In the year 1890, an enthusiastic Tennysonian, giving an account in the “Globe” newspaper, of an excursion to Somersby, which he approached from Louth, says that he was somewhat disgusted to find that his Jehu, though familiar with every ragamuffin on the road, and with the gossip and traditions of the villages through which they passed, had never heard the name of Tennyson. Somersby itself, at the time when Tennyson there enjoyed ramble and reverie, was so withdrawn from the outer world that it is said that the battle of Waterloo was not heard of there until a month after it had been fought. But all this has now been changed, and is changing. Not long ago, the proprietor of Somersby (now, alas! an absentee), complained to the writer that his carpets were being worn into holes by the feet of the many pilgrims to this modern poetic “Mecca,” who seemed to think they had a right freely to intrude everywhere; with the barren compensation to himself that his paternal home was becoming historical. Sympathising fully with the country squire whose privacy has been thus invaded, we are now ourselves about to make the pilgrimage, which may soon be as common as that to the birthplace of the immortal Bard of Avon.

Having arrived at Horncastle by train, or otherwise, we pass through the town, by Market-place, Bull Ring, and over the far bridge, where we turn due eastward, by East street. At the end of a mile or so we arrive at High Toynton, with a modern church of Spilsby sandstone on our right, in good condition, but of no special interest; here we turn to the left, and 100 yards further on, again eastward to the right. We are now on the Wolds, and have before us a steady rise, followed by three steepish descents with their corresponding rises, till, as we approach Holbeck Hall, we see before us, to the left, a hill in the shape of an obtuse truncated cone. This is Hoe Hill (Norse ‘hof,’ holy and so possibly a sacred place for heathen worship; or, the Norse ‘haugr’ or ‘howe,’ a burial place, possibly the resting-place of some Viking chief, the names all round having Danish elements). It has a Dyke, or scarpment, running round it, like a collar, and was probably a British or Danish encampment; geologically it consists of ironstone, quite distinct from the sandstone formation on the lower ground. At Holbeck it is worth the while to turn in at the Lodge gate, and proceed some 250 yards along the drive, when we find ourselves among very pretty scenery; the modern Hall confronting us, built by the late J. Fardell, Esq., who was M.P. for Lincoln for about a week. We pause in a woody dell with a picturesque lake and rocks on each side of us. (N.B.—In these rocks the badger still survives). Retracing our steps into the main road again, and some 200 yards back towards Horncastle, by a guide-post the road turns off southward, and, following this, we arrive at Ashby Puerorum, or Ashby “of the boys,” so called to distinguish it from the other two Ashbys, not far off, the name being derived from the fact that certain lands in the parish are appropriated to the maintenance of the choristers of Lincoln Cathedral, the Dean and Chapter being patrons of the benefice. The road here is somewhat tortuous, but we find our way to the church, the chancel of which was restored by the patrons in 1869, and the rest of the building in 1877. It is a small fabric, consisting of nave, north aisle, chancel, small porch, and western tower. The main building is Early English. A lancet window still remains in the south wall, and at the west end of the aisle. The other windows of the nave are mostly Perpendicular. On the south side of the chancel is a two-light, square-headed, decorated window. The arcade has two chamfered arches, on low cylindrical piers. The tower is a low, stunted example of Perpendicular, the green sandstone picturesquely patched with brick. The west doorway is well proportioned, and the three-light Perpendicular window above, and the tower arch, are plain but good. There is a plain octagonal font. On the south wall is a brass to Richard Littlebury, of Stainsby, in the parish (obiit 1521); his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edmund Jenny, of Suffolk (died 1523); and their ten children. The brass, according to Haines, was not cut till 1560, at the same time with another of a knight in armour, now without inscription, but probably one of the six sons of the above. In the pavement is a the incised slab of blue marble, representing a priest in Eucharistic vestments, with chalice on the breast. The head, hands, chalice, and other portions were of brass, but these have disappeared. As has been elsewhere stated, in 1794, a Roman sepulchre was discovered three feet below the surface,—a stone chest, containing an urn of strong glass of greenish hue. The urn held small pieces of calcined bone, and, among them, a small lacrimatory of very thin green glass. Sir Joseph Banks thought it not improbable that, some day, the site of a Roman villa might be found near at hand. [254]

We again take to the main road, due eastward, and at the distance of another mile or so, we arrive at a steep descent, embowered in lofty trees; and, at the foot of this, “The Brook,” immortalized by the Laureate, winds its musical way beneath the road, under a bridge. To the left we see its course (where the writer has ofttimes “tickled” his trout), through a green meadow, as it issues from the wood named “Holy Well.” To the right it speeds onward through low-lying lands until it is lost in the distance.

