The Grimsby Group of Pre-Norman Towers—Waith—Holton-le-Clay—Scartho—Clee—Humberstone—Tetney —Ravendale—Ashby-cum-Fenby—Roads to Lincoln and Horncastle—Hainton—Glentham—West Rasen—The Pack-horse Bridge—Toft-next-Newton and Newton-by-Toft—Gibbet-posts—Middle Rasen—The Labourer—Market Rasen—North Willingham—Tealby and Bayons Manor—Bishop Odo—South Elkington—Road from Horncastle—The South Wolds—Tathwell—Jane Chaplin. [Sidenote: JUNE FLOWERS] The road from Louth to Grimsby, in its first part, is described elsewhere; but north of Ludborough it passes through a succession of small villages in each of which is a very early church tower. These are all somewhat similar to the two primitive churches in Lincoln and to the famous one at Barton-on-Humber, but they have no “Long-and-Short” work which is distinctive of the _Saxon_ towers, and so the term _Romanesque_ perhaps best describes them. They are certainly pre-Norman. Similar groups have been described near Caistor and Gainsborough in Chaps. XVII. and XX., and others mentioned in Chap. XXII. It was a bright and breezy morning early in June when we set out from Well to visit this remarkable group. The trees were at their best, chestnuts and may trees still in bloom, and in the wayside gardens the laburnum with its “dropping-wells of fire” was a joy to see. As we passed along the wind brought the strong scent of the mustard fields and the delicious perfume of the beans, not badly described by the Barber to his wife as “just like the very most delicious hair-oil, my dear.” The pastures were golden with buttercups, but the most wonderful sight of all was the profusion of chervil, or cow-parsley (_Anthriscus_), which, with its lace-like flowers, at times filled the space of grass between the road and the hedge with mile upon mile of its delicate white blossom, and in places lined every hedge, showing above the ordinary low-cut Lincolnshire fence, or, where the hedge was higher, whitening the lower half in lines of flowery loveliness. It nowhere encroached on the cultivated land, but every hedge and ditch and roadside was marked out by it in a profusion of soft white blossoms which was quite astonishing. We note that the “tender ash” is still, as our Lincolnshire poet has it, delaying ‘to clothe herself when all the woods are green,’ but a few days of such balmy sunshine will woo even her leaves from out the bud, and full summer will be with us. The red cattle are feeding in little herds, and the sheep, white from the hands of the shearer, are dotted about the fields. The labourers seem, most of them, to be at the same work, weeding the corn; but as we get further on to the heavy lands whence _Holton-le-Clay_ so aptly gets its name, we see teams of four horses abreast harnessed to the “Drags,” by which the great clods are broken up.