Having completed our perambulations of the town, let us betake ourselves once more to the country. We remount the hill, which we descended on leaving Thimbleby for Horncastle, but by a different road, viz., one running due west. Half way up the ascent of this, the westernmost spur of the chalky Wolds, we have two roads, either of which would bring us to Woodhall Spa, almost equi-distant by either; but that is not, as yet, our destination. We continue the ascent, due westward. The summit reached, we have a wide prospect before us. To the left, on a clear day, Boston Stump is visible, the Tower on the Moor rises above the woods, beyond that Tattershall castle and church; in the dim distance the graceful spire of Heckington points, like a needle, to the sky. Straight in front of us woods on woods band and bar the prospect, relieved by the spires of Old Woodhall and Horsington. To the right, the horizon is crowned by the almost pyramidal shape of Lincoln Minster, the seeing eye also detecting the lesser pyramid of the Chapter House, other spires, with the factory chimneys of the now busy city, more than its old prosperity being revived. Further to the right the plantations of Fillingham Castle, some miles beyond Lincoln, on the “Spital road,” fringe the view. Truly, it is a wide-ranging outlook, embracing little short of 30 miles, with many a village and hamlet, buried and unseen, in its entourage of wood. Immediately in the near front is Langton mill, a conspicuous object, which I have distinguished from the top of Lincoln Minster itself. Half-a-mile farther lies the village of Langton, one of three of the same name in the neighbourhood—one near Spilsby, one near Wragby, and this “by Horncastle.” As to the meaning of the name Langton, Dr. Oliver refers the first syllable to the British “Lan” (Welsh Llan), meaning “place of worship,” and so corresponding to Kirkby, or Kirkstead. In this particular case, however, the ordinary meaning of “Lang,” or “long,” would be specially applicable, since the village has evidently at one time been larger than at present, and the parish extended, some six miles, to the Witham, until, quite recently, the distant portion was included in Woodhall Spa. Here again we had, until recent years, in the rectory, another moated residence, standing almost on an island, being surrounded by water except for the space of the churchyard and the width of a drive to the house. The moat was drained for sanitary reasons about 50 yeans ago, to the regret of many, since, as has been mentioned in a previous chapter (Chapter VI.), it contained an abundance of large pike, and other fish, from which the lake at Sturton Hall was stocked. The Queen was the lady of the manor until, in 1860, much Crown property was sold in this neighbourhood, and the manor and most of the land in the parish, except the glebe, was bought by the Coates family, who have a substantial residence here.