between Woodhall Spa and all parts of the country. From these particulars it will be seen that, although the whilom owner of the Woodhall Estate (Mr. Thos. Hotchkin) had spent large sums of money (some £30,000 it was said) in building the bathhouse and hotel in 1834–5, yet the establishment for several years laboured under great disadvantages owing to its difficulty of access. Indeed, persons wishing to visit the Spa from a distance had, for the most part, to bring their own carriages; or, if arriving by the ordinary means of transit, and wishing to move beyond the immediate precincts of the hotel, they had to hire a conveyance from the Victoria Hotel, where the supply was very limited. Moreover, in those days some of the lighter kinds of carriage now in vogue, such as the modern dog-cart, were unknown. The chaise and the gig, large or small, were the conveyances in common use, the days not being yet past when the farmer’s wife rode to market on a pillion behind her husband. In matters spiritual there was also a corresponding backwardness. The nominal district of Woodhall Spa consisted of outlying portions of the parishes of Woodhall, Langton, Thornton and Thimbleby, these villages themselves being distant from four and a half to seven miles. A person standing in the centre of the cross-roads, near the present Church of St. Andrew, could have one foot in Langton (his right), the other in Woodhall (his left) and hold his walking stick before him resting in Thornton. The nearest portion of Thimbleby began some 500 yards away northward, opposite the present blacksmith’s shop. The portion of Langton extended from St. Andrew’s Church to Mill-lane, near the present Kirkstead Station. Thornton extended on the opposite, southern, side of the Kirkstead Wharf-road, from the present station, for a distance of some miles eastward, with the parish of Kirkstead running parallel to it on the south. The portion of Woodhall extended eastward from the aforesaid point at the cross-roads, and included Woodhall Spa and other land lying north and further east. In Mill-lane there was (_a_) a Presbyterian Chapel, served by a minister residing at Horncastle, also (_b_) a Wesleyan Chapel on the Kirkstead-road, the minister (a layman) being also resident in Horncastle. The only Church of England service in the near neighbourhood was held at the beautiful little church in the fields, distant about a mile to the southwest, being part of the remains of Kirkstead Abbey; but as this benefice was a donative, or “peculiar,” not under episcopal jurisdiction, {13} it might be opened or closed, and stipend paid to a minister or withheld, according to the will of the proprietor for the time being of the Kirkstead Estate. The services have, therefore, at times been performed somewhat irregularly, and it has now been closed since about 1880. Owing to the distance of the district from the parent parishes and its inaccessibility, the religious interests