Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/483

 whole, the church is one of the most beautiful in the county.

It was Easter time when we visited Algarkirk, and the rookery in the park at the edge of the churchyard was giving abundant signs of busy life. The delightful cawing of the rooks is always associated in my mind with the bright spring time in villages of the Lincolnshire wolds. In the churchyard I noticed the name of Phœbe more than once, but I doubt if the parents, when bestowing this pretty classic name on their infant daughter at the font, ever thought of her adding to it, as the tombstone says she did, the prosaic name of Weatherbogg.

At Sutterton two main roads cross, one from Swineshead to Holbeach, crossing the Welland near Fosdyke; the other from Boston to Spalding, crossing the Glen at Surfleet.

From Swineshead two very dull roads run west to Sleaford, and north to Coningsby and Tattershall, to join the Sleaford and Horncastle road. This, after crossing the old Hammond Beck, sends an off-shoot eastwards to Boston, whose tower is seen about four miles off. It then crosses the great South-Forty-foot drain at Hubbert's bridge, named after Hubba the Dane, and the North-Forty-foot less than a mile further on, and, passing by Brothertoft to the Witham, which it crosses at Langrick, runs in a perfectly straight line through Thornton-le-Fen to Coningsby. An equally straight road goes parallel to, but four miles east of it, from Boston by New Bolingbroke to Revesby.

From what we have said it will be seen that the road from Spalding northwards is thickly set with fine churches; but that which goes eastwards boasts another group which are grander still. They are all figured in the volume of "Lincolnshire Churches," which deals with the division of Holland. This was published in 1843 by T. N. Morton of Boston, the excellent drawings being by Stephen Lewin. His drawing of Kirton Old Church shows what an extremely handsome building it was before Hayward destroyed it in 1804.

One ought not to close this Chapter without some reference to the term "pinchbeck," meaning sham, literally base metal, looking like gold, and used for watchcases. Some Pinchbeck natives still have it that it was a yellow metal found rather