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24 chapters
PREFACE
PREFACE
The following pages contain the chronicle of a leisurely and most enjoyable driving tour through a portion of Eastern England little esteemed and almost wholly, if not quite, neglected by the average tourist, for Lincolnshire is generally deemed to be a flat land, mostly consisting of Fens, and with but small, or no scenic attractions. We, however, found Lincolnshire to be a country of hills as well as of Fens, and we were charmed with the scenery thereof, which is none the less beautiful becaus
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
The planning of our tour—Ready for the road—The start—One of Dick Turpin’s haunts—Barnet—A curious inn sign—In the coaching days—Travellers, new and old—A forgotten Spa—An ancient map. Our tour was planned one chilly winter’s evening: just a chance letter originated the idea of exploring a portion of Lincolnshire during the coming summer. Our project in embryo was to drive from London to that more or less untravelled land of fen and wold by the old North Road, and to return to our starting-point
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Memorial of a great battle—An ancient fire-cresset—Free feasting!—Country quiet—Travellers’ tales—Hatfield—An Elizabethan architect—An author’s tomb—Day-dreaming—Mysterious roadside monuments—Great North Road versus Great Northern Railway—Stevenage—Chats by the way—Field life—Nature as a painter—Changed times. Leaving Barnet, we soon reached a bit of triangular green enlivened by a pond that was just then monopolised by geese; here, where the old and formerly famous “Parliamentary and Mail Coach
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
A gipsy encampment—A puzzling matter—Farming and farmers past and present—An ancient market-town—A picturesque bit of old-world architecture—Gleaners—Time’s changes—A house in two counties—A wayside inn—The commercial value of the picturesque. On one of the grassy wastes by the roadside, a sheltered corner overhung by branching elms, we espied a gipsy encampment. A very effective and pretty picture the encampment made with its belongings and green setting of grass and foliage. There were three b
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Biggleswade—“Instituted” or “intruded”!—A poetical will—The river Ivel—A day to be remembered—The art of seeing—Misquotations—The striving after beauty—Stories in stone—An ancient muniment chest—An angler’s haunt—The town bridge—The pronunciation of names—St. Neots. Some three miles or so beyond Astwick we reached high ground, from which we had extensive views to the right over miles of fields and undulating greenery. Shortly after this we dropped down into the drowsy old town of Biggleswade; at
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
The charm of small towns—The Ouse—A pleasant land—Buckden Palace—A joke in stone—The birthplace of Samuel Pepys—Buried treasure—Huntingdon—An old-time interior—A famous coaching inn—St. Ives—A church steeple blown down!—A quaint and ancient bridge—A riverside ramble—Cowper’s country—Two narrow escapes. One of the special charms of small towns like St. Neots is that you can readily walk out of them in any direction right into the country; and what a boon it must be to the inhabitants of such plac
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Cromwell’s birthplace—Records of the past—Early photographs—A breezy day—Home-brewed ale—Americans on English scenery—Alconbury Hill—The plains of Cambridgeshire—The silence of Nature—Stilton—A decayed coaching town—A medieval hostelry—A big sign-board—Old-world traditions—Miles from anywhere. Returning to our comfortable hostelry after our pleasant wanderings, we felt just sufficiently tired to enjoy the luxury of taking our ease therein, but “hungry as hunters” from our long tramp, therefore w
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Norman Cross—A Norman-French inscription—A re-headed statue—The friendliness of the road—The art of being delightful—The turnpike roads in their glory—Bits for the curious—A story of the stocks—“Wansford in England”—Romance and reality—The glamour of art—“The finest street between London and Edinburgh”—Ancient “Callises”—A historic inn—Windows that have tales to tell. Leaving Stilton we had a pleasant stretch of rural country of the restful, home-like, friendly order, but none the less beautiful
