Mr. Jukes Brown, whom I have just quoted, says: The Wold hills must have been, in some way, exposed to a severe and long-continued detrition, when erosive agencies were very active. Active, indeed, they must have been, to efface from an area so extensive a solid formation from 500ft. to 1,000ft. in thickness. And this boulder clay, as Mr. Jukes Brown further observes, has forced its way up the sides of the chalk, in places, to a height varying from 300ft. to 400ft.

The Oxford clay, which lies next below the Kimeridge, is a deep sea deposit, dark blue, with brown nodular stones; some of the fossils found in it are Nucula Ornata, Ammonites Plicatilis, A. Rotundus, Cucullæa, Gryphæa Dilatata, Leda Phillipsii, Annelida Tetragona, and A. Tricarinata, Avicula inequivalvis. {94b}

Kellaways rock, which lies just below, so called from a village in Wiltshire, near Chippenham, is a mixture of yellowish and buff sands, with brown and buff sandstone. The chief fossils are Gryphæa Dilatata, and G. bilobata, Belemnites in abundance, and Avicula Braam-buriensis. {95a}

The Cornbrash, which succeeds (so called also from a district in Wiltshire, favourable to corn), is a light grey, fine-grained limestone, often so hard as to need blasting. It abounds in fossils. Among them are Avicula Echinata, Ostræa Sowerbyi, Clypeus Ptotii, Ammonites Macrocephalus, A. Herveyi, Nucula Variabilis, Astarte Minima, Trigonia (of four kinds), Modiola (of four kinds), Myacites (five kinds), Cypricardia, Corbicella Bathonica, Pholadomya (two kinds), Cardium (three kinds), Pecten (six kinds), and several more. {95b}

The great Oolite (so named from the Greek Oon, an egg, referring to the number of small stones, like fish-ova, found in it) is divided into Oolite clays and O. limestone. The clays are mottled green and bluish, with bands of ironstone, and concretions of lime. They indicate a shallow sea, as contrasted with the Oxford clay. Fossils are not numerous, but Rhinconella Concinna, Gervillia Crassicosta, Modiola Ungulata, Ostræa Gregaria, O. Sowerbvi, O. Subrugulosa, Perna Quardrata, Trigonia Flecta, and Palate of Fish are found. {95c} These beds correspond to the so-called Forest Marble of the South of England.

The Oolite limestone beds consist of white soft limestones, having at intervals bands of marly clay. This formation burns well, and makes good lime. Its chief fossils are Serpula, Rhynconella, Terebratula, and T. Intermedia, Avicula Echinata, Corbicella, Lima Rigida, Lucina, Modiola Imbricata, Myacites Calceiformis, Mytilus Furcatus, Ostræa Sowerbyi, Pecten Vagans, Pteroperna plana, Trigonia, T. costata, T. flecta, T. striata, T. undulata. {95d}

The Estuarine deposit, underlying the great Oolite limestone, is composed of light blue, green, and purple clays, intersected by soft bands of sandstone, and having at its base a band of nodular ironstone. It is not very fossiliferous, but the following are found:Rhynconella Concinna, Modiola Imbricata, Ostræa Sowerbyi, Monodonta. {95e} The sandstone bands contain plant-markings in considerable numbers. As its name implies, this formation was produced as the bed of an estuary or tidal river.

The next lower formation is the Lincolnshire limestone. This enters largely into the making of what is called the Cliff, which is the high land running south from Lincoln (visible from Woodhall) to the west of the Witham Valley and the Fens. It is a hard building stone, though once the muddy bed of a sea. It is sub-divided into the Hibaldstow and Kirton beds, so called because these strata are exposed in those parishes. Dipping to the east, it underlies the Fens and other upper strata to be found in the Woodhall well. It abounds in fossils, there being as many as 340 species classified, {96a} and consists, indeed, very largely of the hard parts of shells and corals compressed into a solid mass. To a Lincolnshire person, it is sufficient to say of this stone that our grand Cathedral is mainly built of it. We can only give here a few of the more frequent species of fossils:Three kinds of Echinus, Coral (Thecosmilia gregarea), Serpula socialis, Lima (five kinds), Ostræa flabelloides, Pecten (two kinds), Hinnites abjectus, Astarte elegans, Cardium Buckmani, Ceromya Bajociana, Cyprina Loweana, Homomya Crassiuscula, Isocardia, Cordata, Rhynconella (four kinds); among the bivalves are Avicula Inequivalvis, and A Munsteri, Lima (three kinds), Lucina Bellona, Modiola Gibbosa, Mytilus Imbricatus, Pholadomya (two kinds), Trigonia costata; of univalves, Natica (two kinds), Nerinea Cingenda; of fishes, Strophodus (two kinds). {96b} This is a most useful stone for building purposes. The so-called Lincoln stone is largely used in our churches; whilst the Ancaster quarries, which also belong to this formation, are famous. The commissioners appointed in 1839 to report on the building stones of England, for the new houses of Parliament, stated that many buildings constructed of material similar to the Oolite of Ancaster, such as Newark and Grantham churches, have scarcely yielded to the effects of atmospheric influences. (Old Lincolnshire, vol. i., p. 23.) The well-known Colly-Weston slates are the lowest stratum of this rock. The fine old Roman Newport Arch, which for some 700 years has braved the battle and the breeze, a pretty good test of its durability, is built of this stone.

The base on which this lowest Oolite lies is the Northampton Sands, an irony stratum of red ferruginous sand and sandstone, the upper portion of it also being called the Lower Estuarine deposit. It is from this stratum so many springs arise in various parts of the county, as already mentioned, and among them the Woodhall well water. Its fresh water conditions show it to have been the bed of a great river, but a tidal river, as among the fossils which it contains some are marine shells. In this formation is found the iron-stone, which is worked at Lincoln. Its commoner fossils are Lima duplicata, L. Dustonensis, Hinnites abjectus, Astarte elegans, Cardium Buckmani, Modiola Gibbosa, Ammonites Murchisoniæ, Belemnites Acutus. Its ferruginous layers are (as given by Capt. Macdakin), {97a} Peroxide bed, clay ironstone, hard carbonate of iron, hard blue carbonate peroxidised band, blue ferruginous sand, ironstone nodules, bed of coprolites with iron pyrites.

