Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/173

 the tower as his property, and considered that he had a right to pierce a door through it for easier access to his pew.

We have now but one road south of Lincoln to describe—for what we have to say about Norton Disney and Nocton can come afterwards; this is the Grantham road, a road curiously full of villages mostly perched on the western edge of the ridge, whilst the Ermine Street running so near it on the east has no villages at all on it, and the Sleaford road over "the Heath," a little to the east of the Ermine Street, is, as we have said, just as bare. The number of roads in Lincolnshire which have no villages on them is very remarkable, though not hard to explain. We have already, in treating of the roads from Grantham, through the villages of Manthorpe, Belton, Syston, Barkstone, Honington, Carlton Scroop, Normanton, Caythorpe and Fulbeck, brought the account of this road northwards as far as Leadenham. Here the Sleaford and Newark main road crosses it, and Leadenham spire is a fine landmark for all the neighbourhood. It is to be noted that, common as the Danish termination 'by' is in all parts of the county, the Saxon 'ton' just about here and on the west side generally, is even more frequent.

This spire is crocketed, but has no flying buttresses. The nave and arcades are lofty, with bold clustered columns, and the doorways, which are quite different in style, are both very good. There is some good Flemish glass, and a stone monument of the Beresford family has long been in use as an altar. Wellbourn, on an Early English tower, has one of those ugly, Perpendicular "sugar loaf" spires, with a sort of bulge in the middle, and that to a worse degree than at Caythorpe. The nave and aisles are the work of John of Wellbourn, the munificent treasurer of Lincoln in the middle of the fourteenth century.

To the right and left of Wellbourn are two places which should not be missed. Brant Broughton, with its beautiful spire, and Temple Bruer, where are the remains of a preceptory of the Knights Templars. The church of Brant Broughton (pronounced Bruton) is a beautiful structure, and all in perfect order, the magnificent lofty chancel having been built to match the rest of the church by Bodley and Garner in 1876. To take the woodwork first, the tall handsome screen and the chancel stalls are in memory of the late rector, Canon E. H. Sutton, as is also the lofty carved font cover, whose doors open and display three carved and coloured figures, one being St. Nicholas, the patron