Chapter V: Part 5

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Again, in 1189, we find Thomas de Multon, Lord of Holbeach, and others, who conspired against the Abbot of Croyland, meeting in the Church of Holbeach.

In 1194, on the morrow of the Holy Trinity, a settlement was arrived at between Fulco d’Oiri, who claimed the advowson of the Church of All Saints, Holbeach, and the Chapel of St. Peter in Holbeach; and he made over the advowson to Conan, fil Elie de Holbeche, and his heirs for 21s. rent in Holbeche, and for one “calcaria de aurata” (a pair of gilt spurs) at Easter for all services.

The advowson of Holbeach, prior to the Bishop of Lincoln acquiring the same, had belonged to the Multon family, a member of whom in King Henry III.’s reign had a grant of a weekly market and also fairs at Holbeach. The various legal suits brought to recover the advowson of Holbeach are most interesting reading, and are given in Macdonald’s _History of Holbeach_, a work well worth consulting.

In 1332, however, the church had a new patron—Henry, Bishop of Lincoln. By deed dated at Stone, in the county of Northampton, “on the nearest Wednesday after the feast of St. Martin,” the Bishop, in the sixth year of the reign of Edward III. (1332), William de Harcourt, Knt., for the sum of £500, made over to Henry, by divine permission Bishop of Lincoln, the advowson of the Church of Holbeach; and in the Lincoln Register there is a charter given in 1332 by William de Harcourt, Knight, appointing two attorneys to put the Bishop in possession of Holbeach Church.

The Pope in 1334 despatched a papal bull to the Bishops of Hereford, Ely, and Durham, directing that the Church of Holbeach, the patronage of which the Bishop of Lincoln had lately acquired, should be appropriated to the see of Lincoln.

On 5th February 1334, 7 Edward III. (dated at Nettleham), the Bishop of Lincoln granted a charter to Dominus Thomas de ... appointing him his (the Bishop’s) attorney to receive seisin of the Church at Holbeach.

In 1335 a licence was granted to William de Goseberkyrk, the newly appointed Vicar of Holbeach, to hear confessions in reserved cases.

It appears that almost directly the Bishop of Lincoln obtained possession of the advowson, and had placed his nominee into the vicarage, he at once set about building the present church at Holbeach, which then excelled the two neighbouring churches of Moulton and Whaplode. This doubtless led the monks of Spalding and Croyland to enlarge their respective churches, and rekindled the church-building energy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The visitor will not fail to notice the north porch. In appearance it is more in keeping for a baronial castle than a church porch. It is no part of the original design or building, and was added years afterwards. It was flanked at the north-east and south-east angles with massive circular towers, one of which leads to the parvise above, and the other appears to have been used as a cell or porter’s lodge.

Previously to being erected at Holbeach it had, we believe, formed part of the manorial castle of the Multon family at Moulton. A mere glance at the structure will show it was never designed for an ecclesiastical building. It was probably removed from Moulton when the castle fell into decay in the fifteenth century. The Multon family had died out for want of males, and their property had been divided among co-heiresses.

The south porch and door are part of the original building; the door is a beautiful example of the woodwork of the period. The font is also a good example of the period.

The church has been well restored in recent years, and several painted glass windows have been inserted. The work of restoration commenced when the late Rev. Arthur Brook was the vicar, and has been continued in the time of the present vicar, the Rev. Canon Hemmans. The church well deserves a visit.

There is a fine altar tomb to the memory of Sir Humphrey Littlebury, and when about the year 1640 Colonel Holles visited the church he found armorial bearings and inscriptions to members of the families of Littlebury, Kirketon, Calow, Welby, Leyke, and others.

There are chimes in the tower, erected in 1776 by Edward Arnold of St. Neots, and a fine ring of eight bells.

ST. MARY MAGDALENE, FLEET

This church was built in the Curvilinear Period; it is chiefly notable for its detached south-west tower with spire, which, though of no great size, are well-proportioned and of good design. The spire is perfectly plain. There are some well-carved corbel heads serving as supports to the timbers of the roof.

This church has its origin from the laity, most probably from members of the Multon family, who were lords of the manor, or from the Fitzwalters and Haringtons, who divided the Multon family properties through marrying the co-heiresses of that family.

The church has been wisely and well restored.

ST. MARY MAGDALENE’S, GEDNEY

This church, like Holbeach, is a beautiful fabric, and many think the clerestory is the finest in the district. The history of the church is written in stone—the tower gives it.

“Of the original building,” writes Mr. Sharpe, “nothing but the
lower part of the west tower now remains. It is not improbable,
however, that the pair of double lancet openings, now forming a
lower storey of the present cell chamber, was the belfry-stage
of the original tower; and that three different roofs, of
which the weatherings still remain on its east wall, have at
different times abutted against it. If this be so, the history
of this church and its three principal changes of form are
written on this wall. The first roof, the ridge of which was
below the sill of these lancet windows, covered a low church
of the Lancet or Transitional Period. The second roof was
that of the more pretentious Curvilinear nave, when the whole
church received a new character, a lofty ground storey and
spacious side aisles. The third roof, rising high up into these
lancet windows, marks the epoch when the handsome Rectilinear
clerestory was added and the tower raised another stage, in
preparation for a lofty spire that was never executed.”

In the Curvilinear Period the spacious chancel, with its large plain three-light windows, was erected. The ground storey of the nave and the side aisles were shortly afterwards built. The south doorway is of good workmanship for a village church of this period. The twelve three-light clerestory windows are of the Rectilinear Period, as are also the battlemented parapet and pinnacles, also the upper storey of the tower.

The south porch and parvise are of this period, as is also the nave roof and the small square-headed window—low side window in the south wall of the chancel.

On the south door, which is a fine specimen of the period, is this inscription—

PAX XTI SIT HUIC DOMUI ET
OMNIBUS HABITANTIBUS IN EA
HIC REQUIES NOSTRA.

The east window of the north aisle contains old stained glass. The church is now undergoing restoration, but as there are some of the original oaken open benches still in the church, the restorers should have no difficulty in putting in suitable woodwork.

Dr. Stukeley, the Holbeach antiquary of the eighteenth century, states: “This church was built by the abbots of Croyland, who had a stately house on the north side of it and vast possessions in the parish. The upper part of the tower is of the same date as the church, but built upon older work; both were no doubt built by the abbots—assisted by charitable donations. In the chancel window is a religious in his habits.”

In the account of Holbeach Church we saw how Fulko de Oiri in 1194 parted with the advowson of Holbeach, and there is little doubt that he had the advowson of the church at Gedney, though Croyland had a manor in that parish.

As stated in the account of Whaplode Church (1253-1281), Ralph Mershe, the Abbot of Croyland, at great expense and after long suits at law, gained the _manor_ of Gedney and the church at Whaplode, but it does not follow he had, at the time, the advowson of Gedney—on the contrary, the following pedigrees from the Plea Roll of 7 Edw. III. and 8 Edw. III. clearly show he had not:—

PLEA ROLLS (_De Banco_, Easter, 7 Edw. III.).

Lincoln—

James de Ros sues the Abbot of Croyland for the advowson of the
Church of Gedeneye (Gedney).

In the following year, in the suit in _Coram Rege_, Hilary, 8 Edw. III.:—

Lincoln—

The King sues James de Roos for the next presentation to the
Church of Gedeneye, which he claimed as guardian of Ralph de
Goushill.

There is in the Lincoln Will Registry the will of a Philip Goushill of Gedney, dated in the year 1401.

Eleanor de Clare, who was the granddaughter of Edward I. by his wife Eleanor of Castile, married Ralph le Despenser, who was hung in 1326, and their fourth son Philip, who died in 1313, married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Ralph le Goushill; and when Colonel Holles visited Gedney Church about 1640 he found the arms and monuments to the families of Despensers, Roos, Clare, D’Oyry, Goushill, Welbys, and others.

Doubtless Stukeley is correct in stating the Curvilinear church of Gedney was built under the direction and influence of Croyland, aided by the laity; but one should be disposed to consider the earlier churches were not built by the monks of Croyland. However, it is too long a subject to discuss in this article.

SUTTON ST. MARY

We have, in our accounts of the churches of Moulton, Whaplode, and Weston, frequently referred to the fabric of the Church of Sutton St. Mary and to the interesting Transitional work it contains.

The origin of the church is clearly shown by a charter, given at the close of the twelfth century (about 1180), by which the site was conveyed to the monastery of Castle Acre in Norfolk.

“Know all men present and to come, that I, William son of
Erneis, by the permission of Nicholaa, my wife, give and grant
and by this my charter confirm, to God and S. Mary of Acre and
the monks serving God, three acres in Sutton, in the field
which is called ‘the old fenland,’ near a road, to build a
parish church, as a free and perpetual gift for the salvation
of my soul and of Nicholaa, my wife, and for the soul of my
father, Robert son of Erneis, and the soul of my mother, and
for the souls of all my ancestors, and for the soul of Richard
de Haia, and for the souls of all his ancestors. And I desire
that the previous wooden church of the same town, as soon as
the said new church is built, be taken away, and the bodies
there buried be carried into the burial ground of the new
church and there reinterred, and the old burial ground utterly
destroyed.

“Witnesses: John the Chaplain, Doun Bardolph, Radulph Travers,
and others.”

It appears that Robert de Haia, about half a century previously, had come into possession of the manor of Sutton, in Holland, through his wife, and had built the small church referred to in the charter.

It is probably through Nicholaa that the monks of Castle Acre were enabled to find the funds to build the Transitional-Lancet work in the present church, as she was a large benefactress to the abbey.

John of Gaunt possessed the manor of Sutton through marriage with Blanche of Lancaster, but whether he contributed to the funds for enlarging the church there is no evidence to show, but one may assume the lords of the large manor of Sutton aided the monks.

The Guild of St. Thomas of Canterbury, founded in the reign of Henry IV., had a chapel in the church, in which masses were said for the souls of Henry IV., his Queen, and John of Gaunt.

Viewing the church from the exterior, one sees no signs of any part of the early Transitional church—the Rectilinear work completely covers it; but on entering we at once observe the interesting early Transitional work of the nave and lower clerestory.

The seven compartments of the nave (ground and clerestory) remain nearly perfect, but in a somewhat altered condition, for the nave walls and roof having been raised, and higher aisles added, the Transitional clerestory now only serves as a blind storey to the later Rectilinear superstructure.

The piers and pier arches should be compared with those at Whaplode, Moulton, and Weston, with which they make an instructive lesson.

