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
The first of the group of towers we look at is _Waith_, a small cruciform
building in a churchyard thickly planted with trees, two fine cedars
among them. There are some Early English arcades to the nave, but
outside, the tower alone is ancient. This originally was just the width
of the nave, and has no openings in the north and south walls. It is
also built, not of rubble with quoins, but of dressed stones throughout,
solidly but roughly built, with a tiny opening low down; and above the
invariable string course, a double light of two small round-headed arches
supported by a stout mid-wall shaft with heavy impost. Coming away, we
note on a tombstone the curious and possibly Roman surname ‘Porcass.’ Two
miles south-west is _Grainsby_ where, as at Clee and Scartho, the stones
bear the red marks of Danish fire, and where, inside the tower, is an old
boulder stone. Two miles north, on the Grimsby road, is _Holton-le-Clay_,
where the tower of the church is of similar antiquity, all but the top
storey above the string-course. The west side has only one very small
window, but it has on the east side a good tall Romanesque tower-arch,
and there is an Early Norman or Saxon font. The rest of the church is of
the poorest in all respects.
[Sidenote: SCARTHO]
As we proceed, the tall windmill with six sails shows above the _Waltham_
woods on our left, and we pass a roadside inn with the sign of “The Old
Pop Shop.” Three miles more and we reach _Scartho_, a village which is
beginning to take the overflow of Grimsby and is full of new buildings.
This is the only living in the north or east of England which belongs
to Jesus College, Oxford. The church is very interesting on account of
its tower, which is Saxon in all but the absence of “Long-and-Short”
work. The stones of the tower are of all shapes and kinds, the quoins
alone being of hewn stone. Below are only the tiny windows common to all
Saxon towers, and above, the belfry has two-light windows with the usual
mid-wall shaft. In the west of the tower is a doorway with a round head
of large stones and massive imposts.
There is a deep, narrow archway from the nave into the tower, with a
little window looking into the nave, and there have been originally tall
arches in both the north and south walls, narrow of necessity so as to
leave wall enough at each angle for the tower to stand on. A charming
original font is there, but hideously placed on a modern inverted stone
bowl. The tower and the font are the only things worth looking at, but
both of these are of unusual interest. The parapet is Perpendicular and
built of different stone, and it is easy to see from the red appearance
of many calcined stones used in the tower that it has been rebuilt from
the old materials after a former church had been burnt by that scourge
of Lincolnshire—the Dane. The principal entrance is now through a big
doorway, but in the thirteenth century was in the south wall of the tower.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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