Proceeding along the narrow lane,—so narrow, indeed, that only at certain points can two vehicles pass each other, and shut in by banks of sandstone,—we reach, on the right, a well in the rock, the latter green and grey with moss, lichen and fern, the water clear as crystal. It is, indeed, a lonely, quiet spot, fit place for musing meditation, in a poet’s wanderings. Just a cottage or two to remind one that there is a population, but not obtrusive. The rectory is the second, and larger, of two houses on the right, though now occupied as a farmhouse. It is a quaint, unpretending, old-time residence, uniting manor house and rectory in one. At its eastern end is a semi-ecclesiastical addition, with pointed windows having coloured glass of no particular merit. In the ground-floor apartment in this is a carved mantlepiece, the work of the Laureate’s father. Just beyond is a brick castellated building, “The Grange,” said to have been designed by Vanbrugh. Its construction is massive, and its curious cellars and other details make it something of a “Romance in brick.” Certainly it is a fair example of that solid style of building which gave rise to his (suggested) epitaph,—

Lie heavy on him, Earth; for he
Laid many a heavy weight on thee.

One can hardly help feeling that it must have been a reduction from some original, more ambitious, design; and those gloomy cellars may well have harboured the smuggler, or his illicit hoards, in days when not only humbler boards, but the table of parson and squire, boasted unblushingly of the “Schiedam” which had not paid duty, and was thought the better of it. This house is the reputed home of Tennyson’s “Northern Farmer,” whose dialect, however, as given by the poet, is generally considered by experts, however picturesque, to be considerably overdrawn. [255] In Somersby itself, except for its secluded beauty, there would be little to interest the visitor were it not for its association with the early years of the Tennysons. And one of the present writer’s earliest recollections is, as a small boy, driving his sisters, in a donkey cart through the village; when they were accosted by two strollers on the road, one of whom was Alfred Tennyson, then on a visit to the rectory, and not yet Laureate.

The Church of Somersby has little of interest, beyond a small brass with kneeling figure of George Littlebury, dated 1612; a stoup in the porch, and over the porch a sundial, with the legend “Time passeth,” dated 1751. The tower, however, has two good mediÆval bells. In repairing the tower in 1883, a fine window in its western face was removed and replaced by an inferior one (Saunders “Hist.,” vol. ii., p. 173). The modern restoration, with bright tiling of the floor, gives a brand-new appearance, rather out of keeping with the almost crumbling low tower, and rustic surroundings. The one really interesting feature is the churchyard cross. It is of Perpendicular date, tall, well designed, and with octagonal shaft gracefully tapering from the base to a corona, and having above that a cross, which, possibly owing to the very retired position of the village, has escaped the iconoclast. It has, on one side, the Crucifixion, and on the other the Virgin and Infant Saviour. It is almost unique in its very good state of preservation, the Puritans having generally ruthlessly mutilated such erections. Several models of it, in bronze, were made some years ago to the order of the late Mr. C. J. Caswell, and were speedily sold off as memorials of Tennyson. It has also recently been reproduced in the churchyard of Huttoft, in this county, where the church was restored, in 1895, by Mr. W. Scorer, architect, of Lincoln.

One of the places visited should be Holy Well wood. It is a leafy dell, where tower up lofty trees still vigorous, while others are lying rotting on the ground.

Nature in her old wild way,
Life blending closely with decay.

The thin stream twines about their roots, or springs over sandstone bars, in sylvan, solitude. The spot was described, years ago, by Howitt in his “Homes and Haunts of English Poets.” A local authority says that, once upon a time, a series of steps led down to the well, where an upright post was fixed, and a cross-bar from it was secured to the rock. On this cross-bar was an iron ring and a cable, by which a bather could let himself down for a dip in the well; and an old servant of the Tennyson family could remember when numbers of people came to take the water, which was considered to have health-giving properties. [256]

