Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/332

 Itm payd for dyssygerenge [query dressing] of    ye Rod loffte                                        iijs  iiijd It given to ye men of mumbye chappelle for     carryinge of ye lytle belle to Lincolne                      xijd It Layde oute for a lytle booke of prayer for     Wednesdays and frydayes                                      iijd  The church has six bells. From the account of the charities left in Addlethorpe we find that in 1554 a gift of land was sold for £4 an acre, but in 1653 an acre situated in Steeping let for 15s.

The adjoining parish with its mellifluous name of Ingoldmells, (pronounced Ingomells), has had its suffix derived from the Norse melr, said to mean the curious long grass of the sandhills. It might perhaps be more correctly considered as the same suffix which we have on the Norse-settled Cumbrian coast at Eskmeals, or Meols, where it is said to mean a sandy hill or dune, a name which would well fit in with the locality here. Thus the whole name would mean the sand-dunes of Ingulf, a Norse invader of the ninth century. A farmer we met at Winthorpe, next parish to Ingoldmells, alluded to these sandhills when he said, "It is a sträange thing, wi' all yon sand nobbut häfe a mile off, that we cant hav nowt but this mucky owd cläy hereabouts: not fit for owt." But the Romans found the clay very useful for making their great embankment along the coast.

Ingoldmells church, though good, is not so fine as Addlethorpe; but it has a very interesting little brass, dated 1520, to "William Palmer wyth ye stylt," a very rare instance of an infirmity being alluded to on a brass. The brass shows a crutched stick at his side. The porch has a quatrefoil opening on either side, and a niche; and a curious apse-like line of stones in the brick paving goes round all but the east side of the fine front. Round the base of the churchyard cross is a later inscription cut in 1600, J. O. Clerk. "Christus solus mihi salus," and figures run round three sides of the base, beginning on the north 1, 2, 3; and on the east 4, 5, 6; none on the south, but on the west 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, at the corner 10; and again on the north, 11, 12. Doubtless it was a form of sundial, the cross shaft throwing its shadow in the direction of the figures. Of the four bells one has fallen and lies on the belfry floor. One has