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
Mounting again, the road turns to the left and goes straight ahead on
what is evidently a portion of a Roman “street,” giving on the left a
view of the “Marsh” towards Mablethorpe, with its grey shimmering line
which denotes “the bounding main,” and on the right a still more distant
prospect over the flat “fen” lands in the direction of Boston, whose
columnar tower rises far up into the sky. The blue haze of the marsh, the
purple distance over the fens, with, in the autumn, the long, drifting
lines of grey smoke from the burning “quitch,” or “twitch” as they
usually call it here, make a delightful impression; and then if we turn
fenwards we drop into the leafy hollow of _Skendleby_ village, where once
the Conqueror’s friend, Gilbert de Gaunt, resided, and to which William
of Waynfleet, the famous Bishop of Winchester, was presented as vicar by
the convent of Bardney in 1430. It is a pretty village with its church
and manor-house, and thatched, white-washed cottages bright with flowers,
and its well-stocked farm. A tall windmill crowns the next height; this
is Grebby Mill, and it is interesting to find that there has been a
windmill there for 600 years.
For _Grebby_ is old enough to be mentioned in Domesday Book, and in 1317
we have mention of a windmill there belonging to Robert de Willoughby and
Margaret his wife.
[Sidenote: THE FLOODED FEN]
From the windmill one looks down to the old brick tower of _Scremby_
church, which is the last building on the edge of the slope from which
the endless levels of the fen begin and run south till they reach
Crowland and Peterborough. From whence the great cathedral, with its
splendid west front, looked out in the disastrous August of 1912 over
miles and miles of corn-land where the tall sheaves stood up out of a
vast expanse of water, the result of the abnormal rains and the burst
dyke which made Whittlesea Mere once more resume its ancient appearance.
Below Scremby the road runs to the left to _Candlesby_, and so rejoins
that starting-place of so many byways—_Gunby_.
There was a church at Scremby in Norman times; at the dissolution the
manor came to the all-acquiring Duke of Suffolk. Now-a-days the handbook
dismisses it as “of no special interest,” but eighty-five years ago it
was thought worth while to mention that “at the west end of the nave is a
neat and commodious singing-gallery.”
Those who wish to see the beauties of the country must leave the high
ridge every here and there and make a round into the little villages
which lie at the foot of the Wolds, mostly on the western slopes where
they escape the strong sea winds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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