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
A picturesque ruin—Round about Stamford—Browne’s “Callis”—A chat with an antiquary—A quaint interior—“Bull-running”—A relic of a destroyed college—An old Carmelite gateway—A freak of Nature—Where Charles I. last slept as a free man—A storied ceiling—A gleaner’s bell—St. Leonard’s Priory—Tennyson’s county—In time of vexation—A flood—Hiding-holes—Lost!—Memorials of the past. Early in the morning we started out to explore the town; first, however, we found our way to Wothorpe a short mile off, from
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
A land of dykes—Fenland rivers—Crowland Abbey—A unique triangular bridge—Antiquaries differ—A mysterious statue—A medieval rhyme—A wayside inscription—The scenery of the Fens—Light-hearted travellers—Cowbit—A desolate spot—An adventure on the road—A Dutch-like town. So we drove on till the tall hedgerows ceased and the country became more open and assumed a wilder aspect: narrow dykes or ditches now divided the fields instead of the familiar fences, so that our eyes could range unimpeded over th
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
Spalding—“Ye Olde White Horse Inne”—An ancient hall and quaint garden—Epitaph-hunting—A signboard joke—Across the Fens—A strange world—Storm and sunshine—An awkward predicament—Brown—Birthplace of Hereward the Wake—A medieval railway station!—Tombstone verses. We determined that we would devote the next morning to leisurely exploring Spalding, armed with sketch-book and camera, for the ancient town promised, from the glance we had of it whilst driving in, to provide plenty of picturesque and qua
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
A pleasant road—Memories—Shortening of names—Health-drinking—A miller and his mill—A rail-less town—Changed times and changed ways—An Elizabethan church clock—A curious coincidence—Old superstitions—Satire in carving—“The Monks of Old.” From Bourn we decided to drive to Sleaford, an easy day’s stage of eighteen miles, baiting half-way at Falkingham. Upon asking the ostler about the road, it struck us as curious to hear him remark that it was a hilly one; so accustomed had we become to the level
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
A civil tramp—Country hospitality—Sleaford—A Lincolnshire saying—A sixteenth-century vicarage—Struck by lightning—“The Queen of Villages”—A sculptured anachronism—Swineshead—A strange legend—Local proverbs—Chat with a “commercial”—A mission of destruction—The curfew—Lost our way—Out of the beaten track—A grotesque figure and mysterious legend—Puzzling inscriptions—The end of a long day. Journeying leisurely on we presently arrived at the curiously entitled village of Silk Willoughby; here again
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
The Fenland capital—Mother and daughter towns—“Boston stump”—One church built over another—The company at our inn—A desultory ramble—An ancient prison—The Pilgrim Fathers—The banks of the Witham—Hussey Tower—An English Arcadia—Kyme Castle—Benington—A country of many churches—Wrangle—In search of a ghost—A remote village—Gargoyles—The grotesque in art. Boston , that proudly calls itself “the capital of Fenland,” struck us as a quaint old town, prosperous and busy, but not restless, with somewhat
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
Wind-blown trees—Marshlands—September weather—Wainfleet—An ancient school—The scent of the sea—The rehabilitation of the old-fashioned ghost—A Lincolnshire mystery—A vain search—Too much alike—Delightfully indefinite—Halton Holgate—In quest of a haunted house. Leaving Wrangle, the country to our right became still more open; for the rest of our way we followed the changeful line of the sea-coast at a distance of about a mile or more inland. The wind, coming unrestrained from the seaward over the
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
In a haunted house—A strange story—A ghost described!—An offer declined—Market-day in a market-town—A picturesque crowd—Tombs of ancient warriors—An old tradition—Popular errors—A chat by the way—The modern Puritan—A forgotten battle-ground—At the sign of the “Bull.” Reaching the next field we saw the house before us, a small, plain, box-like structure of brick, roofed with slate, and having a tiny neglected garden in front divided from the farm lands by a low wall. An unpretentious, commonplace