The manor of Somersby goes with that of Bag Enderby, and the benefices are held together, being barely a mile apart. The church of the latter is rather more interesting than that of Somersby, and it would be a pity not to see it, while we are so far, or near. It was built by Albin de Enderby, who died in 1407. Some of the windows, as the three-light one at the east end of the chancel, and others are Perpendicular; while others are of the Decorated style, but probably of the same date. There is some interesting old iron-work on the original oak door in the porch. The font is octangular, Perpendicular; on the bowl is carved the figure of the Virgin, supporting on her knees the dead body of the Saviour; a shield, on which is cut the spear, and hyssop with sponge, crosswise; the cross and crown of thorns; a deer couchant with head turned back, and feeding on the leaves of a tree; and other more ordinary devices. The chancel arch is fine, and there are some remains of a screen. All the windows would seem to have been originally filled with delicately-painted 14th century glass, of which fragments retrain. In the westernmost window of the south wall of the nave is a shield bearing the arms of Croyland Abbey. In the central alley of the nave are two fine Purbeck marble slabs, bearing legends on brass plates. [257] On the north wall of the chancel is a stone mural monument commemorating Andrew and Dorothy Gedney, with their two sons and two daughters, kneeling before two prayer-desks, in the costume of their period. In the churchyard is the base of a cross, the upper part having been removed some years ago. The font stands on a sepulchral slab, which has been ruthlessly cut into for the purpose.

As the name Enderby is sometimes, in old documents, written Hinterby, an idea has been broached that the prefix “Bag,” means “back,” or “hinder-by.” But, as we are in the region of sand and sandstone, abounding in burrows, it would seem more likely that the Bag is the badger; after a similar form to Bagshot, in Surrey, i.e., Bag or Badger’s holt; Bagley, near Oxford; Badgeworth, near Cheltenham (from which last neighbourhood the writer has a badger-skin), &c. An alternative derivation, of course, is the word Bag, or Bage, i.e., “turf,” for fuel, which might be not unlikely in Lincolnshire; but as “Bag” enters into place-names all over the kingdom, where the word “Bag,” for turf, is not used, this is hardly a likely explanation.

A short extension of our travels eastwards, through pretty scenery, with bold rising ground—Somersby Top, Warden Hill, &c.—capped by woods, brings us to Harrington, where we find an interesting old mansion belonging to Sir H. D. Ingilby, built in the reign of James II. with old-time garden, having parterres and terraces and extensive lawns, but, unfortunately, not at present occupied, and much decayed. There is a very interesting church, almost entirely rebuilt by the late Rector, Rev. R. W. Cracroft, in 1855, but retaining a series of fine monuments of his own connections, the Knightly family of the Coppledykes; the earliest of these, Sir John de Harrington, temp. Edward I., was a Crusader. His effigy lies on an altar tomb, beneath an arch in the south wall, at the east end of the nave. He is in complete armour, cross-legged, his hands joined in prayer. The next is a slab in the chancel floor, once having brass effigies, but which, with the inscription, have been removed. It commemorated John Coppledyke and his wife Margaret Tilney, and bore date 1480. Her effigy is now affixed to the wall of the chancel. The third is that of John Coppledyke, who died in 1552. Then there is the recessed altar-tomb of his son, also John, who died in 1585. It is in the Tudor style, altar and canopy all of Purbeck marble. Opposite is the monument of his brother Francis and his wife, the former dying in 1590. Then come tombs of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. This typical series closes with the tomb of Thomas, the nephew of Francis, described in the epitaph as “the last and best of his race.” The tower and font are the originals preserved; the latter bears on one of its faces the arms of Tilney impaling Coppledyke, shewing that it was the joint gift of John and Margaret, towards the end of the fifteenth century.

We have taken these latter two churches because they lie within easy reach from Somersby, the main object of our excursion, and they add to its interest. We now turn homewards again, but by a different route. We might, from Somersby, have visited Salmonby, barely a mile away, where there is a restored church with some interesting features; and we might also have included a visit to Tetford, a large village or small town, equi-distant from Somersby, with a fairly large church, but in a very bad condition and much needing careful restoration. But these we are constrained to omit, as the day’s excursion is to be a short one. From Harrington, we turn south-west, and climb a hill of some mile in extent, to the pleasant village of Hagworthingham, where we find a model church, beautifully situated. It has been largely rebuilt, but retains some ancient features, which show that the structure was originally Early English. This style has been retained. The church has nave, chancel, south aisle, tower and south porch. The arcade is of four bays, with arches rising from low cylindrical piers, with moulded capitals, earlier than the arches which they support. These low arches give a kind of “dim religious light” to the fabric. The antiquarian, Gervase Holles, says [259] of this church: “On a gravestone of blue marble, in ye body of ye Church is pourtrayed in brasse one in compleat armour, bearing upon ye manches of his coate of armes on either side 2 crescents. Between his feet a right hand couped. The rest is defaced.” At the present time the whole of this is gone. The font has a plain octagonal basin, supported by a group of Early English shafts. The tower is low and square, its greenish sandstone being relieved by an intermixture of brick, and has a good peal of bells. The church is well cared for in every way, and its position perfect. Three-quarters of a mile south there is a very interesting church at Lusby, but, although some of its peculiar features would well repay a visit, it is slightly out of our beat, and we must draw the line somewhere. We have between four and five miles of steep hills and valleys between us and Horncastle, a route which cannot be hurried over, and we must push on. From Greetham Hill, on a clear day, we command a view across the Wash, into Norfolk, to our left, while to our right we again see towering up, 25 miles away, the mass of Lincoln Minster.