And this brings us to the Lias formation, in which lies the lower part, amounting to rather more than a third, of the Woodhall wells. It is divided into the upper Lias of clay and shale; the middle Lias of Marlstone rock bed, clay, and ironstone; and the lower Lias of clays, ironstone clays, limestones. {97b} This formation, with a thickness of from 900 to 1,000 feet, runs across England from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire down to the coast of Dorset. The upper Lias of the Woodhall wells also helps to form the slope from 100 feet to 150 feet in thickness of the escarpment called the Cliff, to the west of the Witham Fens, and to the north of Lincoln, by Fillingham, and so on. Lincoln itself stands on Lias beds, with a capping of the lower Oolite limestone. {97c} It contains many Belemnites, Lucina, Ammonites Bifrons, A. Serpentinus, A. Communis, A. Heterophillus, Nucula Hammeri, Pleuromyæ, {97d} and especially the Leda Ovum, which distinguishes it from other strata. The middle Lias, which underlies the upper, contains Ammonites Spinatus, A. Margaritatus (in great abundance), Rhinconella, Icthyosauri, Plesiosauri, and fossil wood, etc. {98a} The lower Lias contains Ammonites Capricornus, with many pyrites, A. Ibex, A. Jamesoni, A. Armatus, A. Oxynotus, A. Obtusus, A. Semicostatus, A. Bucklandi, A. Angulatus, A. Planorbis, Grypha incurva very abundant, and fossils of many other kinds. {98b} This brings us to the base of the Woodhall Spa wells. For a full list of the fossils so far found at Woodhall, the reader is referred to Appendix II. at the and of this volume.

These strata are shewn in the diagram given at the head of this chapter.

In giving the history of the well in Chapter I., the writer did not state the properties of the Woodhall water; but as these depend upon the geological elements, from which it originates, this seems to be the proper place to state them. The official analysis made by Professor Frankland, F.R.S., 1875, is as follows:{98c}

Parts Grains per gallon

Total solids in solution 2361.200 1652.8400

Organic carbon .362 .2604

Organic Nitrogen .532 .3724

Ammonia .810 .5070

Nitrogen as Nitrates and .009 .0063 Nitrites

Chlorine 1425.000 997.5000

Total combined nitrogen 1.208 .8456

Bromine 6.280 4.3960

Iodine .880 .6160

Arsenicam .016 .0112

Temporary hardness 20.000 14.0000

Permanent do 245.000 171.5000

Total do. 265.000 185.5000

The water contains unusually large proportions of Iodine and Bromine.E. Frankland.

The remarkable features of this analysis are the quantities of iodine and bromine. Professor Frankland, for the Geological Survey, found, of iodine, 6.1 grains in 10 gallons of the water; bromine, 44 grains in ditto.

As compared with the water of Cheltenham, of Leamington, and of the famed German Spa at Kreuznach, we have the original analysis of Mr. West, of Leeds, giving:

In 10 galls. Iodine. Bromine.

Cheltenham one third grain one and two-thirds grains

Leamington one grain four grains

Kreuznach one and one-quarter grain twenty-five grains

Woodhall six and one-sixth grains forty-four grains

The Woodhall water, therefore, has five times the amount of iodine, and nearly twice the amount of bromine, of the strongest known Continental water. {99a}

I mentioned, in Chapter I., that the Dead Sea, in Palestine, was stronger in bromine than Woodhall. According to M. Marchands analysis, it contains bromide of magnesium 74 times the amount at Kreuznach, or about 30 times the strength of Woodhall; but the other great ingredient of the Woodhall water, iodine, is absent from the Dead Sea. {99b} In iodine the only known water surpassing Woodhall Spa is the spring of Challes in Savoy, {99c} which contains 1.045 parts per 100,000 of water.

I may add that at Old Woodhall, about four miles distant from The Spa, at a depth of 33 feet, in sinking a well, some 20 years ago, salt water was tapped, resembling in taste that of the Woodhall Spa well, but it gradually became less salt, and finally was replaced by a supply of fresh water. {99d}

There is one other geological feature of the neighbourhood of Woodhall, which has not yet been touched upon, viz., the Fens bordering on the Witham. These are said to have been, to some extent, drained by the Romans; {99e} but within the last few centuries they have been partially reclaimed, have relapsed into bog and morass, and been finally reclaimed for good, in quite recent times. The writer, when a boy, used to visit a large farmer, living in Blankney Fen, whose father built the house in which he resided. Before building, an artificial foundation had to be made, by transporting soil in boats, or carts, from terra firma beyond the Fens, the whole Fen tract being more or less bog and swamp. When this had become sufficiently consolidated, the house and farm buildings were erected upon it; and from that centre roads were constructed, drains made, and the work of reclamation gradually extended. These drains, or skirths, as they are sometimes called, were periodically cleaned by a bab, a kind of dredge, with hooks at its under side to tear up plant roots. Great flocks of geese were kept, which were plucked alive several times a year, for the sale of the feathers, to make the famed Lincolnshire feather beds, and quills for the pens, now rarely seen, although, 50 years ago, in universal use. Until the land had become systematically reclaimed, it still continued to be extensively flooded in the winter months, and all cattle had to be housed, or penned, during that time, on the artificially raised ground. It frequently happened that early frosts caught the farmer napping, with his cattle still afield; in which case they had to be driven home over the ice, and numbers were at times screeved, i.e., split up, in the process, and had to be slaughtered. The fen soil is a mass of decayed vegetation, chiefly moss, interlarded with silt, deposited by the sea, which formerly made its oozy way as far as Lincoln. Large trees of bog oak and other kinds are found in the soil. These, it is supposed, became rotted at their base by the accumulating peat; and the strong south-west winds, prevailing then as they do now, broke them off, and they are, in consequence, generally found with their heads lying in a north-easterly direction. Borings at different places show the fen soil to vary in depth from 24ft. at Boston to 14½ft. at Martindale; but, as it has been gradually dried by drainage, it has considerably shrunk in thickness, and buried trees, which only a few years ago were beyond the reach of plough or spade, are now not uncommonly caught by the ploughshare.

