Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/23

 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

IN

LINCOLNSHIRE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

In dealing with a county which measures seventy-five miles by forty-five, it will be best to assume that the tourist has either some form of "cycle" or, better still, a motor car. The railway helps one less in this than in most counties, as it naturally runs on the flat and unpicturesque portions, and also skirts the boundaries, and seldom attempts to pierce into the heart of the Wolds. Probably it would not be much good to the tourist if it did, as he would have to spend much of his time in tunnels which always come where there should be most to see, as on the Louth and Lincoln line between Withcal and South Willingham. As it is, the only bit of railway by which a person could gather that Lincolnshire was anything but an ugly county is that between Lincoln and Grantham.

But that it is a county with a great deal of beauty will be, I am sure, admitted by those who follow up the routes described in the following pages. They will find that it is a county famous for wide views, for wonderful sunsets, for hills and picturesque hollows; and full, too, of the human interest which clings round old buildings, and the uplifting pleasure which its many splendid specimens of architecture have power to bestow.