The tower and spire are quite early Lancet work. Mr. Sharpe remarks:—

“Unquestionably one of the earliest and most remarkable
designs of the Lancet Period in the kingdom—scarcely clear of
Transitional influence, erected indeed at the very commencement
of the period, and standing originally completely clear of the
church on four noble arches, crowned, moreover, by a lofty
wooden lead-covered spire flanked by four similar wooden
lead-covered pinnacles—it must have been, at the time it was
erected, one of the most striking structures in the country.

“It is especially valuable to us as conveying an idea of the
manner in which many of the towers of our cathedrals and parish
churches of this period, now deprived of their spires, were
originally finished; and it is remarkable as one of the very
few which, having escaped fire and decay, remains still in its
original position.”

The westmost part of the south aisle, with its windows, is of the Curvilinear Period, so is the small building at the north-east corner of the chancel.

In the following period (the Rectilinear) are the lofty side aisles and the north and south porches.

The font is the original Norman one, though it has been new-worked.

THE CHURCH OF ST. ANDREW, HECKINGTON

BY W. G. WATKINS, A.R.I.B.A.

Five miles east from the market town of Sleaford, just where the rolling uplands dip down into the great fen stretching out to Boston and the Wash, lies the village of Heckington; it is mentioned in Domesday as Heckintune, where one Gilbert de Gaunt held land, and there was a priest and a church. This same Gilbert de Gaunt had accompanied William the Conqueror to England, and for his services was rewarded with large grants of land in this and many other counties; he rebuilt the Abbey of Bardney, on the banks of the river Witham, about nine miles from Lincoln; richly endowed it; and was there buried in 1094, leaving his son Walter to further enrich the abbey, amongst other endowments, with all the tithe of corn and hay of his land in Heckington. In 1345 it is recorded that Roger de Barrowe, the then Abbot of Bardney, obtained a royal licence to appropriate the Church of Heckington; and it is interesting to note that, among other tomb slabs revealed by the excavation of the abbey church in 1909, was that of this same Roger de Barrowe, while the foundations of the choir and transept showed that they were part of the same Norman church which the piety of Gilbert de Gaunt had raised.

At the time Roger de Barrowe was obtaining his licence one of those waves of building activity that swept over certain localities in the Middle Ages seems to have reached the district round Heckington. The naves of Sleaford, Silk Willoughby, Billingboro, Swayton, and Helpringham, and the whole Church of Ewerby, were rising white from the masons’ chisel in the new and graceful Curvilinear style; but it was at Heckington that this local school, through the resources of the rich and powerful abbey, were able to crown their work by one of the finest and most complete parish churches to be found in this or any other one period. The exact date at which the work was commenced is uncertain, but it appears that closely subsequent to the appropriation of the church by the abbey in 1345 the old fabric was swept away, and the foundations of the new structure laid. Richard de Potesgrave, presented to the living by King Edward in 1307, was the then vicar; his effigy lies under an arched recess on the north side of the chancel, the usual position for the founder’s tomb, and an inscription, now lost, recorded that he built the chancel of the church in honour of the Blessed Mary, St. Andrew, and All Saints, which may not necessarily mean that he provided the funds, but that the work was done under his care, just as we say that Bishop Hugh built the choir of Lincoln Cathedral.

Except in the great Perpendicular structures of East Anglia, it is comparatively rare to find a parish church built at one effort, in one style, and untouched by subsequent accretions, as at Heckington—so rare, in fact, that the picturesqueness and irregularity arising from the association of various styles and dates in the majority of our churches has almost come to be looked upon as an essential part of our Gothic architecture, and one of its leading characteristics; and though it is true that the mediæval builder excelled in the charming _naïveté_ with which he superimposed his own work upon and adapted it to that of his predecessors, yet when the opportunity occurred of starting _de novo_, he built with dignity and symmetry, and devoid of intentional irregularity or straining after what we call picturesqueness. So at Heckington Church we find a perfectly symmetrical and dignified plan of apparently orthodox cruciform type, and with a western tower; while a more critical examination shows that the transepts are not in their usual position immediately west of the chancel, but separated therefrom by a short bay of aisleless nave, being, as a matter of fact, not really transepts at all, but attached chapels. And their position is therefore logical, for here the tower is, very properly for a small parish church, at the west end, while the true cruciform plan demands, nay requires it, on the crossing.

How well this apparent eccentricity and departure from the orthodox was justified by results is shown as the church is approached from the south-west, whence the nave may be seen continuing through and past the transepts, which are kept on a lower level than the nave, and thus break up the structure into a beautiful piece of grouping, without in any way detracting from its apparent length.

The tower and spire, 97 feet high to the parapet, and 182 feet to the top of the vane, is an interesting example of the transition stage between the early broach spire and the pinnacle and flying buttress treatment of the Perpendicular Period; for here are both pinnacles and broaches, the former hexagonal in plan, and attached to the broaches by gablets, through which openings are pierced, forming a continuous walk behind the parapet. The pinnacles are too high and the general grouping at the base of the spire too heavy for its height, and it seems likely that the architect used the proportions he had been accustomed to in a broached spire and parapetless tower as at the neighbouring Church of Ewerby (possibly by the same hand), and failed to allow for the shortening effect of the parapet and pinnacles. The outline of the spire has no “entasis” or swelling to counteract the drooping effect of the converging straight lines, but the same result has been achieved by the gablets of the eight “lucarnes,” or spire lights, which add bulk, and at the same time break the continuity of the outline; at Ewerby, which has no spire lights, the entasis is distinctly noticeable. Sometimes this refinement was carried to excess, as at Leadenham in this county, where the result has been to produce a grotesque resemblance to a sugar-loaf. No doubt the elaborate crocketing of the angles of later spires was another expedient to the same end.

