Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/187

 CHAPTER XIV

PLACES OF INTEREST NEAR LINCOLN

Nocton—Norton Disney—Doddington—Kettlethorpe.

NOCTON

As an instance of what the great Roman catch-water drain the "Carr-dyke" effected, we may take the little village of Nocton, six miles south-east of Lincoln. Here is a little string of villages—Potter Hanworth, Nocton, Dunston and Metheringham—running north and south on the edge of a moor which drops quickly on the east to an uninhabited stretch of fen once all water, but now rich cornland cut into long strips by the drains which, aided by pumps, send the superfluous water down the Nocton "Delph" into the Witham River. Along the extreme edge of the moorland runs the "Carr-dyke" and intercepts all the water which would otherwise discharge into the already water-logged lowlands, and so makes the task of dealing with the fen water a possible one.

At Potter Hanworth the Romans had a pottery. The church was rebuilt in 1857, one of the bells was re-cast in memory of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and on it were placed Tennyson's lines from "Morte d'Arthur."

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

On the same occasion the ringing of the Curfew bell, which had been continued till 1890, was given up, and a clock with four faces put up instead, which strikes the hours, but is not at all the same thing. Thus one more interesting and historic custom has