and at Great Hale, are a pleasure to see.

There was a church at Heckington before the Conquest, and a second was built about 1100. The income of this, as well as of that of Hale Magna, was given in 1208 by Simon de Gant and his wife Alice to support the church of St. Lazarus outside the walls of Jerusalem, and this endowment was confirmed by King John. The rector of Hale Magna in his parish magazine points out that the enormous amount of land which was constantly passing to the churches and monasteries in the Middle Ages became a distinct danger, and that an Act was passed to prevent it, called the Statute of Mortmain, under which licence had to be obtained from the Crown.

Consequently we find that in the fourth year of Edward II. (1310) inquisition was taken on a certain Sunday before Ranulph de Ry, Sheriff of Lincoln, at Ancaster “to inquire whether or not it be to the damage of the King or others if the King permit Wm. son of Wm. le Clerk of St. Botolph (Boston) to grant a messuage and 50 acres of land in Hekyngton and Hale to a certain chaplain and his successors to celebrate Divine service every day in the parish church of Hekyngton for the health of the souls of the said Wm. his father, mother and heirs, &c., for ever,” etc. The jury found that it would not be to the damage or prejudice of the king to allow the grant. They also reported that Henry de Beaumont was the “Mesne,” or middle, tenant between the king and William Clerk of Boston for twenty-eight acres, and between the king and Ralph de Howell for the other twenty-two acres, he holding from the king “by the service of a third part of a pound of pepper,” and subletting to the others, for so many marks a year. The land apparently being valued at about 1s. 8d. an acre. From other sources we find that land thereabouts varied in value from 4d. to 8s. an acre yearly rent.

In 1345 when the abbot and abbey of Bardney by royal licence received the churches and endowments of Hale and Heckington for their own use, the abbot became rector and appointed a vicar to administer each parish. The name of the abbot was Roger De Barrowe, whose tomb was found by the excavators at Bardney in 1909.

The building of the present beautiful church was completed by Richard de Potesgrave, the vicar, in 1380. He doubtless received help from Edward III., to whom he acted as chaplain. That he was an important person in the reigns of both Edward II. and III. is shown by the former king making over to him the confiscated property of the Colepeppers who had refused to deliver Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, to Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II., in 1321; while he was selected by Edward III. to superintend the removal of the body of Edward II. from Berkeley Castle to Gloucester. His mutilated effigy is under the north window of the chancel, and in a little box above it with a glass front is now preserved the small chalice which he used in his lifetime.

CHURCHWARDENS’ BOOKS

The churchwardens’ account book at Heckington begins in 1567, and in 1580 and 1583 and 1590 “VIˢ VIIIᵈ” is entered as the burial fee of members of the Cawdron family, whose later monuments are at Hale.

WHIPPING FOR TRAMPS

Another entry which constantly occurs in the sixteenth century is “for Whypping dogges out of Church,” and in the seventeenth century not “dogges” only but vagrants are treated to the lash, e.g.:—

“April 21, 1685. John Coulson then whipped for a vagrant rogue and sent to Redford.

“Antho. Berridge (Vicar).”

And in 1686:—

“Memorand. that John Herrin and Katherine Herrin and one child, and Jonas Hay and wife and two children, and Barbary Peay and Eliz. Nutall were openly whipped, at Heckington, the 28th day of May, 1686—and had a passe then made to convey them from Constable to Constable to Newark, in Nottinghamshire, and Will Stagg was at the same time whipped and sent to Conton in Nottinghamshire.”

A good, sound method of dealing with “Vagrom men,” but for the women and children one wonders the parson or churchwardens were not ashamed to make the entry.

Great Hale.

The book also shows the accounts of the “Dike-reeve” (an important officer) for what in another place is called “the farre fenne.”

HALE MAGNA

We have already spoken of Great Hale or Hale Magna. It is very near Heckington, and was once a large church. Long before the abbey of Bardney appropriated it, in 1345, it had both a rector and a vicar, the two being consolidated in 1296. In 1346 the vicarage was endowed, and on the dissolution the rectorial tithes were granted, in 1543, to Westminster Abbey; but within four years they reverted to the Crown by exchange, and in 1607 were sold by James I., and eventually bought by Robert Cawdron, whose family were for many years lay rectors. Robert probably found the chancel in a bad state, and rather than go to the expense of restoring it, pulled it down and built up the chancel arch, and so it remains. But the great interest of the building lies at the west end. Here the tower arch is a round one, but the tower into which the Normans inserted it is Saxon, probably dating from about 950. It is built of small stones, and the line of the roof gable is still traceable against it outside. It has also a curious and complete staircase of the tenth century in a remarkably perfect condition, though the steps are much worn. The outer walls of this are built of the same small thin stones as are used in the tower, in the upper stage of which are deeply splayed windows with a baluster division of the usual Saxon type.

The nave pillars are Early English and slender for their height, for they are unusually tall, recalling the lofty pillars in some of the churches in Rome. The arches are pointed. Among the monuments are those of Robert Cawdron, and his three wives, 1605, and of another Robert, 1652, father of twenty children, while a large slab with the indent of a brass to some priest has been appropriated to commemorate a third of the same name.

The Cawdron arms are on a seventeenth century chalice. The old registers, which are now well cared for, are on paper, and have suffered sadly from damp and rough handling. The first volume begins in 1568, the second in 1658, and the list of vicars is complete from 1561. To antiquarians I consider that this is one of the most interesting of Lincolnshire churches. Two miles west is Burton Pedwardine, with fine Pedwardine and Horsman tombs, and a pretty little square grille for exhibiting relics. The central tower fell in 1862.

