Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/490

 pointed; of this period the chief feature is the west door with a fine series of mouldings and a double row of eight detached shafts on either side, set one behind the other.

The tower is very fine and is in a most unusual position, being south of the eastmost bay of the south aisle and almost detached, though once joined by a transept. We quite agree with Mr. Jeans when he says "Probably it was intended to have two transeptal towers like Exeter and Ottery, the only two churches in England with them, but a late Perpendicular transept occupies the place of the North one." The lower Transition stage is richly arcaded, the next two Early English stages have lancet arcading, and the belfry stage, which is early Decorated, has coupled lights and a parapet above them. The choir-screen stood, curiously, a bay in front of the rood loft, the stairs to which are on the south side. The pulpit is Jacobean, the font a copy of a Norman one, the chancel is of the meanest, and all the windows except one at the east of the north aisle are incredibly ugly. Some stone coffins are placed in the west end, where also is the fine canopied monument of Sir Anthony and Lady Elizabeth Irby with large figures of their children kneeling at the side. See Ashby-cum-Fenby, p. 267.

Another three miles along this wonderful line of grand churches brings us to the church of All Saints, Holbeach, a magnificent building all in the latest Decorated style throughout. The spire without crockets, though higher than Moulton, is rather dwarfed by the large tower without pinnacles. The nave is very spacious and light, having large aisle windows with no stained glass, and no less than fourteen pairs of clerestory windows. The flamboyant tracery in the east window is very good. The nave has seven very lofty bays on tall, light, clustered pillars, and the eastern bay does not reach the chancel arch, but leaves a wall space of six feet to accommodate the requirements of the rood loft. There is a very large north porch of singular construction, with heavy, round battlemented turrets like the flanking bastions of a castle gateway. Above is a parvise. In the north aisle is a well-preserved altar tomb to Sir Humphrey Littlebury, c. 1400, and two brasses; one of Joanna Welbye, 1458, for both these families once had manors at Holbeach.

The approach to the town is through a well-wooded country, and a row of pink chestnuts in bloom lined the churchyard,