Ground Plan.]

In the flowing tracery and foliage of the south porch gable are three interesting shields—Edward the Confessor, a cross patonce between five martlets; St. Edmund, three crowns two and one; and the royal arms of England, three lions passant gardant. The figure in the apex of the gable is missing, but, from the adoring angels on either side, it was probably that of the Virgin and Child. The whole of the south side is a perfect example of Curvilinear art; the flowing lines of the window tracery and pierced parapets, buttresses with niches and pinnacles enriched with foliage and carvings of vigorous yet refined workmanship, the bold and lofty staircase turrets at the east end of the nave, all disposed in perfect harmony and proportion, and tied together by the admirable group of mouldings sweeping round the base. Here is English Gothic at its zenith—vigorous, yet refined; luxuriant, yet restrained. The priests’ door on the south side of the chancel cuts rather clumsily into the jamb and sill of the window, owing to lack of space between the latter and the adjoining buttress. The writer recollects a church in Suffolk where a similar difficulty had been surmounted by throwing the buttress clear of the wall on a flying arch and placing the door beneath it—a pretty instance of the manner in which the mediæval builder created a virtue out of a necessity. The east end is perhaps the most pleasing part of the exterior—admirably proportioned, vigorous, and graceful, the seven-light window one of the finest in the whole country; were this the only portion of the church left to us, it would yet have proclaimed the unknown architect a master of his craft.

The interior is at first disappointing; the arches only chamfered, not a moulding or a piece of carving visible; rood-screen, pews, pulpit, and every scrap of old woodwork swept away. But walk into the chancel, turn to the north wall, where Roger de Potesgrave, in eucharistic vestments, lies under an arched recess, and a little farther east appears a mass of tracery and sculpture, like an elaborate aumbry; it is the Easter Sepulchre, perhaps the richest in England, except one of the same date at Hawton, near Newark. Below, in canopied niches, sleep four Roman soldiers; next, the sepulchre itself, a small recess, with figures of the three women and the attendant angels, and above this the risen Christ attended by adoring angels. For richness and delicacy of execution it is beyond praise. Easter sepulchres in stone (often they were of wood, and have been swept away) were designed as a permanent receptacle for the celebration of a rite marking the advent and holiness of Easter. On Good Friday the consecrated host was deposited in the sepulchre, where it was continually watched until Easter morning, when it was again placed on the altar. In the articles of inquiry issued by Cranmer in 1547 one is, “Whether they had upon Good Friday last past the sepulchre with their lights, having the sacrament therein?” On the south side of the chancel are fine sedilia in three compartments, in design and execution equal to the Easter Sepulchre; the seats are covered by groining and trefoil arches with gables, above which are sculptured Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, SS. Barbara and Katherine, and St. Michael; the cornice bears figures of angels crowning the saints below and swinging censers. A recent writer on English mediæval figure sculpture says: “The stone of these pieces is the Lincoln and Ancaster oolite, and they are insertions in the body of the building, so they are probably importations from the Lincoln or Stamford workshops. Of coarser texture than the carvings of clunch at Ely, they have less freedom and incisive cutting, but their composition has the same quality of decorative story-telling.”

From the north wall of the chancel several steps lead up into the vestry, which has a double piscina, and below which is a vaulted undercroft, known as the “scaup” (skull) house. The south transept, known as the Winkill Aisle, from the local family who were probably benefactors to the church, has sedilia and a double piscina.

The architectural features of the church are beautifully illustrated by a series of forty plates in Bowman and Crowther’s _Churches of the Middle Ages_, but the full story of its connection with the Abbey of Bardney still waits investigation from the patient historian, and would probably prove of great interest.

BOSTON CHURCH

BY G. S. W. JEBB, M.A.

