Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/161

 passengers, and the others are all, I believe, of the same calibre. It is just the same on the Ouse, across which Yokefleet and Ousefleet look at each other about a mile apart, but to drive from one to the other is a matter of more than thirty miles.

Marton is a tiny place, but has a very interesting church, with unbuttressed tower and heavily embattled parapet to both nave and chancel. The tower up to the upper stringcourse is entirely built in Norman "Herringbone" work, this is now plastered over outside, but you can trace the herringbone through the plaster, and inside the tower it is plain to see, and shows courses of thin stone laid horizontally at frequent intervals. Above the stringcourse is the usual two light window with mid-wall jamb, which, like the Long-and-Short work at the angles of the tower, we generally describe as Saxon. Several Saxon stones with interlaced work, parts of a cross probably, are built into the west end of the south aisle at about two feet from the ground outside. I always want to see these very old stones inside, for their better preservation. Above the present nave roof, but below the mark of the earlier and high-pitched roof, is a door which once opened from the tower into the church. The chancel arch is Norman, as are the two lofty bays of the north arcade. The rest of the church is Early English. In the chancel south wall is a large niche with a pedestal, evidently intended for a figure, perhaps of St. Margaret, the patron saint, and there is also a low-side window of one light with a two-light window above it. But the most interesting thing in the chancel is a little stone, nine inches by eleven, now in the north wall, which was lately found in part of the wall where it had been used as building material; this has on it a very early attenuated figure of the crucified Saviour, clothed in long drapery. It might have been part of a cross-head; certainly it is a very remarkable figure, and of very early date. There is a tall cross-*shaft and pedestal, now in the churchyard, but this is said to have been a market cross originally. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings were called in to do the work of repairing and, as usual, their work has been done in an inexpensive manner and on conservative lines. They found that the foundation of the old walls, only two feet below the surface, was just a trench filled with loose pebbles and sand. Three miles to the east of Marton stands the church which, next to the Minster, we may put at the head of the list of all the churches in the county.