The river Witham, which the visitor to Woodhall Spa sees skirting the railway, has passed through more than one metamorphosis. Now confined by banks, which have been alternately renewed and broken down at different periods, before the drainage of the Fens, it spread over all that level tract of country, meandering by its many islands and through its oozy channels and meres, the resort of countless flocks of wild fowl and fish ad infinitum, but preserving still one main navigable artery, by which vessels of considerable tonnage could slowly sail to Lincoln. Acts were passed, in the reigns of Edward the Third. Richard the Second, Henry the Seventh, Queen Elizabeth, and the two Charleses; and Commissioners were again and again appointed to effect the embanking and draining of these watery wastes, but with only temporary success; and it was not till 1787, or 1788, that the present complete system of drainage was commenced, which is now permanently established. {101a} And in these days, the Fens, once consisting as much of water as of land, at times even suffer from a scarcity of that commodity; drains, which within the writers own recollection abounded with fish, being now often dry almost all the year round. At a much more remote period the Witham was probably a much stronger river, and largely conduced to altering the features of the county. This subject has been carefully investigated by our geologists, {101b} with the result that certain changes in the strata of the upper Witham valley, from its source near Grantham, and changes also in the lower valley of the Trent, go far to prove that the Trent, instead of, as it does now, flowing into the Humber, took a more easterly course, and joining forces with the Witham some miles above Lincoln, the united streams pushed their way through the gorge, or break in the cliff formation, which occurs there, and is technically known as The Lincoln Gap, and continued their course to the sea by something like the present channel of the Witham. The idea of this Lincoln Gap, though the term is not actually used, would seem to have originated with Mr. W. Bedford, who stated, in a paper already mentioned, read before The Lincolnshire Topographical Society, in 1841, that the great breach below Lincoln could only be accounted for by the mighty force of agitated waters dashing against the rocks, through long ages. (Printed by W. and B. Brookes, Lincoln, 1843, p. 24, &c.) The theory would seem to be now generally accepted. Thus: that ancient river, the river Witham, honoured, we believe, by the Druid as his sacred stream, {102} consecrated in a later age to the Christian, by the number of religious houses erected on its shores, through a yet earlier stage of its existence performed the laborious task of carving out the vale of Grantham, and so adding to the varied beauty of our county; then, by a kind of metempsychosis of the river spirit, it was absorbed in the body of the larger Trent; the two, like John Anderson, my Joe, and his contented spouse, climbed the hill together, to the Lincoln Gap, and hand in hand wended their seaward way, to help each other, perchance, in giving birth to the Fenland; or, according to another theory, in making its bed. Through a long era this union lasted; but, as the old saying is, the course of true love never did run smooth; a change geologic came over the scene, and, through force of circumstance, the two, so long wedded together, broke the connubial bond, and henceforth separated, pursuing each their different ways; the one, the Trent, the river of thirty fountains, betaking herself to fresh woods and pastures new, after brief dalliance with the Ouse, became bosomed in the ample embrace of the Humber; the other, the humbler stream of the two, retaining its previous course, pursued the even tenor of its way through the flats of the Fenland, with their crass air and rotten harrs, to find its consolation in the dimpling smiles, but restless bosom, of the shallow Boston Deeps. During the period of that ancient alliance of these two streams the tract of country between Lincoln and Boston, or rather between the points now occupied by those places, would be scoured by a greatly-augmented volume of water, and this may possibly account in some degree for the shallowness of The Wash, and the number of submarine sandbanks which lie off the mouth of the present Witham. Had the union of the two streams continued to the present time, bringing down their united body of silt, Boston would either never have come into existence at all, or would have been much further from the sea than it is.

The precise period at which this riverine union prevailed would seem to be still an open question; and we may say, with Horace, adhuc sub judice lis est; for, whereas Professor Archibald Geikie, Director-General of the Government Geological Survey, {103a} gives his opinion that the gravels which have been laid down by an older Trent, that flowed through the gorge in the Jurassie escarpment at Lincoln, were later than the glacial deposits; on the other hand, Mr. F. M. Burton, F.L.S., F.G.S., {103b} who has a thorough local knowledge of the county and its geological features, says there is sufficient evidence to convince any reasonable mind that the present course of the Trent is not its original one; but that ages ago, in early pre-glacial times, I think, it passed through the Lincoln Gap to the fenland beyond, which was then open bay. We may well say with Pope: Who shall decide when doctors disagree? {103c} This, however, is too large a subject for a chapter on the geology of Woodhall Spa; but this brief reference to it may serve to show the visitor, who has the taste and inclination for such pursuits, that there are still subjects for interesting investigation in our neighbourhood, on which he might well employ his capacities for research.



CHAPTER VIII. THE ARCHÆOLOGY OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