HISTORY

Botulf (_i.e._ Ruling Wolf) is said by Bede to have been born in the seventh century of a gentle Saxon family, and to have studied with his brother Adulf on the Continent. On his return (Adulf remaining to preside over a monastery at Utrecht, and becoming Bishop of Maestricht), Botulf begged permission of Ethelmund, King of East Anglia, to found a monastery in some retired and desolate spot, and chose Icanho (Ox Island) beside the Witham, probably the site of Boston. At Icanho he died on 17th June 655. The monks’ huts were burnt by the Danes in 870, but the relics of the saint had been safely translated, part to Ely, and part to Thorney, and the site of Boston was in later Saxon times included in the wapontak of Skirbeck. After the Norman Conquest the greater part of the parish of Skirbeck, with its two churches, one of which presumably stood on the site of Boston Church, was granted as part of the honour of Richmond in Yorkshire to Alan Rufus, who, shortly before his death in 1089, obtained the ordination of the rectory of Boston, and granted the patronage to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary at York, the monks of Boston constituting a priory of that abbey, and the church, which was probably of wood, apparently serving both the parish and the priory. A new church of stone was built at once. It consisted of a nave 25 feet by 60 feet, with aisles each 12 feet wide, a chancel, and a western tower 9 feet square; the floor level was about 4 feet below the present floor. The foundations were exposed in the restoration, 1851-53. The priory buildings were on the north side of the church. In 1309, when the fervour excited by the preaching of the friars was still felt, and the prosperity of the town was at its height, the pious gratitude of the burghers led them to begin the present magnificent church, the foundation-stone being laid on the Monday after St. John Baptist’s Day by Dame Margaret Tilney, assisted by Richard Stephenson, merchant, and John Truesdale, the rector. This church originally consisted of a nave of seven bays with aisles, a chancel originally of three bays, and a south porch. In the Perpendicular Period the chancel was lengthened by two bays, when Fleming, formerly rector of Boston, was Bishop of Lincoln; and the magnificent tower was added outside the former west window. A chamber was also added over the porch, and there were six subsidiary chapels (all but one of which have now been destroyed), besides, at least, two others (those of St. Mary and SS. Peter and Paul) at the east ends of the south and north aisles respectively, screened off within the church itself. The whole was probably completed about 1500; as it now stands the church is, in cubical content, the largest purely parish church in the kingdom, and is only surpassed in floor area (20,270 square feet) by those of St. Michael, Coventry (24,015 square feet), and of Yarmouth (23,265 square feet).

In 1480 the Knights Hospitallers, who had a commandery in the parish, founded by the De Multons about 1230, purchased the advowson from St. Mary’s Abbey, and made the parish church their collegiate church. They also obtained an appropriation of the rectory, and a vicarage was ordained. The Knights maintained a college of ten priests, living in a house in Wormgate (_i.e._ Withamgate). The old church of the Knights was deserted, and was eventually pulled down in 1626, the material being used to repair St. Botulf’s. After the sale of the advowson the priory became of small importance, and was dissolved in 1536. The Order of the Knights was dissolved in 1540, and its possessions confiscated by King Henry VIII., who, in 1545, sold the endowment of the rectory and the patronage of the vicarage to the newly-created corporation of Boston, subject, however, to the payment of the vicar’s stipend, and to the duty of repairing the chancel. At the Reformation the screens were broken away, and the church despoiled of its furniture and decoration.

During the great rebellion it was used as a cavalry stable, the horses being tethered to iron rings fixed in the pillars. The Antipædobaptists then had a congregation in Boston (which was revived and endowed in 1756, and is still flourishing), and were influential in the neighbourhood; this led to the destruction of the mediæval fonts in Boston and many of the neighbouring churches. The brasses also were torn up, and what remained of the stained glass and stone imagery was broken, and the chapels and other buildings encircling the church were gradually removed during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

On the resumption of the Church services at the Restoration of Charles II., some slight attempts at improvement were made, a new font and reredos and a beautiful pulpit and altar rails being provided. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the present ceiling was put up. The original ceiling of the nave was a flat wooden one, doubtless elaborately carved and gilded, nailed on the under surface of fifteen huge beams which cross the church between each pair of clerestory windows. The ceiling seems to have been injured by fire, and the beams themselves became rotten at the ends, and tended to sag in the centre, and were therefore supported by uprights nailed against the wall with trusses at an angle of 45°; these uprights and trusses were then concealed by panelling which was made to resemble the springers of a sham vault, and was painted a dirty yellow. The lean-to roofs of the aisles were similarly concealed by sham vaulting, and the chancel, hitherto covered with a semi-octagonal roof, divided by boldly moulded ribs into panels, had a sort of sham tunnel vault at a much lower level, so low, indeed, as to have to be tilted upwards to bring it above the crown of the chancel arch. An organ was provided and placed in the chancel arch, having in front of it a gallery supported on oaken columns (now in the Roman church in Boston). The western portion of the church was shut off by a high screen with wrought-iron gates, and the remaining portion of the nave arranged with the pulpit in the centre, and square pews gradually sloping upwards so as to be level with the sills of the windows. The chancel was used only for the quarterly communion. In 1835 the Municipal Reform Act vested the patronage in the Bishop of the diocese, who twice collated under this Act, but the corporation was permitted to sell, and in 1853 did sell, the advowson to Mr. Ingram; he devised it to his widow; she, in turn, devised it to Sir E. Watkin, her second husband, whose representatives in 1906 conveyed it to the Bishop of Lincoln in right of his see. The restoration of the church was begun in the middle of the nineteenth century, about £11,000 being spent under the direction of Sir G. Gilbert Scott. The fabric was put in good repair generally, the stone vaulting of the tower was inserted, a new font was erected, the pews were replaced by oaken benches, the organ placed in a chamber to the north of the chancel, the east window provided with new tracery and filled with poor stained glass, a new altar table with a good red frontal, and some new plate, were purchased, and canopies, copied from Lincoln Cathedral, were added to the stalls; provision was also made for lighting and warming the church. An offering from the Bostonians of America was devoted to restoring the sole remaining chapel, which is situated on the western side of the south porch. The church was re-dedicated in 1853.