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Six hilly miles—A vision for a pilgrim—The scenery of the Wolds—Poets’ dreams versus realities—Tennyson’s brook—Somersby—An out-of-the-world spot—Tennyson-land—A historic home—A unique relic of the past—An ancient moated grange—Traditions. The next morning after breakfast we consulted our map as to the day’s doings and wanderings. We found that we were only some six miles or so away from Somersby, Tennyson’s birthplace,—six hilly ones they proved to be, but this is a detail. After due considerat
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
A decayed fane—Birds in church—An old manorial hall—Curious creations of the carver’s brain—The grotesque in excelsis —The old formal garden—Sketching from memory—The beauty of the Wolds—Lovely Lincolnshire!—Advice heeded!—A great character—A headless horseman—Extremes meet—“All’s well that ends well.” From Somersby we drove to Bag Enderby. What is the meaning of the curious and distinguishing prefix “bag” it is difficult to divine; it cannot be from “bog,” for the hamlet is in the hills and the
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
A friend in a strange land—Horse sold in a church—A sport of the past—Racing the moon!—Facts for the curious—The Champions of England—Scrivelsby Court—Brush magic—Coronation cups—A unique privilege—A blundering inscription—A headless body—Nine miles of beauty—Wragby—At Lincoln—Guides and guide-books—An awkward predicament. That evening, whilst looking over our day’s sketches and notes in our cosy parlour at the Bull, we had a pleasant surprise. “A gentleman to see you,” said the be-ribboned wait
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
“A precious piece of architecture”—Guests at an inn—A pleasant city—Unexpected kindness—A medieval lavatory—An honest lawyer!—The cost of obliging a stranger—Branston—A lost cyclist—In search of a husband!—Dunston Pillar—An architectural puzzle—A Lincolnshire spa—Exploring—An ancient chrismatory. Lincoln Cathedral is surely, both within and without, one of the most interesting and beautiful in England; its superb central tower is the finest specimen of medieval building of its kind I have so far
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
A long discourse—The origin of a coat-of-arms—An English serf—A witch-stone—Lincolnshire folk-lore—A collar for lunatics—St. Mary’s thistle—A notable robbery—An architectural gem—Coningsby—Tattershall church and castle—Lowland and upland—“Beckingham-behind-the-Times”—Old Lincolnshire folk. From Poolham Hall we drove on through a lovely country, remote from railways, and pervaded by a peaceful, mellow, homelike look; bound for the out-of-the-world hamlet of Wispington. On the way our antiquarian
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
A cross-country road—A famous hill—Another medieval inn—“The Drunken Sermon”—Bottesford—Staunton Hall—Old family deeds—A chained library—Woolsthorpe manor-house—A great inventor!—Melton Mowbray—Oakham—A quaint old manorial custom—Rockingham Castle—Kirby. From “Beckingham-behind-the-Times” we drove on to the old historic town of Grantham, a town that still retains much of its ancient picturesqueness though it is certainly not slothful, but rather pleasantly progressive. Our road led us through a
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
A well-preserved relic—An old English home—Authorities differ—Rooms on the top of a church tower—A medieval-looking town—A Saxon tower—Bedford—Bunyan’s birthplace—Luton—The end of the journey. Leaving Kirby we soon reached the very pretty village of Deene, on passing through which we noticed a picturesque creeper-covered little hostel with the sign of “The Sea-horse,” though it was so far inland. Then our road led us round Deene Park, shady with branching beeches and leafy elms, just giving us a
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APPENDIX
APPENDIX
ITINERARY OF JOURNEY ROUTE BETWEEN LONDON & LINCOLNSHIRE. OVER FEN AND WOLD IN LINCOLNSHIRE. Abbeys , Cathedrals, and Churches— Ashby Puerorum, 312-315 Bag Enderby, 329-334 Bardney Abbey, 397 Barton Seagrave, 437 Beckingham, 411 , 412 Benington, 259 , 260 Biggleswade, 59 Boston, 251 Bottesford, 420 , 421 Bourn, 202 Brampton, 82 Branston, 383 , 384 Buckden, 76-79 Clapham, 441 Claypole, 415 Colsterworth, 428 , 429 Coningsby, 403 Cowbit, 181 Crowland Abbey, 151 , 163 , 164 , 172-176
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