HELPRINGHAM

The road which runs south from Heckington to Billingborough and so on by Rippingale to Bourne, passes by Hale Magna to Helpringham. Here is another very fine church, with a lofty crocketed spire, starting from four bold pinnacles with flying buttresses. The tower is engaged in the aisles, as at Ewerby and Sleaford, and as at Ewerby it opens into nave and aisles by three grand arches. The great height of the tower arch into the nave here and at Boston and Sleaford was in order to let in light to the church from the great west window. The main body of the building is Decorated and has fine windows; the chancel with triplet window is Early English. The font, Early English transition, the rood screen is of good Perpendicular design, and the effect of the whole building is very satisfying, especially from the exterior. It is curious that the lord of the manors of Helpringham and Scredington, who since the sixteenth century has been the Lord Willoughby De Broke, was in the fourteenth century the Lord Willoughby D’Eresby.

Helpringham.

SWATON

South of Helpringham, and situated half-way between that and Horbling, and just to the north of the Sleaford-and-Boston road is Swaton with a beautiful cruciform church in the earliest Decorated style; indeed, looking at the lancet windows in the chancel, one might fairly call it transitional Early English. The simple two-light geometrical window at the east end with the mullions delicately enriched outside and in, form a marked contrast to the rich but heavy Decorated work of the four-light west window. At the east end the window is subordinated to the whole design. At the west end the windows are the predominant feature of the building, and nowhere can this period of architecture be better studied. The roof spans both nave and aisles, as at Great Cotes, near Grimsby, so though the nave is big and high it has no clerestory. The tower arches are very low. The font is a very good one of the period, with diaper work and ball-flower.

We have dwelt at some length on Sleaford and its immediate neighbourhood, and not without cause, for there are few places in England or elsewhere in which so many quite first-rate churches are gathered within less than a six-mile square. They are all near the road from Sleaford to Boston, on which, after leaving Heckington, nothing noticeable is met with for seven miles, till Swineshead is reached, and nothing after that till Boston.

The north-eastern road from Sleaford to Horncastle passes over a flat and dull country to Billinghay and Tattershall, and thence by the interesting little churches of Haltham and Roughton (pronounced Rooton) to Horncastle. The road near Billinghay runs by the side of the Old Carr Dyke, which is a picturesque feature in a very Dutch-looking landscape.

KYME TOWER AND PRIORY

SOUTH KYME

This road crosses the Dyke near North Kyme, where there is a small Roman camp. The Normans have left their mark in the name of “Vacherie House” and Bœuferie Bridge, close to which is “Decoy House,” and two miles to the south is the isolated village of South Kyme. Here is the keep of a thirteenth century castle, which is nearly eighty feet high, a square tower with small loophole windows. The lower room vaulted and showing the arms of the Umfraville family, to whom the property passed in the fifteenth century from the Kymes by marriage, and soon afterwards to the Talboys family, and, in 1530, to Sir Edward Dymoke of Scrivelsby, whose descendants resided there till 1700. The castle was pulled down about 1725, after which the Duke of Newcastle bought the estate and sold it twenty years later to Mr. Abraham Hume. The existing tower communicated from the first floor with the rest of the castle. The upper floors are now gone.

Close by was a priory for Austin canons, founded by Philip de Kyme in the reign of Henry II., but all that now remains of it is in the south aisle of the church, which, once a splendid cruciform building, has been cut down to one aisle and a fine porch; over this is represented the Coronation of the Virgin. A bit of very early carved stonework has been let into the wall, and a brass inscription from the tomb of Lord Talboys 1530.

South Kyme.

The western road from Sleaford has no interesting features, till at about the fifth milestone it comes to Ancaster, the old Roman ‘Causennæ’; here it crosses the Ermine Street, which is a fine wide road, but fallen in many parts into disuse. The Ancaster stone quarries lie two miles to the south of the village in Wilsford heath on high ground; the Romans preferred a high ridge for their great “Streets,” but at Ancaster the Ermine Street descends 100 feet, and from thence, after crossing it, our route takes us by a very pretty and wooded route to Honington, on the Great North Road.

South Kyme Church.

We will now go back to Sleaford and trace out the course of its other western road to Newark, leaving the north or Lincoln Road to be described from Lincoln.

HOUR-GLASS STANDS

This road starts in a northerly direction, but splits off at Holdingham before reaching Leasingham, of which Bishop Trollope of Nottingham, who did so much for archæology in our county, was rector for fifty years. The church has a fine transition tower with curiously constructed belfry windows and a broach spire. Two finely carved angels adorn the porch, and the font, of which the bowl seems to have been copied from an earlier one, though only the stem and base remain, exhibits very varied subjects, among them The Resurrection, Last Judgment, The Temptation, The Entry into Jerusalem, Herodias and Salome, and the Marriage of the Virgin. Fixed to one of the pillars is the old hourglass stand, of which other specimens, but usually fixed to the pulpit, are at Bracebridge near Lincoln, Sapperton near Folkingham, Hameringham near Horncastle, and Belton in the Isle of Axholme.

But the Newark road holds westwards, and, leaving the tower of Cranwell, with its interesting “Long and Short” work, to the right, climbs to the high ground and crosses the Ermine Street by Caythorpe Heath to Leadenham, eight miles. Here it drops from “the Cliff” to the great plain, drained by the Wytham and Brant rivers, and at Beckingham on the Witham reaches the county boundary. The Witham only acts as the boundary for two miles and then turns to the right and makes for Lincoln. Half way between this and the lofty spire of Leadenham the road passes between Stragglethorpe and Brant-Broughton (pronounced Bruton), which is described later.