Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/250

 CHAPTER XX

CAISTOR

The Roman Castrum—The Church and the Hundon Tombs—Rothwell and the Caistor Groups of Early Church Towers, "Riby," "Wold," "Cliff" and "Top"—Pelham Pillar—Grasby and the Tennyson-Turners—Barnetby—Bigby—The Tyrwhit Tombs—Brocklesby—The Mausoleum—The Pelham Buckle.

Caistor is the centre from which roads radiate in all directions, so much so that if you describe a circle from Caistor as your centre at the distance of Swallow it will cut across seventeen roads, and if you shorten the distance to a two-mile radius, it will still cross eleven, though not more than four or five of them will separately enter the old Roman town. For the town has grown round a Roman "Castrum," and the church is actually planted in the centre of the walled camp. A portion of the solidly grouted core of their wall shows on the southern boundary of the churchyard, and bits of it still exist to the east and west just beyond the churchyard boundary, and also a little further from the church on the north. Even the well which the Roman soldiers used, one of many springs coming out of the chalk, for Caistor is on the slope of the Wold, is still in use to the south-east of the church, and was included within the walls of the "Castrum."

Dr. Fraser of Caistor, who takes a keen interest in the subject, kindly showed me a plan on which such portions of the wall as have been laid bare, in some half-a-dozen spots, were marked. He lives in a house belonging to the Tennyson family, the poet's uncle and his brother Charles having both tenanted it. The place has a long history. It was a hill fort of the early