Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/25

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eastern side and from Grantham to the Humber on the western, it is obvious that no one can claim to know Lincolnshire who does not know the long lines of the Wolds, which are two long spines of upland running north and south, with flat land on either side of them.

These, back-bones of the county, though seldom reaching 500 feet, come to their highest point of 530 between Walesby and Stainton-le-Vale, a valley set upon a hill over which a line would pass drawn from Grimsby to Market Rasen. The hilly Wold region is about the same width as the level Marsh belt, averaging eight miles, but north of Caistor this narrows. There are no great streams from these Wolds, the most notable being the long brook whose parent branches run from Stainton-in-the-Vale and "Roman hole" near Thoresway, and uniting at Hatcliffe go out to the sea with the Louth River "Lud," the two streams joining at Tetney lock.

North of Caistor the Wolds not only narrow, but drop by Barnetby-le-Wold to 150 feet, and allow the railway lines from Barton-on-Humber, New Holland and Grimsby to pass through to Brigg. This, however, is only a 'pass,' as the chalk ridge rises again near Elsham, and at Saxby attains a height of 330 feet, whence it maintains itself at never less than 200 feet, right up to Ferriby-on-the-Humber. These Elsham and Saxby Wolds are but two miles across.

Naturally this Wold region with the villages situated in its folds or on its fringes is the pretty part of the county, though the Marsh with its extended views, its magnificent sunsets and cloud effects,

"The wide-winged sunsets of the misty Marsh,"

its splendid cattle and its interesting flora, its long sand-dunes covered with stout-growing grasses, sea holly and orange-berried buckthorn, and finally its magnificent sands, is full of a peculiar charm; and then there are its splendid churches; not so grand as the fen churches it is true, but so nobly planned and so unexpectedly full of beautiful old carved woodwork.

West of these Wolds is a belt of Fen-land lying between them and the ridge or 'cliff' on which the great Roman Ermine Street runs north from Lincoln in a bee line for over thirty miles to the Humber near Winteringham, only four miles west of the end of the Wolds already mentioned at South Ferriby.