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
a black marble top to an altar tomb is inscribed to Francis Malham de
Elslacke, 1660. The east end of the north aisle is used as a morning
chapel. A tall gilt reredos much blocks the chancel east window. When
I last visited the church the north and south doorways being wide open
gave the church plenty of wholesome fresh air, so different from the
well-known Sabbath “frowst” which, in the days of high pews, and when a
church was only opened on Sunday, never departed from the building.
[Sidenote: THE TOWER]
The north porch is very large, and has a passage-way east and west right
through; it was built with the north aisle about 1280, and was extended
and a room built over it about 1325, when the head of the north doorway
was much mutilated to let the floor in, at the same time a Lady chapel
was constructed on the south side of the chancel, and with a double
vaulted crypt, entered from outside, and also from the chancel, by a
beautiful staircase with richly carved doorway. The rood screen was also
built now, on which was an altar served by the chaplain daily at 5 a.m.
“after the first stroke of the bell which is called Daybelle.” It is
said that this bell is still rung daily from Lady Day to Michaelmas, but
whether at 5 o’clock deponent sayeth not. The Lincoln daybell rang at 6.
To reach this rood loft there is an octagon turret with a staircase on
the south side at the junction of the nave and chancel. The south porch
has also a staircase to the upper chamber, and the north porch has two
turreted staircases, probably for the ingress and egress of pilgrims
to the sacred relics kept there. Besides this there were at least five
chantries attached to the church; the latest of these were the fifteenth
century Corpus Christi chapel along the north side of the chancel, and
the contiguous “Hall” chapel which dates from the fifteenth century.
There is a good corbel table all along the aisles outside, and the west
front is very fine and striking.
But the great glory of the building is the steeple. We have seen that
the nave runs up to the large eastern piers of the tower, and the aisles
run on past each side of it as far as the western piers, and so with the
tower form a magnificent western façade, examples of which might even
then have been seen at Newark, which was begun before Grantham, and at
Tickhill near Doncaster.
[Sidenote: LINCOLNSHIRE SPIRES]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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