It appears that about the dawn of the fourteenth century there were two parish churches for the town of Spalding, which were on the west side of the river Welland. One, the Holy Rood, stood on the south side of the present market place—on the priory walls, about the spot where the Stamford and Spalding Bank premises are erected; the other St. Mary, Stokes, which also stood on the priory wall, but nearer the river Welland and to the High Bridge, that crosses that river. The bells of these churches not only disturbed the prior and his monks, but the two buildings being in such a dilapidated condition, the parishioners flocked to the abbey church, near by, to the great inconvenience of the inmates of the monastery. William Littleport, who was then the prior, came to an agreement with the townsmen about the year 1283, and obtained leave to pull down the two churches, which were probably small buildings with Norman style of architecture. With contributions from the townsmen, he agreed to erect a new church for the parish on the east side of the river Welland, and in the year 1284 he laid the foundation-stone of the present church. The land on which it stands was then the burial ground for the town, and part of the mortuary chapel that was then standing was worked into the new building, and forms part of the south and east walls of the chancel of the present church. [Illustration: SPALDING CHURCH NAVE, LOOKING NORTH-EAST. HOLBEACH CHURCH NAVE, LOOKING WEST.] When the church was restored in the year 1866, foundations of an earlier building than the present one were discovered beneath the level of the floor of the nave—extending westward from the chancel to midway of the great arches of the transepts. The lines of these foundations were at right angles with the east wall of the chancel, which is not square with the present chancel walls, and is of much ruder worked masonry. Most of the churches in the district, when restored, have revealed the carved stone work of earlier edifices, which had been freely used by the builders when either enlarging or rebuilding the churches. This is not to be wondered at, considering the difficulty the builders had in getting the stone from the district of Stamford—for from that neighbourhood nearly the whole of the stone came that was used in erecting the churches the subject of this article. It must have been costly even in those days, when labour was cheap. It had to be quarried in the “Uplands,” and floated on small flat-bottomed boats during the winter months down the shallow rivers to the various churches—for the roads were well nigh impassable for such traffic—dressed by the masons on the spot in the dark season of the year—and built into its place in the summer months, when the stone would be dry and so able to resist the winter frosts. Their work was slow, but it was good and sure.