“Unquestionably one of the earliest and most remarkable designs of the Lancet Period in the kingdom—scarcely clear of Transitional influence, erected indeed at the very commencement of the period, and standing originally completely clear of the church on four noble arches, crowned, moreover, by a lofty wooden lead-covered spire flanked by four similar wooden lead-covered pinnacles—it must have been, at the time it was erected, one of the most striking structures in the country. “It is especially valuable to us as conveying an idea of the manner in which many of the towers of our cathedrals and parish churches of this period, now deprived of their spires, were originally finished; and it is remarkable as one of the very few which, having escaped fire and decay, remains still in its original position.” The westmost part of the south aisle, with its windows, is of the Curvilinear Period, so is the small building at the north-east corner of the chancel. In the following period (the Rectilinear) are the lofty side aisles and the north and south porches. The font is the original Norman one, though it has been new-worked. THE CHURCH OF ST. ANDREW, HECKINGTON BY W. G. WATKINS, A.R.I.B.A. Five miles east from the market town of Sleaford, just where the rolling uplands dip down into the great fen stretching out to Boston and the Wash, lies the village of Heckington; it is mentioned in Domesday as Heckintune, where one Gilbert de Gaunt held land, and there was a priest and a church. This same Gilbert de Gaunt had accompanied William the Conqueror to England, and for his services was rewarded with large grants of land in this and many other counties; he rebuilt the Abbey of Bardney, on the banks of the river Witham, about nine miles from Lincoln; richly endowed it; and was there buried in 1094, leaving his son Walter to further enrich the abbey, amongst other endowments, with all the tithe of corn and hay of his land in Heckington. In 1345 it is recorded that Roger de Barrowe, the then Abbot of Bardney, obtained a royal licence to appropriate the Church of Heckington; and it is interesting to note that, among other tomb slabs revealed by the excavation of the abbey church in 1909, was that of this same Roger de Barrowe, while the foundations of the choir and transept showed that they were part of the same Norman church which the piety of Gilbert de Gaunt had raised.