Since then there have been a few slight improvements; six of the sixteen windows in the aisle have had stained glass inserted, and it is generally good. The chapel has had three of its windows fitted with stained glass, and has been furnished with an altar and reredos, and a screen separating it from the church provided; two additional frontals have been given for the high altar, and it is backed by an elaborate, though as yet incomplete, reredos of carved oak, designed by Weatherley. The church is still much disfigured by the ugly ceiling, and has a cold unfurnished look, to remedy which screens, stained glass, and colour decoration would be required; unfortunately, the church is so large that nothing can be done which does not involve a considerable expenditure.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The church consists of a nave of seven bays 150 feet long and 44 feet broad, north and south aisles each 28 feet broad, a chancel of five bays 87 feet long, a western tower (making the total length 293 feet), a south porch with chamber over it, and a chapel 18 feet by 40 feet immediately to the west of the porch. All the nave and aisles windows, except the four at the ends of the aisles, have decorated tracery, two designs (one of them a very poor one) being alternated throughout; the three western bays of the chancel have also decorated tracery. The four end windows of the aisles, the west window of the chapel, and the four windows in the eastern bays of the chancel are Perpendicular. The great east window has modern tracery, copied from the east window of Carlisle Cathedral. The three south windows of the chapel have reticulated tracery. The tower is vaulted at a height of 157 feet. Below the vaulting are the door, three great windows (west, north, and south), and above them four pairs of windows with ogee heads; between the two sets of windows the walls are pierced by an interior passage. Above the vaulting is a ringing chamber, and over that the belfry surrounded by an exterior passage. Access to this is gained by two staircases, the lower portions of which are no part of the tower, but are contained in turrets, which were the principal decoration of the west front before the tower was built. The belfry contains the clock and a peal of twelve bells, on which tunes are played by machinery every three hours. The bells are dated as follows: 1 and 2, 1785; 3, 1772; 4, 1710; 5, 1617; 6, 1758; 8, 1867; and the remaining four, 1897. The roof of the tower rests on the transoms of the four great belfry windows, the upper part being hollow. On the top of the square tower stands the octagonal lantern, which appears never to have been finished. The total height is 280 feet. The furniture is not very noticeable, except the series of sixty-four _misericorde_ stalls in the chancel. The altar is a modern one, 12 feet long. There are a modern brass eagle lectern, a very poor litany desk, and the base of a poor modern screen; the renaissance pulpit, with its sounding board recently restored, is one of the best pieces of furniture. The font was designed by Pugin, and is as satisfactory as could be expected; the benches are clumsy and raised on platforms, and the alleys except the central one have been filled with unnecessary benches, and so appear unduly cramped, but there is a good open space at the west end. At present the base of the tower is used as a vestry, but the erection of a new vestry opening from the chancel is in contemplation. An organ is mentioned as having been in existence in 1480, but it was destroyed in 1590; a new organ was begun in 1713 by Schmidt, and it has since been continually repaired and added to; there are now 2378 pipes. It is rather buried in an organ chamber built out on the north side of the chancel, and has a poor monotonous case dating from the last restoration.

MONUMENTS

The oldest monument in the church is one dated 1340, a black marble slab in memory of Wisselus Smalenburg, citizen and merchant of Münster. It was originally in the Church of the Franciscan Friars, but was buried on the destruction of that church, then built for about a hundred years into the wall of a cottage, and eventually was placed in Boston Church, near the west end of the north aisle, in 1897. There are two good fifteenth-century altar tombs in recesses in the south aisle: one of a Knight Hospitaller in full armour, the other of a lady; both are unidentified. They were originally in the Knights’ Church, and, when that was pulled down in 1626, were moved to Boston Church, but have only been in their present position since 1853, when the lady’s tomb had the arms of Tilney carved upon it, though without any idea that she really belonged to the Tilney family. On each side of the altar is a black marble slab with brass; that on the north being in memory of Walter Peascod and his wife; that on the south in memory of Richard Strensal, rector from about 1375 to his death in 1408. He is vested in surplice, almuce, and cope, the orphrey of the cope being adorned with figures of the Apostles under canopies. Both these were originally in the Chapel of SS. Peter and Paul. Towards the west end are some slabs which have no doubt been engraved with figures, the faces and hands joined in prayer being now filled in with concrete. The monuments generally seem to have had their places much shifted in the restoration in the middle of the nineteenth century.

ENDOWMENTS

The parish was originally endowed with tithes (which are now represented by farms allotted in lieu thereof on the enclosure of the fens) and glebe. On the ordination of the vicarage in 1480, the vicar was allowed the use of the rectory house (pulled down in 1750, and now represented by a house built in 1870), and also had a stipend of £33, 6s. 8d. (fifty marks), charged upon the endowments of the rectory: he also receives from the Governors of Boston Grammar School an annual income of £266, 13s. 4d., representing the provision made by Philip and Mary when they restored to the Corporation of Boston the ancient endowments of the trade guilds, out of which the Grammar School and the assistant clergy had been supported. These endowments had been confiscated in 1552, under Edward VI., by William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, who subsequently took part in the attempt to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne: the vicar also has a fen allotment and various small modern endowments which, allowing £75 for fees, bring up the income to about £400 per annum net. Provision is also made under the charter of Philip and Mary for a second priest—the lecturer—who receives £250 per annum from the Governors of the Grammar School, and interest on £200 (Falkner’s Legacy), which latter sum is in the hands of the Corporation. The Mayor’s Chaplaincy, founded in 1557 by Henry Fox, has an endowment of about £160 per annum, managed by the Boston Charity Trustees. There is a modern endowment of about £45 per annum, given by the Misses Gee, for the curate of St. James’; the Ecclesiastical Commission allow two sums of £60 each towards the stipends of the fourth and fifth priests; and there are other small endowments for the choir, the fabric and the poor, which bring up the total income from endowments in connection with the church to about £1000 per annum. It is impossible to exactly distinguish the rectory endowments from the other lands held by the Corporation, but, roughly, their value may be taken at £1200 per annum. About £2000 per annum is raised by voluntary subscription in connection with the church.

