Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/183

 from a bold and effective moulding. Each floor is lit by small lancet windows, the middle one much enlarged of late years, for it is still inhabited, together with some building adjoining it on the east, as a farm house. The large earthworks around the castle, which are especially noticeable on the south, are very remarkable, and must be much earlier than the castle, which seems to have been planted inside these rectangular embankments, of which the northern side has been levelled, probably at the time of the building. The earthworks are not Roman in character, and are probably of very great antiquity. Outside these are at least two round artificial hills, which have not been as yet explained with certainty.

Leaving the castle, and driving over the rough field road which leads to it, we regain a highway which takes us up "the cliff" to the village of Navenby. This is situated on a spur jutting out from the edge of the cliff, with a deep little valley sweeping round on the south side and breaking down into the plain. Nestling in the curve of the hill are some picturesque farm buildings and stacks, and above is an old windmill; whilst over the horizon peeps through the trees the spire of Wellingore Church. The chancel of Navenby Church, as at Heckington, is as long as the nave, and almost as high; indeed, this Decorated chancel is as fine as any to be found, no other being built on at all so magnificent a scale, except Hawton in Notts, and Heckington and perhaps Merton at Oxford. The tower, which probably had a spire, fell in the eighteenth century, and the whole church was restored about forty years ago, by Kirk of Sleaford, who made the chancel roof of too high a pitch, and kept the nave roof too low. The pillars in the nave, of which there are two on each side, have shafts clustered round a central column, four shafts of coursed masonry alternating with four light detached monolithic shafts, all united under a circular capital. But the north-west pillar is thicker than the others, and belongs to the latter part of the twelfth century. The tower arch is a low one; the fine Decorated east window of six lights, restored in 1876, has superb tracery, and is nearly as fine as that at Heckington. There are four large chancel windows, and a good Early English window in the south aisle. There is also a rood-loft staircase, and a rood-loft with canopy, or 'hang over,' and a modern rood-beam above bearing a large crucifix and two almost life-size figures carved and painted. An octagon panelled