Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/253

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road you get a fine view over the flats in the centre of the county, as indeed you do if you go by the main road from Caistor to Rasen. This takes you through Nettleton, where there is another of these early towers, but not so remarkably old-looking a specimen as some. A buttress against the south wall of the tower is noticeable, being carefully devised by the mediæval builders so as not to block the little window. Usselby, three miles north of Rasen, lies hidden behind "The Hall," and is the tiniest church in the county. It has a nave and chancel of stone, and a bell-turret, and hideous brick-headed windows. At Claxby, close by, some fine fossils have been found. The eastern main road to Grimsby has most to show us, for on it we pass Cabourn and Swallow, both of which have towers like Rothwell, as also has Cuxwold, which is half-way between Swallow and Rothwell. All these unbuttressed towers are built of the same yellow sandy stone, and generally have the same two-light belfry window with a midwall jamb. Cabourn was the only church we found locked, and we could not see why, and as the absence of the rector's key keeps people from seeing the inside, so the presence of his garden fence, which runs right up to the tower on both sides, keeps them from seeing the west end outside—a horrid arrangement, not unlike that at Rowston. The tower has a pointed tiled roof, like a pigeon cote, a very small blocked low-side window is at the south-*west end of the chancel, and the bowl of a Norman font with cable moulding, found under the floor of the church, has been placed on the top of the old plain cylinder which did duty as a font till lately. The view from Cabourn hill, which drops down to Caistor, is a magnificent one. To the north the lofty Pelham Pillar, a tribute to a family distinguished as early as the reign of Edward III., stands up out of the oak woods, a landmark for many a mile.

Swallow has no jamb to its belfry window. But it has a very good Norman door, and round-headed windows. The south aisle arches have been built up. During the recent restoration two piscinas, Norman and Early English, were found, the former with a deep square bowl set on a pillar. The next church has the singular name of Irby-on-Humber, though the Humber is eight miles distant. Here we find Norman arcades of two arches with massive central pillars, thicker on the north side than the south, and Early English tower and chancel