The road which runs south from Heckington to Billingborough and so on by Rippingale to Bourne, passes by Hale Magna to _Helpringham_. Here is another very fine church, with a lofty crocketed spire, starting from four bold pinnacles with flying buttresses. The tower is engaged in the aisles, as at Ewerby and Sleaford, and as at Ewerby it opens into nave and aisles by three grand arches. The great height of the tower arch into the nave here and at Boston and Sleaford was in order to let in light to the church from the great west window. The main body of the building is Decorated and has fine windows; the chancel with triplet window is Early English. The font, Early English transition, the rood screen is of good Perpendicular design, and the effect of the whole building is very satisfying, especially from the exterior. It is curious that the lord of the manors of Helpringham and Scredington, who since the sixteenth century has been the Lord Willoughby De Broke, was in the fourteenth century the Lord Willoughby D’Eresby. [Illustration: _Helpringham._] [Sidenote: SWATON] South of Helpringham, and situated half-way between that and Horbling, and just to the north of the Sleaford-and-Boston road is _Swaton_ with a beautiful cruciform church in the earliest Decorated style; indeed, looking at the lancet windows in the chancel, one might fairly call it transitional Early English. The simple two-light geometrical window at the east end with the mullions delicately enriched outside and in, form a marked contrast to the rich but heavy Decorated work of the four-light west window. At the east end the window is subordinated to the whole design. At the west end the windows are the predominant feature of the building, and nowhere can this period of architecture be better studied. The roof spans both nave and aisles, as at Great Cotes, near Grimsby, so though the nave is big and high it has no clerestory. The tower arches are very low. The font is a very good one of the period, with diaper work and ball-flower. We have dwelt at some length on Sleaford and its immediate neighbourhood, and not without cause, for there are few places in England or elsewhere in which so many quite first-rate churches are gathered within less than a six-mile square. They are all near the road from Sleaford to Boston, on which, after leaving Heckington, nothing noticeable is met with for seven miles, till Swineshead is reached, and nothing after that till Boston. The north-eastern road from Sleaford to Horncastle passes over a flat and dull country to Billinghay and Tattershall, and thence by the interesting little churches of Haltham and Roughton (pronounced Rooton) to Horncastle. The road near _Billinghay_ runs by the side of the Old Carr Dyke, which is a picturesque feature in a very Dutch-looking landscape. [Sidenote: KYME TOWER AND PRIORY] [Sidenote: SOUTH KYME]