RECTORS AND VICARS

1228. John Romanus. His legitimacy was doubtful, and he had to obtain a papal dispensation before holding the benefice. He was Canon and first Sub-Dean of York Minster, and afterwards Treasurer and Archdeacon of Richmond. He was the father of the Archbishop of York of the same name. He died in 1256 at an advanced age. It is not known who was his successor in the rectory.

1309. John Truesdale, as rector, laid the foundation of the present church.

Henry de Hemmyngburgh, afterwards Sub-Dean of Lincoln.

1316. Mr. John Barett.

1362. William de Sandford.

John Strensal, rector in 1378 and 1381.

1408. Richard Fleming, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln and Archbishop-designate of York.

1425. John Ickworth.

1431. Richard Layot.

1448. John Marshall.

1462. Roger Cheshire.

1482. William Smyth, the first vicar, presented by the Knights of St. John. All the rectors had been presented by St. Mary’s Abbey. He was prebendary of Heyther in Lincoln Cathedral. He was buried in Boston Church, but his brass, mentioned by Colonel Holles and by Browne Willis, is not now visible.

1505. William Gunays, died at Boston.

1505. Robert Wylburfos, died at Boston.

1512. John Tynemouth, Bishop of Argos, buried in Boston Church.

1524. John Mabledon, D.D., a brother of the Order of St. John. He resigned on a pension of £6, 13s. 4d. per annum.

1536. Brian Sandford, probably an opponent of the changes which had already begun when he was instituted. In 1552, when the church was being spoiled of its plate and furniture, the Corporation order communication to be had with Vicar Sandford for surrendering his benefice.

1554. Robert Richardson, whose tenure of office just coincided with the reign of Queen Mary. He would be the first of eighteen vicars presented by the Corporation of Boston.

1559. William Fiske, preferred to Moulton vicarage.

1561. William Holland.

1583. Lewis Evans.

1584. James Worshippe, M.A., formerly Mayor’s Chaplain.

1592. William Armstead.

1594. Samuel Wright, B.D.; he resigned.

1599. Thomas Wooll, M.A., a Nonconformist. He was presented at the Archdeacon’s visitation in 1606 “that he weareth not the surplice; it hath been tendered to him, and he sitteth upon it.” He was preferred in 1612 to the rectory of Skirbeck.

1612. John Cotton, M.A.: after twenty years of nonconformity he found it necessary to resign his benefice, and flee to America to avoid prosecution. In compliment to him and other refugees the settlement of Trimountain had its name changed to Boston. He died there in 1652.

1633. Anthony Tuckney, D.D., a Nonconformist, Mayor’s Chaplain from 1629, Master of Emmanuel College in 1644, Trinity College in 1653, and Regius Professor of Divinity in 1655 at Cambridge, and therefore non-resident. From 1651 the Corporation paid Banks Anderson (who had since 1643 been minister at Holbeach) £70 per annum to minister in the church; but as he was an antipædobaptist, a separate minister had to be hired to administer holy baptism. Anderson was one of the elders summoned by Cromwell to his Independent Convention at the Savoy in 1658. About the time of his arrival in Boston, a great witch-hunting campaign took place. On the Restoration he formed an Independent congregation; he died in 1668, and was buried in the church. Tuckney resigned his vicarage in 1660, and his other preferments in 1662. He died in 1670.

1660. Obadiah Howe, D.D., a Puritan, previously successively in charge of Stickney and Gedney. His brass is in the chapel.

1683. Henry Morland, M.A., previously Lecturer. He died at Boston.

1702. Edward Kelsall, M.A., previously Master of the Grammar School. He died at Boston.

1719. Samuel Coddington, M.A., also previously Master of the Grammar School. He died at Boston.

1732. John Rigby, M.A., also previously Master of the Grammar School. He died at Boston.

1746. John Calthrop, M.A., also Vicar of Kirkton, and a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral. He represented the clergy of the diocese in Convocation. He was buried at Gosberton, of which place he was a native.

1785. Samuel Partridge, M.A. He also held the rectory of the south mediety of Leverton till 1797, and was also Vicar of Wigtoft and of Quadring.

1817. Bartholomew Goe, B.A.

1838. John Furness Ogle, M.A., collated by the Bishop of Lincoln under the provisions of the Municipal Reform Act, 1835. He died at Boston.

1851. George Beatson Blenkin, M.A., a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral, under whom the church was restored. He died at Boston.

1892. John Stephenson, M.A., a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral. He resigned.

1905. Reginald Thomas Heygate, M.A., a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral.

THE TOWN AND CHURCH OF GRANTHAM

BY A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M.A.

