Highways and Byways in LincolnshireRawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
History
Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire
Rawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
Lincolnshire (England) -- Description and travel
touches Lincolnshire, as there are but two bridges in twenty miles, one
at Gainsborough, and one between Dunham and _Newton-on-Trent_, where the
view from the cliff with the bridge below is very picturesque.
[Illustration: _Lincoln from the Witham._]
There is a ferry at Laneham, between Newton and Torksey; and below
Gainsborough are half a dozen, at _Stockwith_, _Ouston_, _Althorpe_,
_Keadby_, where a bridge is now being built, _Flixborough_, and _Burton
Stather_, but the latter only takes foot passengers, and the others are
all, I believe, of the same calibre. It is just the same on the Ouse,
across which Yokefleet and Ousefleet look at each other about a mile
apart, but to drive from one to the other is a matter of more than thirty
miles.
[Sidenote: MARTON]
[Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE]
_Marton_ is a tiny place, but has a very interesting church, with
unbuttressed tower and heavily embattled parapet to both nave and
chancel. The tower up to the upper stringcourse is entirely built in
Norman “Herringbone” work, this is now plastered over outside, but you
can trace the herring-bone through the plaster, and inside the tower it
is plain to see, and shows courses of thin stone laid horizontally at
frequent intervals. Above the stringcourse is the usual two light window
with mid-wall jamb, which, like the Long-and-Short work at the angles
of the tower, we generally describe as Saxon. Several Saxon stones with
interlaced work, parts of a cross probably, are built into the west end
of the south aisle at about two feet from the ground outside. I always
want to see these very old stones inside, for their better preservation.
Above the present nave roof, but below the mark of the earlier and
high-pitched roof, is a door which once opened from the tower into the
church. The chancel arch is Norman, as are the two lofty bays of the
north arcade. The rest of the church is Early English. In the chancel
south wall is a large niche with a pedestal, evidently intended for a
figure, perhaps of St. Margaret, the patron saint, and there is also a
low-side window of one light with a two-light window above it. But the
most interesting thing in the chancel is a little stone, nine inches by
eleven, now in the north wall, which was lately found in part of the wall
where it had been used as building material; this has on it a very early
attenuated figure of the crucified Saviour, clothed in long drapery. It
might have been part of a cross-head; certainly it is a very remarkable
figure, and of very early date. There is a tall cross-shaft and pedestal,
now in the churchyard, but this is said to have been a market cross
originally. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings were
called in to do the work of repairing and, as usual, their work has been
done in an inexpensive manner and on conservative lines. They found that
the foundation of the old walls, only two feet below the surface, was
just a trench filled with loose pebbles and sand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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