One only further record can we give of Tattershall. Most places have had their characters. Tradition avers, and not so long ago either, that a certain worthy farmer, living in the neighbourhood, used to ride into Tattershall, almost nightly, to his hostel, to play his game of cards with certain boon companions. It was before our toll-bars were abolished, and there stood, near Tattershall bridge, a toll-bar with gate made formidable by a chevaux de frise of iron spikes. At times the play ran high, and our friend would return home without a coin in his pocket wherewith to pay toll. But he was well-mounted, and on a moonlight night he would not hesitate to obviate the difficulty by taking the toll-bar at full speed and landing safely on four legs beyond it. Although I cannot set my seal to this tradition, yet, from the style in which he would follow the hounds, I can well believe that not even a toll-bar, spikes and all, would debar him from his “long clay” and glass of wholesome “home-brewed” by his own fireside as a “night-cap.” {238} We now bid adieu to Tattershall, prepared, presumably, to endorse the verdict of a writer in the “Quarterly Review,” that the castle is indeed “the finest redbrick tower in the kingdom,” {239a} and the best example, except, perhaps, Hurstmonceux, of what good brickwork is capable of in architecture; and, further, that the church is not unworthy of a place beside it; and it is not a little remarkable that William of Waynfleet, who completed it, also built the most beautiful college in the world, viz., that of Magdalen, Oxford. Our itinerary is now approaching its conclusion, yet we shall finish with a _bonne bouche_. We turn our faces northward, and, passing by land still called “Tattershall park,” though now under cultivation and broken up into fields; and, where formerly were two ancient encampments, British or Roman, but now obliterated, a walk of some three miles brings us in view of a tall fragment of stone-work, two fields distant on our left. This is the last remaining portion of Kirkstead Abbey. It is now some 50 feet high and 18 feet, or so, in width, but an engraving by Buck gives it as at least double that width; and the writer has conversed with a man whose father was labouring in the Abbey field when he noticed some cattle, which had been standing under the shade of the ruin, suddenly galloping away in alarm, and immediately afterwards a large portion of the stonework collapsed, and, with a loud crash, fell to the ground, leaving the relic much about the size which we see now.