In entering on this portion of our Records we are passing from the Natural to the Artificial, from the operations of the Creator to the works of the creature. A systematic process of enquiry would shew that, as in geology, so here, the subject-matter lies in layers. We have the prehistoric period concerning palæolithic and neolithic man; then follow the British, the Roman, the Saxon, the Danish, and the Norman strata, or eras; so many have been the elements which have contributed to the moulding of our country and our people, as we find them at the present day. But again, as in geology, so here, we find few traces in our own immediate neighbourhood of the earlier links in this seriesthe people who preceded the historic Britons. On Twig Moor, near Brigg, in the north of the county, a tract of ground very similar to our own Moor, many flint implements have been found. On an excursion of our Naturalists Union to that tract, one of the party found a handful of stone knives and finely-chipped arrow heads. {105a} The members of the same Society, visiting Woodhall in 1893, found on the Moor patches of pale-coloured sand, slightly ferruginous, and having a considerable number of flints, but none were found which could be said to shew traces of human use. This, however, is no reason why the visitor to Woodhall should not search for them. That they exist in our neighbourhood has been proved, since a good specimen of flint axe was found a few years ago by Mr. A. W. Daft, on Highrigge farm, near Stobourne Wood, in Woodhall. It is about five inches in length and 1¼ inches broad, and, from its high degree of polish, probably was the work of neolithic man. {105b} Another, smaller, flint celt was found in 1895 by Mr. Crooks, of Woodhall Spa, in the parish of Horsington, near Lady-hole bridge, between Stixwould and Tupholme. Its length was 3½ inches, by 2½ inches in breadth, thickness about ¾ inch. More recently one was found in a field on the Stixwould road by his son, about three inches in length and 1½ inches broad, thickness ¾ inch. In 1904 several finely chipt flint arrow heads, about one inch in length and breadth, were found in the parish of Salmonby, near Horncastle, in a field called Warlow Camp, doubtless the site of a prehistoric settlement. The present writer has picked up at odd times some half dozen specimens, bearing more or less trace of human manipulation, but none of them so well finished as those referred to. A farmer residing near the Moor, to whom I recently explained what a flint implement was, said he had noticed several stones of that kind, but did not know that they were worth picking up. Two molar teeth of the Elephas primigenius, or extinct mammoth, have been found in a pit at Kirkby-on-Bain, situated between the road and the canal, about a quarter of a mile north-west of the church; {106a} and bones of Bos primigenius and Cervus elaphus were found among gravel and ice-scraped pebbles in a pit, near Langworth bridge (not far from Bardney). The former of these, the gigantic Ox, or Urus, belonged to the palæolithic age, {106b} when the first race of human beings peopled this land, but was extinct in the neolithic period in this country (though in a later age re-introduced). The latter, which is our red-deer, survived in a wild state, in our county and neighbourhood, until comparatively modern times. Large vertebræ, apparently of some huge Saurian, have been found, which the writer has seen, in West Ashby; and a large mammoth tooth is preserved among the treasures of the late Mechanics Institute at Horncastle, having been found in the neighbourhood. These are all the pre-historic relics which I can find recorded in our neighbourhood.

Later antiquities, of the British, Roman, and succeeding periods, are, or have been, fairly plentiful; the misfortune being that, as we, as yet, have no County Museum wherein they could be preserved, they have doubtless many of them been lost, or, if kept in private hands, are unrecorded.

When the bed of the Witham, by order of the Royal Commissioners, was cleansed in 1788, a number of swords, spears, arrow heads, etc., were found on the hard clay bottom, which had been covered over, and so preserved, by the accumulated mud. And in the Gentlemans Magazine for that year a list of them was given. The late Sir Joseph Banks, of Revesby Abbey, secured a considerable number of such relics, catalogues of which are given in Lincolnshire Notes & Queries, Vols. III. and IV. They consist of arms and utensils of our British, Roman, Saxon, and Danish ancestors. Among the more interesting of these was a whittle, or anelace, exactly resembling one described by Greene as part of Chaucers dress. {107} In connection with Woodhall were the following:A sword, probably Saxon, brought up from the Witham bed near Kirkstead Wath, entangled in the prongs of an eel-stang. The pommel and guard are tinned, as we now tin the inside of kitchen utensils; an art which we should not have known that our forefathers at that period possessed but for such discoveries as this. The polish still remained on parts of the blade admirably brilliant. It bore the inscription + Benvenutus + on one side, and on the other + me fecit +, in Saxon characters; the name shewing that the maker was an Italian, the crosses probably implying that he (or the owner, if made to order) was a Christian; while from the Saxon lettering we should infer that the Italian sword-cutler exercised his craft in the north of Europe. Another sword, with brass scabbard, of elegant workmanship and richly gilt, was found near Bardney. Several more swords, with Saxon and Roman inscriptions, were also found near Bardney.

A dagger was brought up by an eel-stang near Kirkstead Wath, the handle, of elm, being in fairly good preservation, the only instance of wood thus surviving. {108a} Several others, one of superior work with an ivory handle, were found in the Witham near Bardney.

A spear head of bone, of British structure, was found in Stixwould in an ancient sewer, which was being cleansed. Sir J. Banks says that it does credit to the skill of the person who made it. {108b} Several more of these were found at Bardney and other parts of the Witham; and again at Kirksted Wath the eel-stang brought up an iron specimen, which from its appearance would seem to have been broken in action.

A large barbed arrow head was found near Bardney, with an orifice large enough to receive a broom handle. {108c}

A Roman lituus, or clarion, was found near Tattershall Ferry. Though imperfect, both ends being broken off, it is interesting as being probably the only one in existence. This instrument is represented among trophies on the base of Trojans column in Rome, and appears on some Roman coins. {108d} A description is given in the Archæologia of the Society of Antiquaries (Vol. XIV.) of an iron candlestick, of curious construction, being one of six which were found in the Witham by Kirkstead. We may well imagine that they, at one time, served to light the refectory of the Abbey, where the monks of old dispensed hospitality to the poor and needy, or to the wayfaring stranger. Perhaps the most interesting relic of all is a British shield, of finely-wrought metal, originally gilt, with a boss of carnelian, and ornamented with elaborate devices, shewing that those primitive people, though living a rude life, had attained to a very considerable degree of skill in working metals. It is described in the Archæologica (Vol. XXIII.); and an engraving is given of it in Fenland by Skertchly and Miller (p. 463). It was formerly in the Meyrick collection.

The above are a selection of the most interesting objects yielded up to us chiefly by the Witham; there have been many more, but of less importance. Several Roman urns in different places have been exhumed. The parish of Thornton runs down to Kirkstead station, passing almost within a stones throw of the Victoria Hotel; and in Thornton a small Roman vase was discovered when the railroad was made, in 1854. The present writer has seen it, but it has, unfortunately, disappeared. An engraving and description of it are given in the Linc. Architectural Societys Journal, Vol. IV., Part II., p. 200. It was nine inches in height, of rather rough construction, and with a rude ornamentation. Two Roman urns, or, according to another account, six (Lincolnshire N. & Q. Vol. III., p. 154), were also found at the north-east corner of a field, on the road leading from Stixwould to Bucknall, about 3½ miles from Woodhall. They were of the kind technically termed smoke burnt. The soil at the spot was a clay of so tenacious a character that several horse-shoes, some of them of a very old and curious make, have been found in the former quagmire. Several large Roman urns have been found in, or near, Horncastle, and are preserved among the treasures of the late Mechanics Institute, having been presented to the town by the sole surviving trustee, Mr. Joseph Willson, to form, with other objects, the nucleus of a local museum at some future time. Engravings of these also are given, with a Paper by Rev. E. Trollope, the late Bishop Suffragan of Nottingham, in the abovementioned Journal, at p. 210.

