according to writers of the middle of the last century, and indeed, much later, the tower of Scartho church (Fig. 24) was said to rest on large blocks of stone which showed traces of fire, and these blocks were thought to be relics of an older fabric which was burnt by the Danes. I have visited this church several times, and, while believing that the present tower may not be the original, I am not convinced that there are any fire-marked boulders to be seen. True, the masses of stone referred to by the topographers may now be quite concealed under the raised turf, but it is more likely that red lumps of ferruginous grit, which are plainly visible, have misled the antiquaries. The tower walls certainly contain a miscellany of geological specimens,--limestones, flints, sandstones, and rusty-coloured grits--and superficially the stains suggest scars caused by fire. One must, however, take account of all the circumstances that influenced church-building in a locality which, like that under consideration, is destitute of building stone. Some two or three miles distant is the church of Clee, the tower of which, except in the uppermost stage, bears a close likeness to that of Scartho. (The parapet, in each church, is a later addition.) The materials employed in Clee tower are mainly large beach pebbles, and ice-worn “cobbles,” which had been washed out of the now-vanished cliff of Boulder Clay at Cleethorpes, and which must have been assiduously collected by the perplexed and needy masons.