Not far off the abbey eastward, upon a hillock, is the remnant of a little stone cottage, called Anchor Church-house: here was a chapel over the place where St. Guthlac lived a hermit, and where he was buried.[29] Over-against the west end of the abbey is the famous triangular bridge: it is too steep to be commonly rode over; horses and carriages go under it: it is formed upon three segments of a circle meeting in one point; they say each base stands in a different county. The rivers Nyne and Welland here meet. On one side sits an image of king Athelbald with a globe in his hand. St. Guthlake’s cross, between Spalding and Crowland, near Brother-house and Cloot-bar, stands upon the side of the bank, almost buried under earth: it is a boundary of the church lands: of great antiquity.[30] ITER OXONIENSE. II. _Sed prior hæc hominis cura est cognoscere terram._ +Virg.+ _To Mr._ JOHN HARDY _of_ Nottingham. It is commonly remarked, that impressions of any sort made upon youthful minds last long; and, like a cut in the bark of tender sprigs, grow deeper and more apparent with advancing years. _Crescent illæ crescetis amores._ +Virg.+ The many hours I have spent with you when I first began to cast my eyes upon the scenes of the world, and consider things about me, recur to my mind with pleasure. I should be ungrateful then, (to which my temper is most abhorrent) and I should deny myself a particular satisfaction, did I not acknowledge the remembrance of a friendship now mature: therefore to you I offer the earliest fruits of it, this small account of the first pleasurable journey I can reckon to myself, where I had opportunity for satisfying my growing curiosity. It is no wonder that your learning, your taste of antiquities, and all endearing qualities, made me fond of cultivating your acquaintance; and perhaps to you in great measure do I owe what may not be discommendable in amusements of the following kind, since our converse and our journeying sometimes together, to visit the remains of venerable antiquity, in my first years, gave me the love and incitement to such pursuits. I am not concerned to make an excuse for the meanness of this present: were it not juvenile, it would not be genuine. As when first with you, so since it has been my method, to put into writing what little remarks I made in travelling: at length I had collected so much, that with some drawings of places and things taken at the same time, it was judged not unworthy of publication: my consent was grounded upon hopes that by this means I might give some account of every part of my time, and that my own pleasures might not be altogether unuseful; especially thinking it was no hard task to equal somewhat of this sort lately done, and well received of the public. It is to be wished this branch of learning should revive among us, which has lain dormant since the great Camden;