At Ashby Puerorum, so called because certain lands in the parish go to pay for the choristers of Lincoln Cathedral, in the year 1794, a labourer, cutting a ditch, discovered, three feet below the surface, a Roman sepulture, a stone chest squared and dressed with much care, in which was deposited an urn of strong glass of greenish hue. The chest was of freestone, such as is common on Lincoln heath. The urn, of elegant shape, contained human bones nearly reduced to ashes, and among them a small lacrimatory of very thin green glass. {110a}

On the Mareham road, on the south side of Horncastle, beyond the Black Swan inn, was a Roman burial ground, and several cinerary urns and some coffins have been discovered there. One stone coffin now stands in the back premises of Mr. James Isle, near to the corner where the Spilsby and Boston roads meet. In connection with this subject, I may here mention the most recent archæological find in Horncastle. While digging gravel in a pit recently opened in a garden at the back of Queen Street, not far from the Mareham Road, in 1897, the pick of the labourer struck against a hard substance, about two feet below the surface, which, on examination, proved to be an ancient coffin. It was constructed, except the lid, of one sheet of lead, slit at the corners to allow its being doubled up to form the sides and ends. The coffin was 5ft. 2in. in length, and within were the remains of a skeleton, pronounced by experts to be that of a female. A few days later a second lead coffin was found, similar to the former, except that it was 5ft. 7in. long, and the skeleton was pronounced to be that of a man. Both coffins lay east and west. The present writer was asked to investigate the matter. On enquiry, it was found that, about 24 years before, three lead coffins had been found within 100 yards of the same spot; they were sold for old lead and melted down. {110b} As Horncastle was the old Roman station Banovallum, the question arose whether these coffins were Roman, or of later, date. The orientation of both implied that they were Christian. After much interesting correspondence, the writer obtained the information from an antiquary of note, that if the lead was pure it would be of post-Roman date, if it contained an admixture of tin it would most probably be Roman. Analysis of the lead was made by a professional, which gave percentage of tin 1.65 to 97.08 of lead, 1.3 of oxygen, which implied that the persons buried were Romans, as well as Christians. A peculiar feature in these burials was that there were lumps of lime about the skeletons. I find, however, that some years ago a lead coffin was discovered near the Roman road, which passes through the parish of Bow, containing a skeleton with lime. {111} From its position near the Roman road we should infer that this was a Roman burial, and the presence of lime confirms the origin of the Horncastle coffins. The lime was probably used as a preservative. One of the coffins was sold for a collection in Manchester, the other was bought by public subscription, to be preserved for a future local museum. In the same gravel pit, a few days after the finding of the coffins, the labourers tool struck against another object, which proved to be an earthenware vessel, probably a Roman urn, but it was so shattered that he threw the fragments away, and they could not be recovered. It was described as being about 10 inches high, of a brown colour, and bearing traces of a pattern running round it.

Several old coins have been found in Horncastle, and some at Tattershall. As to the latter place, Allen, in his History, vol. ii., p. 72, and Weir (Historical Account of Lincolnshire, vol. i., p. 302), say that several Roman coins have been found, but they do not specify what they were. There were two so-called Roman camps in what is called Tattershall Park, this being supposed to be the Roman station Durobrivis. But, alas! Jam seges est, ubi Troja fuit: the plough has eliminated the camps from the field of view. Roman coins would be a natural result of a Roman station. It should not, however, be forgotten that Gough, Camden, and other authorities pronounce these camps to have been of British origin. The earlier Britons used mainly a brass coinage, or iron bars (utuntur aut aere, aut taleis ferreis, says Cæsar, Bell. Gall., v. 12); so that there should not be much difficulty in deciding whether the coins were those of British or Roman occupants. Taught by the Romans, the later Britons probably coined considerably. The oldest specimens known to be coined at Lincoln bear the name of King Arthur. Camden and Speed give several. At Horncastle, the oldest coin found was British, having on one side, amid mystic circles, the figure of a horse rampant, indicative of the reverence in which the horse was held by the Druids. {112a} Stukeley says, in his Diary, a coign I got of Carausius found at Hornecastle. It had been silvered over. The legend of the reverse is obscure. It seems to be a figure, sitting on a coat of armour, or trophy, with a garland in her left hand, and (legend) Victorii Aug. {112b} Silver coins of Vespasian, Lucius Septimius Severus, Alexander Severus, and Volusianus, a large brass coin of Trajan, middle brass of Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Trajan, Hadrian, Domitian, Antoninus Pius, Faustina the elder, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Lucius Verus, and Faustina the younger, and several more. {112c} In December, 1898, a coin was found by a son of Mr. W. K. Morton, bookseller, while playing in the garden at Onslow House, which proved to be one of the Emperor Constantine.

In deepening the bed of the river Bain to form the canal, in 1802, an ornamental brass spur, part of a brass crucifix, and a dagger, were found together, at a short distance from the north basin of the canal; and the writer once found, some quarter of a mile out of Horncastle, on Langton hill, the rowell of a spur, with very long spikes, probably at one time belonging to a cavalier at the battle of Winceby. He has also in his possession a pair of brass spurs, found not far from Winceby, massive and heavy, the spikes of the rowell being an inch in length.

