This brings us to the reason why Thomas Purden should have expected wayfarers to intercede for his soul. That he expected them to do this out of gratitude seems obvious; but it is not at first evident for what they should be so grateful. We are, however, to bear in mind that a road passed down beside this church tower in those days, where no road—only a meadow—exists to-day. The meadow slopes steeply to the river, and doubtless a ford, a ferry, or some primitive bridge was established here by Thomas Purden long before even a wooden bridge existed at Wansford. In providing some safe method by which travellers might pass this river, even now subject to dangerous floods, Purden would have been a benefactor in the eyes alike of men and of Holy Church, and fully entitled to the prayers and intercessions of all. [Picture: Water Newton Church] For many years the head of the figure had disappeared, but when the church was restored, some years since, an ingenious mason fitted him with another which had, in the usual careless fashion of restorers, been knocked off something else. And it is a simple truth that since its “restoration,” Water Newton church is sadly bare. By the wayside, on the left, against the wall of a farm-house residence, will be noticed an old milestone and horseman’s upping-block combined. It marks the 81st mile from London, and bears the initials “E. B.,” together with the date, 1708. This is perhaps the only survivor of a series which, according to De Foe, in his “Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain,” a Mr. Boulter was projecting “to London, for the general benefit.” [Picture: Edmund Boulter’s Milestone] Edmund Boulter was one of the family who were then seated at Gawthorp Hall, near Leeds, and who, not much later, sold that property to Henry Lascelles, father of the first Lord Harewood.