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
Any road which runs by the edge of a curving range of hills is sure
to be picturesque; and the continuation of the Wolds south of Elsham,
after the Barnetby Gap, where the railway line gets through the Wolds
without tunnelling, with the string of villages all ending in “by,”
Bigby, Somerby, Searby, Owmby, Grasby, Clixby, Audleby, and Fonaby,
which lead the traveller to _Caistor_, affords pleasant travelling. But
it does not come up in varied charm to this western edge of the Wold,
which goes farthest north, and ends on the plateau which overlooks
the Humber near _South Ferriby_. On this route the first village from
_Elsham_ is _Worlaby_, and whereas _Elsham_ had once a small house of
Austin Canons founded by Beatrice de Amundeville before 1169, and given
by Henry VIII. at the Dissolution to the all devouring Duke of Suffolk,
_Worlaby_ had its benefactor in John, first Lord Bellasyse, who founded
in 1670 a hospital for poor women, of which the brick building still
exists. The twisting road with its wooded slopes and curving hollows is
here extremely pretty. We next reach _Bonby_, and soon after come to
_Saxby All Saints_. This is a really delightful village, and evidently
under the care of one owner, for all the houses are extremely neat and,
with the exception of two proud-looking brick-built houses of the villa
type, all have tiled roofs and buff-coloured walls. That the village
is grateful to the landlord and his agent, and is also, like Mrs. John
Gilpin, of a thrifty mind, is quaintly testified by the inscription on
a drinking fountain in the village, with a semicircular seat round one
side of it which tells how it was set up “in honour of the 60ᵗʰ year of
Queen Victoria’s reign, and of Frederick Horsley, agent for 42 years
on Mr. Barton’s estate.” Each of these parishes extends up on to the
Wold, and down across the fen, and the map shows this and marks Saxby or
Elsham “Wolds” as well as Saxby or Elsham “Carrs”; and in each village a
signpost points west “to the bridge,” which goes over the land drain and
the Weir Dyke.
In the next village of _Horkstow_, a big elm stands close to the gates
of the churchyard and parsonage. Here the fine air and the bright breezy
look of sky and landscape fill one with pleasure, and the snug way in
which the churches nestle against the skirt of the wold give a charming
air of peace and retirement. The church here is singular in its very
sharp rise of level towards the east. You mount up six steps from the
nave at the chancel arch, further east are two more steps and another
arch, and again further on, two more and another arch. It looks as though
the ground had been raised, for the capitals of the pillars on which
these last two arches rest are only four feet and a half from the floor.
The north arcade is transition Norman, the arches on the Norman pillars,
instead of round, being slightly pointed.
[Sidenote: QUAINT EPITAPHS]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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