Let us now return to Woodhall Spa; and on the way pause for a moment on the moor. We have already mentioned a curious character, by name Dawson, but more commonly called Tab-shag, who, within the memory of the writer and many more, lived as a kind of squatter, in his sod-built hut, close to The Tower. A sort of living fossil was this individual, short in stature, dark in complexion, and with a piercing, almost uncanny, eye; roughly clad, and looking as though he were something of a stranger to soap and water. Whats in a name? said love-sick Juliet. Yet the name which clung to this eccentric person probably had its significance. In one of the Magic Songs of the Finns (given in Folklore, vol. i., No. iii., p. 827) a sort of demon is described as Old Shaggy, the horror of the land, reared on a heather clump, living on the lee side of a stone, corresponding much to the home and haunts of our Tab-shag. Brogden {113} says Shag-foal means a hobgoblin supposed to haunt certain places, and a writer in the Archæological Review (for January, 1890) says that Shag is an old term for an elf, or Brownie, or goblin dwarf. He adds, The Hog-boy, or Howe-boy, of the Orkneys, in Lincolnshire is pronounced Shag-boy. An old lady, born at the beginning of the eighteenth century, is quoted, in The Cornhill Magazine (August, 1882) as saying she had often heard of fairies and shag boys, but had never seen one herself, though lasses were often skeart (i.e., scared, frightened) at them. And the weird-looking figure of Tab-shag, living in the peculiar way he did, in a kind of brock, or how, of his own construction, was not altogether unlike that of one of the How folk, the little people, believed in by our superstitious forefathers, and whose memory is perpetuated in the Folks glove (digitalis) of our heath; as he squatted on his faerie-knowe on the lee side of the old Tower, or roamed over the dreary moor at nightfall to startle the belated wayfarer.

What may have been the meaning of the other element in his soubriquet is not so easy to say. There is a Cornish (and probably British) word Tab, which means turf (Archæol. Journ. vol. ii., No. 3, p. 199), and that would suit this dweller on the heath; but it is more likely that Tab had a reference to the cat, Tabby being the term for a brindled cat. And Bishop Harsnet, in his curious book on The Superstitions of the Day (1605), says a witch, or elf, can take the form of hare, mouse, or cat.

Tabby is really a corruption of Tibby, and that is from Tybalt, the name of puss in the old Beast Epic of the middle ages. Ben Johnson uses tiberts for cats; and Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet (Act. iii., sc. 1) addresses Tybalt, when wishing to annoy him, as Tybalt, you rat catcher . . . King of cats (Folk-etymology).

This prowler on the heath might well be likened to pussy prowling after mice, or higher game. {114a} But elfs and bogies have now vanished from our sylvan glades, as the will o the wisp has from the fens and marshes, where the present writer has seen it. Drainage, and schools, and newspapers have banished alike such phenomena, and the belief in them; and Tab-shag, like many another equally harmless, and equally perhaps misunderstood, creature, will soon be forgotten.

One more antiquarian discovery may here be noticed. Much interest was excited by an ancient canoe which was unearthed near Brigg, in North Lincolnshire, in the year 1886, while some excavators were working on the east side of the river Ancholme. It was constructed out of a single tree, which must have been a very large oak. It was 48ft. in length; its width 5ft. at the widest part, and 4ft. at the narrowest. It had three transverse stays, also cut out of the solid. It was distant from the present river about 40 yards, lying due east and west, on what must have been a sloping beach. It was completely buried in a bed of alluvial clay; one end being 5ft. below the surface, and the other 9ft. below. It is fully described in an article, written by T. Tindall Wildridge, in Bygone Lincolnshire (1st series). The writer gives other instances of similar discoveriesin the Medway in 1720, in the Rother (Kent) in 1822, on the Clyde, etc.; various such boats, indeed, have been found on the Clyde, and, in one case, what is further interesting, the boat had within it a beautifully-finished stone celt, thus connecting it with the race of, probably, the later stone period. Several finds of this kind have occurred in our own river, the Witham, or near it.

In digging for the foundations of a house in the upper part of the High Street, Lincoln, some 80 or 90 years ago, a boat was discovered fastened by a chain to a post, {114b} the spot being several yards higher than the present level of the Witham; thus showing that, when the Witham was a tidal river, it rose at times considerably higher than it does now.

In 1816 an ancient canoe was found, {115a} some 8 feet below the surface, in cutting a drain, parallel to the Witham, about two miles below Lincoln. This, like the Brigg boat, was hollowed out of a single oak, 38ft. long, and 3ft. at the widest part. Another was found in 1818, in cutting a drain not far from the last, but was unfortunately destroyed by the workmen before they knew what it was. Its length was about the same as that of the previous boat, but it was 4½ft. wide. Two more similar canoesdugouts, as they were technically termedwere found about the same time in drain-cutting, in the same vicinity; and one of these was presented to the British Museum. {115b} The Fen men used to call their boats shouts, from the Dutch schuyt, a wherry. They propelled them along the drains by a long pole, called a poy. It would be too much to say that all these vessels belonged to pre-historic man, because of the presence in one case of a flint implement, connecting it with the neolithic period. Such boats have probably been used by all nations, at early stages of their existence. The Greek writer Hippocrates, about 400 B.C., mentions the monoxyle, or one-tree boat; one has been found in the Tunhovd Fyord in Norway. The Russians of the 9th century, in the neighbourhood of Novgorod, used them, laden with slaves for the market. The Goths of the 3rd century, as stated by Strabo, swept the Black Sea with them; and Professor Righ says that they have been used until comparatively modern times in Scandinavia; but at any rate these found in our fens belong to a period, apparently, when the fens were not yet formed, or, at most, were forming.Article on the Brigg Boat in Byegone Lincolnshire.

