IN NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE 
9 
traversed. Soon a ditch is crossed, and the visitor stands 
between two high rampart walls. In front is the entrance gate- 
way, pictured in Knight’s “ Old England ” and in many a 
forgotten volume on architecture. There is the groove where 
the portcullis used to move, and flanking the gateway are two 
round towers. Overhead is some rude sculpture. Stepping 
into one of the loophole arches for shelter one is fain to attempt 
a reading of the symbolism and to scribble a note or two. It is 
over 600 years since those foundations were dug, and 500 since 
those emblems and sombre figures were carved, and the likeness 
of William le Gros is greatly battered. The walls have here 
and there a coating of pretty Bavbula moss, and at the foot are 
still some green shoots of pellitory, a plant which loves such 
situations. December 31, yet here are dandelion and groundsel 
in bloom. The stream below is sullen and icy, nevertheless the 
water-parsnip and brooklime are vividly green. On the 
margins of the brook are the dead stems of willow-herb with its 
shattered forlorn capsule valves flapping in the breeze : the 
stalks are brittle, the willow-herb cannot defy the storm like the 
pellitory. But the biting wind nips the ears and benumbs the 
fingers so that the pencil cannot do its duty. At the back of 
the ruin is a haven of comparative calm. Standing there amid 
clumps of elder and patches of trailing brambles, there is time 
to inspect the varied materials of the building — oolite, chalk, 
rubble and brick. Attention is however drawn to the curious 
malformation of an elder branch. The branch is about three 
feet long, and where it leaves the trunk it is of normal shape and 
about a quarter of an inch in diameter. After growing properly 
for two or three inches, with very little transition it flattens 
out to a width of one inch, which it maintains nearly to the end, 
where it is twisted and twined in a most grotesque way, coming 
to an abrupt finish. The fasciation does not appear to be the 
work of a gall-fly, the new buds are rightly formed and promise 
well for the coming year. On this side of the Abbey are several 
ash trees. In some parts of the country the ash is rather scarce; 
in this region, out of five trees, three will be of that species. 
Most of the larger farmhouses have a weeping ash in the centre 
of the greensward of the front garden, just as many of them 
have a large block of stone by the gatepost as a stoop from 
which a rider may mount his steed. Now these pillars are of 
porphyritic granite, which is not found in Lincolnshire but is 
common in the Lake District ; of millstone grit, for which we 
shall have to search the Midlands ; or of basalt, well known in 
Scandinavia. Whence then came these blocks ? Out of the 
Boulder Clay ; they are travellers from afar, ice-carried from 
their native beds. The farmer has considered utility : the 
thoughtful rambler must also think of geology. 
Crossing the field to the farm, one is struck by the fact that 
the walls and farm-buildings are composed of the ruins of the 
abbey, whose ground plan covered several acres. The collie at 