Grantham is still, and long has been, a name familiar to travellers between the north and south of England. Only a few miles west of the old Roman road from London to York, it lies directly in the course of the more modern road, and for more than fifty years has been one of the principal halting-places on a great railway system. The traveller from the south, who has left the Fenland behind him some ten miles north of Peterborough, and has for another ten miles or so ascended the valley of a stream whose waters eventually find their way into the Welland near the Wash, passes through a short tunnel, and rapidly descends into the Witham valley. On his left hand the Witham winds through pleasant meadows, with the noble tower of Great Ponton Church on its farther bank. The stream passes under the railway near the ford by which the traveller approached Grantham during the greater part of its history, leaving the Roman road not far west of Somerby for the by-road known as the Saltway. The smoke of engineering works begins to fill the air; and the tower of Spittlegate Church, close to the line, and, farther away, the rather attenuated tower and cupola of the Town Hall, promise little historical or architectural interest. But if he looks a little beyond his immediate surroundings he will see that beyond this industrial and modern suburb there lies a more inviting town, with a huge tower and spire and the body of a great church mounting high above its red-tiled roofs, with a pretty background of tree-crowned ridge, with the parks of Belton and Syston closing the view to the north-east, and to the north-west the line of the North Road as it cuts its way up Gonerby Hill.

Grantham is sometimes said to take its name from the river, one name of which, as of the Cam at Cambridge, may have been the Grant. The Witham, which rises across the border of Rutland some miles to the south, and flows northward from Grantham, approaching the Trent near Newark, and turning aside to take its own course to the sea by Lincoln and Boston, widened into a small lake or marsh as it drew near to Grantham. The first settlement of Grantham must have been dictated by the sight of a potentially fertile valley. It grew up, so far as we know, neither round an abbey nor beneath a castle, but as a community of agriculturists. The church, which grew to such proportions in its midst, grew probably with the prosperity of the town; while of the castle, which stood on the east side of the town, between it and the river, we know nothing but the name. Grantham was not one of those fortified river towns, like Stamford and Nottingham, which played a part in the campaigns of Edward the Elder and his sister. And its first definite appearance in history is the entry in Domesday Book, where it is numbered with the King’s possessions. It had belonged to Edith, Queen of Edward the Confessor; and included within it there was a right of jurisdiction, granted by a nun named Ælswith to Peterborough Abbey, and now held by Colegrim. The Queen had a hall in the demesne, and the church and its property are mentioned. The history of the manor and soke of Grantham is somewhat complicated, and a full account of it is beyond the scope of this article.[45] When Edward I.’s commissioners visited the town in 1275, to inquire by what warrant lands were held there and privileges exercised, the jurors gave an account of the descent of the lordship, which indicates that the Norman kings, like their successors, treated the manor and soke as grants to be held in dower by their wives or daughters.[46] They said that Maud “regina et heres Anglie”—obviously Henry I.’s daughter, the Empress—enfeoffed William de Tancarville, hereditary chamberlain of the duchy of Normandy, of Grantham and the whole soke, to be held of her in chief, apparently by service of ten knights’ fees, as he sub-enfeoffed this number of knights. The chamberlain’s grandson, Ralph, took part in the rebellion of Normandy against John, and forfeited the possession. John then gave the town with the soke to William, Earl of Warenne, on whose death in 1240 his widow, Maud, a daughter of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, was allowed to remain in seisin. At her death, however, in 1249, Henry III. resumed the property, claiming that the Earl had held it only while the King was pleased to suffer him; and in 1254, when Prince Edward married Eleanor of Castile, it was granted to him, the claims of John, the then Earl Warenne, being overlooked.[47] Edward, however, a few years later gave the town and soke to the Earl, to be held of him by the service of four knights. The grant was confirmed by a royal charter, in which Henry III. laid stress on the principle that the manor was inalienable from the crown. The lordship and manor seem to have been in different hands from the later part of the reign of Henry II. to this period; but under Prince Edward and Earl John they seem to have been reunited.[48]

Earl John died in 1304, and the lordship escheated to the Crown. It was then granted to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who held it till his death in 1324.[49] Edward II. then granted it, or part of it—for here again there seems to have been a temporary divorcement of the lordship from the manor—to John, Earl Warenne, the younger.[50] But he first took care to preclude John from claiming it as his hereditary right by requiring him to quit-claim it to the Crown: this done, he allowed the grant. In 1338, shortly before John’s death, Edward III. gave the reversion of part of the tenement to William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton,[51] after whose death (1360) his son Humphrey was allowed to hold it. In 1363, the castle and town were granted to Edmund of Langley.[52] The manor was possibly retained by the young Earl of Northampton, and the grant of castle and town seems not to have included the soke. In 1399, the manor reverted to the Crown, by the attainder of its holder, the Earl of Northumberland, and was granted to Edmund of Langley. The soke also, on the death of Sir Robert Byron, passed into Edmund’s hands.[53] Edmund died in 1402; and castle and town, with manor and soke, were granted to his son Edward, Duke of York, who died at Agincourt. In 1420 they were given in dower to Katharine of France on her marriage. Edward IV., in 1461, granted the lordship with the manor to his mother Cicely, Duchess of York: his grant included the inn called “le George.”[54] On her death, the manor with its appurtenances was settled on her granddaughter, Elizabeth of York; and from that time till the time of William III., save for an alienation to private owners during the Commonwealth, it was regarded as Crown property, and held in dower by the Queen-Consort for the time being. The Earls of Rutland were stewards of the manor. William III., in 1696, alienated it to the first Earl of Portland, and since then it has remained in private hands, though not in the same family.

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Memorials of Old LincolnshireChapter V: Part 5

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