We now come to a case nearer home. The visitor who takes a stroll from the cross roads by St. Andrews Church, along the Tattershall road, shortly after crossing the pellucid sewer, will see a large pond on his right, close to a farm yard; and on the other side, eastward, are two ponds, about 80 yards from the road. All these ponds are pits dug for clay, which was put on the somewhat light land to strengthen it. The present course of the sewer, now running in a straight line due east and west, from Kirkby lane to the Witham, is artificial. It formerly pursued a tortuous course, and, on reaching the Tattershall road, flowed southward along the west side of that road, past what is now the Abbey Lodge public-house, dividing into more than one channel on its way to the Witham. This change was made soon after the Kirkstead estate passed, by purchase, from the Ellison family to that of the present proprietor, in the year 1839, when great improvements were made in the farms; the woods, {116} which then reached from the Moor ground to the Tattershall road, were cleared away, and much land brought into cultivation which had hitherto been waste, or forest. In digging for clay some 150 yards eastward from the road, and about the same distance, or a little more, south of the present course of the sewer, the labourers came upon the skeleton of a boat several feet below the surface. I am not able to discover whether it was a so-called dug-out, formed from one trunk, or constructed, as modern boats are, of several planks. Probably it would be the latter. But its position several feet below the surface would seem to imply considerable antiquity; while its mere existence would seem to indicate that either the sewer was formerly a larger stream than it is now, to float such a boat, or that the waters of the Witham, when unconfined by such a bank as the present, extended to this point inland. A circumstance which confirms the supposition of the sewer being larger is the fact that about this same place it is known that there was a mill-dam, and doubtless the stream turned the mill-wheel. The boat in question may not, therefore, like some of those previously mentioned, have belonged to pre-historic man; and yet it might well lay claim to an antiquity sufficiently hoar to make it a relic of some interest. But, though so long preserved beneath the surface, once above ground, it soon perished, and even the memory of it only remains with a few.

The visitor to Woodhall, who has antiquarian proclivities, may well spend an enjoyable day at Lincoln, not only for the sake of seeing the Cathedral, which is unsurpassed by any in the kingdom, or, rather, as has been said by no less an authority than Ruskin, worth any two others; or of visiting the Castle, founded by the Conqueror; but there are many other objects of much interest. One of the most important discoveries of recent years is the remains of a Roman basilica, found beneath the house of Mr. Allis, builder, in Bailgate, where a small fee is charged for admission. This has been pronounced by an authority, the late Precentor Venables, to have been the finest Roman building in the kingdom. Its length was 250 feet, width 70 feet, and it had stately pillars rising to a height of 30 feet. Beyond this is the fine old Newport Arch, the only Roman city gate in the kingdom. The noblest remnant of this sort in Britain, says Leland. He will do well to furnish himself with the Pocket Guide to Lincoln, by the late Sir Charles Anderson, one of our greatest authorities, and A Walk through Lincoln, by the late learned Precentor Venables, a compendium rich in historic lore. Either of these will prove a valuable Vade mecum, but the former, perhaps, more for the study, to be perused before his visit; the latter a manual for the street.

It may be added that, within quite recent years, the visitor to Lincoln found himself at once, on landing from the train, in an atmosphere of antiquity, for, on emerging from the station of the G. N. Railway, he would see over the door of a shop, full of modern utensils, facing the gate of the station yard, the name Burrus, Cooper, a genuine Roman patronymic, the bearer of which we may well suppose to have been a lineal descendant of some early Roman colonist, settled at Lindum Colonia, a citizen of no mean city, for Precentor Venables reminds us (A Walk through Lincoln, p. 9) it is one (with Colchester and Cologne) of the only three cities which still preserve, embedded in their names, the traces of their ancient distinction as Roman colonies.

By way of whetting the appetite for further enquiry, I give here a succinct catena of historic items, shewing the many interesting memories which cluster round our ancient cathedral city.

Lincoln was the British Caer-Lind-coit, the Fortress (or City) of River and Wood, these being the chief features of the position; the river, a sacred British stream, which carved out for itself its channel through the Lincoln Gap; and the woods (Welsh, or British, coed, a wood) which stretched far away for miles around it; of the remains of which De la Prime says, infinite millions of roots and bodies of trees have been found, of 30 yards length and above, and have been sold to make masts and keels for ships . . . as black as ebony, and very durable. {118a} Then, as the city took the last element of its name from its woods (coeds), so the people who dwelt around were called Coitani, or woodmen {118b}; corresponding to the name given to the dwellers in the fens, Gir-vii, or men of the cars. Lincoln was the royal city of the Coitani.

During the Roman occupation the Britons were christianized. After the Romans left the country, the people having, through the long period of peace, almost lost the art of war, the British chief Vortigern called in the Saxons from the continent to aid him against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; and Hengist and Horsa, Saxon chiefs, came with a large following and settled in the country (circa A.D. 450). Vortigern, with their assistance, repelled those northern marauders, and himself married Rowena, daughter of Hengist, giving to Hengist, in return for his aid, considerable landsmultos agros, says Matthew of Westminster {118c}in Lindsey.

But these so-called friends soon proved to be enemies, and, in 462, seized London, York, and Lincoln. Vortimer, son of Vortigern, died and was buried at Lincoln. Vortigern himself retired into Wales, and was burnt in his castle there, in 485.

Matthew of Westminster records that King Arthur of the round table pursued a Saxon army as far as Lincoln, having defeated them, with a loss of 6,000 men, in a wood near Barlings.

The Saxons, being ultimately victorious, re-introduced Paganism, the names of their gods still surviving in our day-names, Tuesday (Tuisco), Wednesday (Woden), Thursday (Thor), Friday (Friga), Saturday (Seater).

Among the kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy, Mercia was the largest and most important division, {118d} founded by the chief Crida in A.D. 584, and Lincoln is said to have been its capital city.

Paulinus preached Christianity among the Saxons (circa A.D. 630), and converted Blecca, the governor of Lincoln, where a stone church was built, said by some to have been the first stone church in the kingdom, {119a} that at Glastonbury being made of wattles. The Venerable Bede says it was of excellent workmanship. {119b} Two churches in Lincoln have claimed to represent this ancient fabric.

At a later period the Humber formed a highway for the marauding Danes, who overran the country, and, if in nothing else, have left their traces in every village-name ending in by. In their time Lincoln was the first city of the Pentapolis, or Quinque Burgi, of Fifburg, a league of the five confederate towns, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Stamford. Before the Norman Conquest Lincoln was the fourth city in the kingdom, and during the 11th and 12th centuries it was one of the greatest trading towns in the kingdom. The castle was founded by the Conqueror, A.D. 1086, being one of four which he erected at York, Nottingham, Hastings and here; and 166 mansions were destroyed to provide space for it. {119c}

The Empress Maud, in 1140, took up her residence in Lincoln, and strongly fortified the castle. It was besieged by Stephen, who was defeated and made prisoner at the battle of Lincoln. A prophecy had long been current to this effect,

The first crowned head that enters Lincolns walls, His reign proves stormy, and his kingdom falls.

