Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/317

 vicar about 1400. The stem is gone, the head shows some very delicate work, and the base stands on a rock in the sea with five various fishes depicted swimming. It was once seven feet high; and, if perfect, would be the most beautiful brass cross extant.

Three miles north we reach the fine church of Marsh Chapel. This was once a hamlet of Fulstow, four miles to the west on the road to Ludborough. It is Perpendicular from the foundation. Here, as at Grainthorpe, is a rood screen partly coloured, the lower part being new. The church is seated throughout in oak, and evidently used by a large congregation. The capitals of both arcades are battlemented. On the chancel wall is an exquisite little alabaster tablet put up in 1628, representing Sir Walter Harpham, his wife and little daughter—quite a gem of monumental sculpture. The parents died in 1607 and 1617. The lofty tower has a turret staircase with a spirelet—a rare feature in Lincolnshire, though common in Somersetshire—and the church is all built of Ancaster stone.

Going north we reach North Cotes and Tetney lock, where we can see part of the Roman sea bank, though Tetney haven now is almost two miles distant. The Louth river, which is cut straight and turned into the Louth Navigation Canal, runs out here.

The by-road we have been following from the south ends here; but a branch running due west passes to Tetney village and thence joins the Louth and Grimsby highway at Holton-le-Clay.