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
Two fine altar tombs of the fourteenth century, with effigies of knight
and lady, seem to be treated somewhat negligently, being thrust away
together at the entrance. The nave pillars are very lofty, but the whole
church has a bare and disappointing appearance from the plainness of
the architecture, and the ugly coat of yellow wash, both on walls and
pillars, and the badness of the stained glass.
On the north wall of the chancel and reaching to the roof there is a very
lofty monument, with life-size effigy to the first Duke of Ancaster,
1723. East of this, one to the second duke with a marble cupid holding
a big medallion of his duchess, Jane Brownlow, 1741, and on the south
wall are equally huge memorials. In the family pew we hailed with relief
a very good alabaster tablet with white marble medallion of the late
Lady Willoughby “Clementina Elizabeth wife of the first Baron Aveland,
Baroness Willoughby d’Eresby in her own right, joint hereditary Lord
Chamberlain of England,” 1888.
The font is transition Norman, the cylindrical bowl surrounded by eight
columns not detached, and a circle of arcading consisting of two Norman
arches between each column springing from the capitals of the pillars.
The magnificent set of gold Communion plate was presented by the
Willoughby family. It is of French, Spanish, and Italian workmanship.
_Humby_ church has also a fine gold service, presented by Lady Brownlow
in 1682. It gives one pleasure to find good cedar trees and yews growing
in the churchyard.
[Sidenote: GRIMSTHORPE]
_Grimsthorpe Castle_ is a mile beyond Edenham. The park, the finest
in the county, in which are herds of both fallow and red deer, is very
large, and full of old oaks and hawthorns; the latter in winter are
quite green with the amount of mistletoe which grows on them. The lake
covers one hundred acres. The house is a vast building and contains a
magnificent hall 110 feet long, with a double staircase at either end,
and rising to the full height of the roof. In the state dining-room is
the Gobelin tapestry which came to the Duke of Suffolk by his marriage
with Mary, the widow of Louis XII. of France. Here, too, are several
Coronation chairs, the perquisites of the Hereditary Grand Chamberlain.
The Willoughby d’Eresby family have discharged this office ever since
1630 in virtue of descent from Alberic De Vere, Earl of Oxford, Grand
Chamberlain to Henry I., but in 1779, on the death of the fourth Duke of
Ancaster, the office was adjudged to be the right of both his sisters,
from which time the Willoughby family have held it conjointly with the
Earl of Carrington and the Marquis of Cholmondeley. Among the pictures
are several Holbeins. The manor of Grimsthorpe was granted to William,
the ninth Lord Willoughby, by Henry VIII. on his marriage with Mary de
Salinas, a Spanish lady in attendance on Katharine of Aragon, and it was
their daughter Katherine who became Duchess of Suffolk and afterwards
married Richard Bertie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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