Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/70



The inscription, written by Pope, is as follows:—

"Isaacus Newtonius Quem Immortalem Testantur Tempus, Natura, Coelum: Mortalem Hoc Marmor fatetur.

Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said let Newton be! and all was light."

His statue is also in the ante-chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, so eloquently described by Wordsworth as

"The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone."

Newton is represented standing, and faces to the east, and of the other seated figures in the ante-chapel, which all face north or south, the latest addition and the finest work is Thornicroft's statue of another Lincolnshire celebrity Alfred Lord Tennyson. This is an admirable likeness; the best view of it is from the east side.

West of Woolsthorpe is Buckminster, just over the border, but remarkable for having once had a beacon on the tower. The circular chimney of the Watcher's shelter still stands in the north-west angle. At Weldon near Kettering is a lantern fifteen feet high with a cupola put up 200 years ago to guide folk through Rockingham Forest. It is lit now on New Year's Eve.

From Colsterworth and Woolsthorpe we follow the river to Stoke Rockford, which is wedged in between the parks of Stoke and Easton. Both these manors were once held by the Rochfords and each had a separate church. Now one church serves for both and has a chapel for each manor, one on either side and extending the full length of the chancel. The Stoke Chapel has monuments of John de Neville 1320 and of the family of the present owners, the Turners. The Easton Chapel has a very fine one to the Cholmeleys, 1641, whose descendants still live in the old Elizabethan "Hall" with its triple avenue of limes which reach to the Great North Road. On the other side of the road the house at Stoke Park is also Elizabethan in style, but not in date, being by Salvin. It belongs to Christopher Turner, who also owns Panton Hall, near East Barkwith. The park has many fine