Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/266

 double moat to which the water from St. Helen's Spring was conducted by what is still known as "the Monk's Dyke." It flourished greatly at the beginning of the fourteenth century, having then sixty-six monks and 150 lay brethren. The Louth Park Abbey Chronicle, though very valuable, is not exactly contemporaneous with the things it mentions, for it was all written by a scribe in the fifteenth century. It covers the years from 1066 to the death of Henry IV. in 1413.

Near the abbey, but on the other side of the canal, is Keddington, where the arch of the organ chamber is made of carved stones, no doubt brought from the abbey. The church, which is built of chalk and greensand, is older than any in the immediate neighbourhood, and has a Norman south door. It has a remarkable lancet window on the south side, in the upper part of which is a carved dragon, and has also what is very rare, a wooden mediæval eagle lectern.

Half-a-dozen main roads radiate from Louth, one might call it eight, for two of the half-dozen divide, one within a mile, and one at a distance of two miles from the town. They go, one north to Grimsby, twenty miles of level road along the marsh, and one west to Market Rasen, by the Ludfords and North Willingham, fifteen and a half miles. One mile out, this road divides and goes west and then south to Wragby by South Willingham, sixteen and a half miles. Both of these roads, as well as that which runs south-west to Horncastle, fourteen and a half miles, cross the Wolds and are distinctly hilly, rising and falling nearly four hundred feet. The fifth road, which goes due south to Spilsby, sixteen miles, though seldom as much as 250 feet higher than Louth, which stands about seventy-five feet above sea level, affords fine views, and is a very pleasant road to travel. But all these highways must be dealt with in detail later. The sixth road from Louth runs south-east to Alford, and keeps on the level of the marsh, and the seventh and eighth roads run eastwards across the marsh to the sea, one branching off the Alford road at Kenwick and avoiding all villages, comes to the coast at Saltfleet; the other, starting out from Louth by Keddington and Alvingham, loses itself in many small and endlessly twisting roads which connect the various villages and reaches the sea eventually at Donna Nook and Saltfleet, places five miles apart, with no passage to the sea between them—nothing but mud flats,