Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/329

 four evangelists. The string-courses show three different roofs to the nave.

Hogsthorpe, like most of the churches in the neighbourhood, is built of the soft local green-sand, which is found near the edge of the marsh where the Wolds die away into the level. The tower shows patches of brickwork which give a warm and picturesque appearance. The south porch is here, as is the rule, built of a harder stone, and is handsome and interesting. A pair of oblong stones of no great size are built in on either side above the arch with an inscription in old English letters, beginning, oddly enough, both in this church and in one at Winthorpe a few miles off, with the right hand stone and finishing on the left. The words are, "Orate pro animabus Fratrum et Sororum Guilde Sctae Mariæ hujus Ecclesiæ quorum expensis et sumptibus fabricata est haec porticus." The church has had its roof renewed in pine wood. It also has the worst coloured window glass I have ever seen, an error of local piety. The registers begin in 1558.

From here the road, with countless right-angled turns, runs between the reedy dykes to the Perpendicular church of Addlethorpe (St. Nicolas). Here the south porch is unusually good, with figures of angels on the buttresses and beautiful foliage work carved on the parapet. On the apex is a well-*cut crucifix and, as at Somersby, on the back is a small figure of the Virgin and Child. A large holy-water stoup stands just within the door. There is a window in the porch, also a niche and a slab with the following inscription:—

The Cryst that suffered Grette pangs and hard hafe mercy on the sowle of John Godard That thys porche made and many oder thynges dede There-for Jsu Cryst Qwyte hym hys mede.

Over the buttresses of the north aisle are gargoyles holding scrolls; one has on it "Of Gods saying comes no ill," another—

God: for: ihs: m[='c]y: bryng: hē: to: blys: Yt: hā: [=pd]: to: ys: