JOHN CORDEAUX: LINCOLNSHIRE. 



5 



Then beyond Horncastle and Spilsby, where the chalk dips below 

 the fen 'from the foot of the wolds, the green flat stretched away, 

 illimitable, to an horizon where, from the roundness of the earth, the 

 distant trees and islands were hulled down like ships at sea. The 

 firm horse-fen lay, bright green, along the foot of the wold ; beyond 

 it the browner peat, or deep fen; and among that, dark velvet alder 

 beds, long lines of reed-rond, emerald in spring and golden under 

 the autumn sun ; shining 'eas' or river reaches; broad meres dotted 



with a million fowl Here and there, too, upon the 



far horizon, rose a tall line of ashen-trees, marking some island of 



firm rich soil Overhead the arch of heaven spread 



more ample than elsewhere, as over the open sea ; and that vastness 

 gave, and still gives, such cloudlands, such sunrises, such sunsets, as 

 can be seen nowhere else within these isles.'* This was the land of 

 the Girvii or Fenmen, a tribe of Angles who, even in Danish days, 

 remained practically unsubdued within the fastnesses of their impass- 

 able morasses. 



During the Norman period Lincolnshire contained no less than 

 ninety religious foundations — Abbeys, Monasteries, Preceptories of 

 Knights Templars, alien Priories and Hospitals; four principal 

 castles — Lincoln, Tattershall, Carlton, and Sleaford; and nine 

 crenellated or fortified mansions. Most of these have entirely 

 disappeared, and there is perhaps no other county so utterly 

 devoid of picturesque ruins. With the exception of the great gate- 

 way of Thornton, near Ulceby, the western part of Crowland, and 

 some remains at Tupholme, Kirkstead, and Louth, and the castles at 

 Lincoln, Somerton, and Tattershall, scarce a remnant now remains, 

 and even the site of the buildings is in many cases with difficulty 

 made outt Nowhere else in England, however, do we find so many 

 interesting churches dating from early Saxon times down to the close 

 of the Perpendicular period at the end of the 15 th century. Perhaps 

 the most remarkable amongst many is the ' Mother of Lincoln,' the 

 Saxon church at Stowe, which for some time was the throne of the 

 Bishops of Lindisse, before removal to Lincoln. Lincoln itself at one 

 period contained fifty-two churches, reduced in the reign of the sixth 

 Edward to thirteen. At Boston the magnificent tower of the parish 

 church, 260 feet high, the 'stump,' as it is called, predominates the 

 fens, and it is a prominent object both by sea and land from an immense 

 distance. In times of fen floods the bells were rung to warn the 



* Kingsley's 4 Hereward.' 



t For a list of Lincolnshire Religious Houses and Castles, see ' The Lincoln 

 Pocket Guide,' 1880, pp. 178—180, by Sir C. H. J. Anderson, Bart. 

 Jan. 1886. 



