The knives and scourges of Crowland Abbey (_see_ Chap. XLI.) are seen in the old glass. The custom of giving little knives to all comers at Crowland on St. Bartholomew’s Day was abolished by Abbot John de Wisbeche in the reign of Edward IV. In the tower is a fine peal of disused bells. [Sidenote: SOMERSBY CROSS] Dr. Tennyson held this living with _Somersby_. This is a smaller building, but it retains in the churchyard a remarkable and perfect cross, a tall, slender shaft with pedimented tabernacle, under which are figures, as on the gable cross at Addlethorpe and on the head of the broken churchyard cross at Winthorpe—the Crucifixion is on one side and the Virgin and Child on the other. From Somersby there are two roads to Horncastle—each passes over the brook immortalised in “In Memoriam” and in the lovely little lyric, “Flow down cold rivulet to the sea,” and branching to the left, one passes through Salmonby, where Bishop William of Waynflete is said to have been rector. This is doubtful, but probably he was presented to the vicarage of Skendleby by the Prior of Bardney in 1430. The other and prettier road goes by _Ashby Puerorum_ and _Greetham_, and both run out into the Spilsby and Horncastle road near _High Toynton_. Ashby Puerorum (or Boys’ Ashby) gets its name from an estate here bequeathed to support the Lincoln Minster choir boys. At this place, and again close by Somersby, the hollows in the Wold which this road passes through are among the prettiest bits of Lincolnshire. CHAPTER XXXI SOMERSBY AND THE TENNYSONS Tennyson’s Poetry descriptive of his home—Bronze Bust of the Poet—Dedication Festival—A Long-lived Family—Dialect poems. This little quiet village, tucked away in a fold of the hills, with the eastern ridge of the Wolds at its back and the broad meadow valley stretching away in front of it and disappearing eastwards in the direction of the sea, had no history till now. It was only in 1808 that Dr. George Clayton Tennyson came to Somersby as rector of Somersby and Bag Enderby, incumbent of Beniworth and Vicar of Great Grimsby. He came as a disappointed man, for his father, not approving, it is said, of his marriage with Miss ffytche of Louth (a reason most unreasonable if it was so) had disinherited him in favour of his younger brother Charles, who became accordingly Charles Tennyson d’Eyncourt of Bayons Manor near Tealby. Dr. Tennyson’s eldest son George was born in the parsonage at Tealby, in 1806, but died an infant. Frederick was born at Louth in 1807, and the other ten children at Somersby. Of these, the first two were Charles (1808) and Alfred (1809). They were a family of poets; their father wrote good verse, and their grandmother, once Mary Turner of Caister, always claimed that Alfred got all his poetry through her. Her husband George was a member of Parliament and lived in the _old_ house at Bayons Manor. [Sidenote: THE TENNYSONS]