The peculiar feature of this supplementary excursion is that it affords a revelation to those strangers to Lincolnshire who imagine the county to be flat as a billiard table. We have been truly travelling, as was said by a Dutch sportsman, 300 years ago (whom I have quoted in a previous chapter), in “Lincolniensi montium tractu” (“Fuller’s Worthies,” p. 150), “among the mountains of Lincolnshire.”

Here we bring our Records and excursions to a close. Like Vikings of old (under a figure) we have harried the country round, and (in a sense) ravished its many charms. We have explored shrines consecrated by olden memories, enriched by the associations of centuries; but (unlike the Vikings), we have done this in no irreverent spirit, and with no predatory purpose. We have carried off our hoards of treasure, but we have left no ill traces behind us of our raid. No burning monasteries or homesteads have marked our track; no orphaned children or widowed wives follow us with their execrations. Enriching ourselves, we have not impoverished others, and the country is still open for further investigation, with, doubtless, many a nook yet unexplored, and many a mushy folio unopened, whence others may extract materials of further interest. On the whole we trust that our readers will endorse the words of a Lincolnshire man whom we have already quoted more than once, [260] that, although ours may be “a county which few have defended, still fewer have praised, and too many have depreciated”; yet that it does possess many objects and associations of no small interest, and that not the least of these are to be found in the Records of Woodhall Spa, and its neighbourhood.

This is hardly the place to moralise, nor have we space to do so to more than a very limited extent; yet two reflections seem to force themselves upon us as the result of the archÆological enquiries which have produced the last three chapters of this work. One of these is the evil consequences of a barren formalism in religion. The monkish perfunctory services, with their “vain repetitions” and “long players,” reduced the individual well-nigh to the level of a praying machine, which could run off, as it were, from the reel, so many litanies in a given time, with little effort of intellect, and only a blind exercise of faith; both fatal to religious vitality. The dissolution of the monasteries, which were, perhaps, more abundant in our own neighbourhood than in any other similarly limited area in the kingdom, is not only a fact in history, but also may be an object-lesson in a different age. At the close of the enlightened 19th century we witnessed a church—may I not almost say, a nation?—convulsed over questions of religious ceremonial, which, to minds endeavouring to take a sober and unbiassed view, seem bordering on the puerile, compared with the weightier matter of the religion of heart and life. We can hardly help exclaiming, “Oh, that practical Englishmen would spend their energies on larger issues rather than thus give a handle to their enemies!” There is such a thing as “having the form of godliness without the indwelling power thereof.” From such let us turn away, or history may, even yet, repeat itself.

There can be no doubt that the plunder of the monasteries was primarily, though not avowedly, caused by the greed of a master mind, in Wolsey—whose extravagance needed “the sinews of war,” acting upon a desire for revenge, deeply seated in the heart of a Sovereign, self-convicted we may well believe, but stubbornly clinging to his sin; whose unjustifiable act, in the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, outraged the national sense of right, but especially was condemned by the religious orders. Yet, none the less, though brought about by unworthy motives, and the result, as it were, of side issues, the destruction of those institutions, with all their virtues and their manifold usefulness, coincided with a condition of things, widely prevalent, which rendered them only “fit for the burning.” They had, indeed, served their generation, and more than one, but they had become “carrion” in the nostrils, and, “where the carcase” was, “the vultures” of retribution, almost in the natural order of events, were “gathered together.”

A second reflection tends in an opposite direction.

