Members of the Multon, Welby, Wigtoft, and Kyme families rest in the church, as well as the body of John Horrox, the founder of the Moulton Grammar Schools. Unfortunately at the restoration the sepulchral slabs were removed to “fit in better,” and at the present time are not over the bodies of those whose memory they perpetuate. ST. MARY’S, WHAPLODE This church is not only the oldest in the district, but, in spite of the lamentable condition to which it has been reduced by the ill-usage and neglect in bygone days, it is one of the most instructive and interesting to the architectural student in South Lincolnshire. “The Parish of Whaplode, prior to the Conquest, was under the jurisdiction of the convent of Croyland, the abbot of which, from the earliest times, was lord of the principal manor. It was proved at a trial before the Bishop of Lincoln in 1447, the abbot “held the principal demesne rights in Whaplode, and had there besides the fee of the church markets, fairs, wastes and warren, right of pillory, as also the assize of bread and beer,” though it is recorded that the abbot’s rights were disputed, and that Ralph Mershe (abbot from 1253-1281), at great expense, and after long suits at law, gained the manor of Gedney and the _church_ at Whaplode. This seems strange, as every record from the earliest times connects the abbot of Croyland with the patronage of Whaplode Church, and that the convent used to supply chaplains to do duty. In addition to the Croyland records, there are the public records, for we find that the abbot, in Henry III.’s reign, in 1245, had a grant of a weekly market on Saturday, and a fair on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and six days afterwards, and that this grant was confirmed by Edward I.; besides which we have the ecclesiastical documents in the Bishop’s Register at Lincoln, showing that the abbot presented to the church in 1239, 1246, 1250, 1251. The abbot won the day, and Croyland abbots held the presentation to the living until the Dissolution in the reign of Henry VIII.” [Illustration: MOULTON CHURCH SOUTH AISLE, LOOKING NORTH-WEST. MOULTON CHURCH NAVE, LOOKING EAST.] The monks of Croyland were the builders of Whaplode’s two churches, though doubtless largely aided by the laity, as we have seen was the case at Moulton. Unfortunately the records of Croyland do not give the same amount of information in reference to the building of their churches as do those of Spalding Priory in reference to theirs. There is no trace of the building of any earlier church at Whaplode than the present one, and we are unaware of any remains of earlier work being found when the church was restored, about the middle of last century.