Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/355

 CHAPTER XXX

SPILSBY AND ITS BYWAYS

Spilsby Market-town—The Churches and Willoughby Chapel—The Franklins—The Talk of the Market—Lincolnshire Stories and Others—Byways—Old Bolingbroke—Harrington Church—The Copledike Tombs—The Hall—Bag-Enderby—Remarkable Font—Somersby—The Churchyard Cross—The Brook—Ashby Puerorum.

Spilsby is the head of a petty-sessional division in the parts of Lindsey. The name is thought by some to be a corruption of Spellows-by, to which the name of Spellows hill in the neighbourhood gives some colour. The old gaol, built in 1825, had a really good classic portico with four fluted columns and massive pediment. Most of the buildings behind this imposing entrance were pulled down after fifty years, and all that it leads to now is the Sessions House and police station. The long market-place is interrupted in one place by a block of shops, and in another by a mean-looking Corn Exchange; but at one end of it still stands an elegant, restored market cross, and at the other a bronze statue by Noble of Sir John Franklin, the most famous of Spilsby's sons, the discoverer of the "North West Passage." His hand rests on an anchor, and on the pedestal are the words: "They forged the last link with their lives." Just beyond the town a fine elm-tree avenue leads to Eresby, the seat whence the Willoughby family take their title. In Domesday Book, 1086, Spilsby and Eresby are said to belong to the Bishop of Durham. His tenant Pinco, or one of his sons, the Fitz Pincos, acquired it; and about 1166 a Pinco heiress married Walter Bec, whose grandson has a sepulchral slab in Halton church, c. 1243. In 1295 a John, the son of Walter, was created Baron Bec of