[Sidenote: WINTHORPE] One of Robert Palmer’s descendants, Elizabeth of Winthorpe, married George Sharpe, who was Archbishop of York in 1676, so Winthorpe furnished a bishop and an archbishop’s wife in the same decade. William Palmer was apparently part donor of the south porch of Winthorpe, which is very like those at Addlethorpe and Hogsthorpe, having a gabled and crocketed parapet carved with graceful flowing foliage; and on the two stones, lettered in Early English as at Hogsthorpe, are the lines:— Robert Lungnay and Wyll’ P alm’: thay payd for thys God in hys mercy bryng them to his blys. Over the east gable of the nave is a sanctus bell-cot, and in the tower are four good bells, three of which are thus inscribed:— 1. 1604 I sweetly tolling do men call to taste of meat that feeds the soul. 2. Jesus be our speed. 3. Antonius monet ut Campana bene sonet. In the west of the south aisle is the well-carved head of the churchyard cross, of which, as usual, only half of the shaft remains. On the head is a crucifixion, and on the other side the Virgin and Child. This head was found in 1910 a mile and a quarter from the church. It closely resembles that still standing intact at Somersby. Opposite, in the west end of the north aisle, are two bases of columns belonging to a former church of the thirteenth century, which church is first mentioned in the donation of it by William de Kyme to the abbey of Bardney, 1256. The registers of the church begin in 1551. From the foregoing it will be seen how extremely interesting these Marsh churches are, and these four are not the only ones in this part of the Marsh, _Croft_ and _Burgh_ being both within three or four miles of _Winthorpe_. _Theddlethorpe_, north of these, is a finer building, as is _Burgh-le-Marsh_; but I doubt if any other church has such a wealth of old carved woodwork as Addlethorpe or Winthorpe. There is, cut on the south-east angle of Winthorpe tower, a deep horizontal line with the letters “H.W. 1837.” This indicates the level of high-water mark on the other side of the sea bank, and as the mark on the tower is eight feet nine inches from the ground, though the 1837 tide was an exceptionally high one, it gives some idea of what this part of the Marsh must at times have been in the days before the Romans made their great embankment. A plan for improving the drainage of the land at Winthorpe was made as early as 1367, and a rate was exacted of 1_s._ an acre. [Sidenote: SKEGNESS HOUSE]