A reactionary sentiment of our day is to make an idol of the great figure-head of Puritanism. We had lately (April 25, 1899) a celebration of the Tercentenary of Cromwell; in the place of his birth he has been made use of (by a strange stroke of irony) as an apostle of education. Projects are on foot for erecting his statue in positions of honour. Yet we see still in our own neighbourhood, as well as elsewhere, traces of the almost universal desecration of our holy places perpetrated by the fanaticism which he fostered and guided. Was Henry VIII. an Iconoclast, in shattering the monasteries? No less was the crime of Puritanism in dismantling our churches and stripping them of treasures which were beyond price. The antiquarian Carter says, “Before the hand of destruction wrought such fatal devastation, every sacred edifice throughout England, whether of confined or extended dimensions, teemed with a full and resplendent show of painted glass, all equally excellent, all equally meritorious” (Remarks on York Minster, Winkle’s “Cathedrals,” vol. i., p. 54, n. 30). In confirmation of this I take two instances: Four miles away we have the fine Church of Coningsby, and we have in these pages (pp. 222–226) a detailed description of the splendid series of coloured windows which formerly adorned that church. We ask, “Where are they now?” and echo can only reiterate “Where?” But for Gervase Holles, a Lincolnshire man and formerly M.P. for Grimsby, we should not now know that they ever existed. We take another case, one of the humblest structures in our neighbourhood, the church of Langton, and we have records given by the same authority of windows once existing here whose blazonry connected it with the ancient families of Everingham, de Seyrt, Skipwith, Bec, Ufford, and Willoughby. Where are they now? The wave of Puritanism has swept away every trace of them. Somersby indeed retains its churchyard cross, almost an isolated instance. The Puritan axe and hammer missed it, no thanks to them. The beautifully-carved fragments of destroyed monasteries, preserved perhaps as relics on our garden rockeries warn us of the dangers of mere formalism in religion. The Puritan spoliation of our holy places warns us against fanaticism and irreverence. Turn neither to the right hand nor to the left. In medio tutissimus ibis. We may well “hark back” to the devotion of our forefathers, but from either extreme, Domine, dirige nos.

And now there only remains the duty, or, rather, the privilege, of saying one parting word more. A Preface may be called a pre-post-erous production, because, though standing at the head of a book, it is almost invariably written after the book is finished, and when the author can take a general review of his work. In the present instance this was impossible. The exigencies of the situation—these Records first appearing as a weekly series in “The Horncastle News”—required that the Introduction, to stand at their head, should be written when the work itself was yet only an embryo conceived in the writer’s brain. He may truly be said to have begun ab ovo. He knew, indeed, generally, his own intentions, but he could not possibly, as yet, tell the exact form in which they would be embodied, and, as an unavoidable consequence, in the present case, as in not a few others, what should naturally be the head is here found where the tail should be. The real Preface closes, instead of introducing, the writer’s work to his readers.

A general outline, indeed, of the work had been laid down on paper more than a dozen years ago. During that interval (as also for several years before it) the materials had been accumulating; but still, when the work actually began to take shape, the writer was standing, as it were, at one end of a coil, of which he could not see the other; the windlass was letting down a chain into depths which his eye could not penetrate, nor his knowledge yet reach.

The outline originally sketched out has really in one only particular been departed from, but, in the process of its evolution, the thread has considerably stretched. The Clotho of its destiny has spun a longer web than had been foreseen by the writer. On coming to closer quarters with his subject, materials multiplied beyond his expectations, and but for the pruning knife, the result would have been still larger than it is.

How much the author is indebted to the previous industry of others is shewn by the number of the footnotes, and other references in the text, which together amount to close upon five hundred. Others have laboured and he has entered into their labours, and his object, in this, as it were, post-prandial utterance, is to own, with gratitude, the varied viands—epulÆ lautissimÆ—which he has found spread before him. He would say, with Cicero, opipare epulati sumus; and yet there are many baskets of fragments left.

He would also here express his thanks for the unvaried kindness with which his personal visits, in search of local information, have been welcomed; for the helpful response always made to his enquiries; as well as for the sympathy shewn towards his undertaking. But for these the work could not have attained its present dimensions, nor could much of its most interesting matter have been obtained; while, further they have made the work a task of real pleasure to himself. He can only say, in conclusion that if others should find, in the perusal of these pages, even a tithe of the entertainment which he has himself found in the compilation of them, he will be more than satisfied—gratified—by the result.