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
Three miles to the south-east we find the large village of _Winterton_,
just within a mile of the Ermine Street, and it is evident that a good
many Romans had villas on the high ground looking towards the Humber,
for both here and at _Roxby_, a mile to the south, good Roman pavements
have been found, and another, four miles to the east, at Horkstow.
Roxby church shows some pre-Norman stone work at the west end of the
north aisle, and a fine series of canopied sedilia in the chancel, with
unusually rich and lofty pinnacles. At _Winterton_ a Roman pavement
was noticed by De la Pryme in 1699, and another with a figure of Ceres
holding a cornucopia was discovered in 1797. The churchyard has an
Early English cross, and the tower, which is engaged in the aisles, is
of the primitive Romanesque type, with the Saxon belfry windows in the
lower stage, and elegant Early English ones above. An early slab is
over the west door, the nave has lofty octagonal pillars with bands of
tooth ornament. The transepts are unusually wide and have rich Decorated
windows. A Holy Family, by Raphael Mengs, forms the altarpiece.
[Sidenote: MAZES]
From here we go west to _Alkborough_, and on a grassy headland
overlooking the junction of the Trent with the Ouse, we find a
saucer-shaped hollow a few feet deep and forty-four feet across, at
the bottom of which is a maze cut in the turf by monks 800 years ago.
It is almost identical in pattern with one at Wing, near Uppingham,
in Rutland, and unlike those “quaint mazes on the wanton green”
mentioned in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which “for lack of tread are
undistinguishable,” it has been kept cleared out, and a copy of it laid
down in the porch, as we find to be done on one of the porch piers at
Lucca Cathedral, and in the nave of Chartres Cathedral. These mazes
were Christian adaptations of the Egyptian and Greek labyrinths, and
were supposed to be allegorical of the mazes and entanglements of sin
from which man can only get free if assisted by the guiding hand of
Providence, or of Holy Church. Hence in a Christian Basilica in Algeria
the words “Sancta Ecclesia” are arranged in a complicated fashion in
the centre of the maze. Other mazes used to exist at Appleby, Louth,
and Horncastle in Lincolnshire, and at Ripon one of the same pattern,
but half as large again as the Alkborough maze, was only ploughed up
in 1827. At Asenby in Yorkshire is a similar one still carefully kept
clear. That on St. Catherine’s Hill, Winchester, is quadrangular and much
simpler. At Leigh in Dorset is a “Miz Maze.” Northants, Notts, Wilts,
Beds, Cambridge, and Gloucestershire, all had one at least. _Comberton_
in Cambridge has one of precisely the same pattern, and at _Hilton_, in
Huntingdonshire, is one called by the same name as that at Alkborough,
“Julian’s bower.” This is thought to be a reminiscence of the intricate
‘Troy’ game described in Virgil, _Aen._ v., 588-593, as played on
horseback by Iulus and his comrades:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account