On Stephens restoration he visited Lincoln in triumph, wearing his crown; but subsequent events verified the prediction.

At Lincoln, in 1200, William the Lion, of Scotland, did homage to King John of England.

On the death of Queen Eleanor, the beloved wife of Edward I., at Harby, a small hamlet of North Clifton, Notts, the embalmed body was taken to Westminster for burial, but the viscera were brought to Lincoln and interred in the Cathedral, A.D. 1290.

In 1301 Edward I. held a Parliament in Lincoln, to decide on sending letters to Rome to Pope Boniface VIII., asserting Englands independence of the Pope.

In 1305 Edward I. kept his court in Lincoln a whole winter, and held another Parliament, in which he confirmed the Magna Charta of King John. {120a}

A Parliament was also held in Lincoln by Edward II., and another, in his first year, by Edward III.

In 1352 the staple of wool was removed from Flanders to England; and Lincoln, with Westminster, Chichester, Canterbury, Bristol, and Hull, was made a staple town {120b} for that commodity.

John, of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III., resided in Lincoln Castle. His son, Henry of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV., was the only king born in this county. John of Gaunt married Catherine Swynford, sister of Chaucer the poet. She and a daughter were interred in the Cathedral, on the south side of the altar steps. The royalty of Lincoln Castle was shewn by a shield over a doorway, bearing the arms of England and France, quarterly, which were shewn in Bucks engraving, date 1727.

In the year 1386 Richard II. visited Lincoln and held a Court in the Episcopal Palace. He granted to the Mayor and his successors the privilege of having a sword carried before them in civic processions.

Henry VI. visited Lincoln and held a Court at the Bishops Palace in 1440.

Henry VII. visited Lincoln in 1486, and was right royally entertained.

On the dissolution of monasteries {120c} by Henry VIII., Lincoln became the headquarters of 60,000 insurgents, who, by the subsequent Pilgrimage of Grace, made their protest against the spoliation, A.D. 1536.

In 1541 Henry VIII. made a progress to York, and, although he had called Lincolnshire one of the most brute and beastly shires in the realm, he, on his way, visited Lincoln in great state. It is recorded that he found in the Cathedral Treasury 2,621 ozs. of gold and 4,285 ozs. of silver, besides jewels of great value.

On the commencement of the Civil Wars between Charles I. and his Parliament, the King came to Lincoln, where he received assurances of support from the Corporation and principal inhabitants. He convened there a meeting of the nobles, knights, gentry, and freeholders of the county. Lincoln Castle was taken by the troops of Cromwell, under the Earl of Manchester, in the year 1644.

James I. visited Lincoln A.D. 1617, hunted wild deer on Lincoln Heath, touched 50 persons for the Kings evil, attended service in the Cathedral, and cockfighting at The Sign of the George. {121a}

In 1695 William of Orange visited Lincoln, but it is on record that, being entertained the day before by Sir John Brownlow, at Belton, the king was exceeding merry there, and drank very freely, which was the occasion, when he came to Lincoln, he could take nothing but a porringer of milk. {121b} In Lincolnshire phrase, he had been very fresh.

Reviewing these historic items, I think we may say, with the historian Freeman, that Lincoln kept up its continuous being, as a place of note and importance, through Roman, English, Danish, and Norman Conquests, and that it has a record of which we may fairly be proud, as meriting the praise which old Alexander Necham, in his treatise De divina Sapientia, bestowed upon it,

Lindisiæ columen Lincolnia, sive columna, Munifica felix gente, repleta bonis.

I have said little of the Cathedral. That is, indeed, too large a subject. The visitor must see it for himself. I have referred to the opinion of Mr. Ruskin. His exact words, written at the time of the opening of the School of Art, to the Mayor, were these: I have always held, and am prepared against all comers to maintain, that the Cathedral of Lincoln is out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British islands, worth any two other cathedrals we have got. {121c} Viewed in the distance, from the neighbourhood of Woodhall Spa, its three towers seem to coalesce into one, almost of pyramidal form, to crown the hill on which it stands. That form was once more lofty, and more pointed, for each of the three towers had a spire. An entry in the Minster Archives records the fall of the largestruina magnæ pyramidisin 1547. In 1808 the two other lesser spires were taken down, not without strong remonstrances and much skirmishing in the public papers and elsewhere, as to the propriety of the act. The Lincoln people proved themselves more law-abiding than they had been on a previous occasion, for when, in 1726, the Chapter had decided to remove them, there was a very considerable riot, called The Religious Mob, of which an amusing account was found among some MS.

Tuesday night, Sept. 20, 1726, a mob was raised in Lincoln to hinder the puling down the 2 west End spirs of the Cathedrall, which was then began to be puled down it was computed ther was aBout 4 or 500 men. On Wednesday following by orders of the Marsters of the Church sent an order to the Mayor and Aldermen desiering them to send a Belman through the town with this cry, whereas there as Been a Tumult for this 2 or 3 Long Day, upon puling the 2 west end Spirs of the Cauthed Church of Lincoln, this is to give satisfaction that they have made a stop and that the spirs shall be repaired again with all speed.

On hearing this important proclamation the mob with one accord gave a great shout and said God bless the King.

The emeute terminated with no more serious results than some headaches the next day, as the beer barrels in the Chancellors cellars were broached and drained to the last drop by the exultant crowd. {122}

An interesting feature of Lincoln is the ancient Jews House, situated on the left hand of the street which is called strait, on the Steep Hill. The Jews of old, notwithstanding the scorn with which they were often treated, were persons of no small consideration to almost all ranks, from the Sovereign downwards. Their almost instinctive propensity for amassing wealth gave them a powerful lever for moving any who were in need of the moneylender; and there were few who were not. Through them, and sometimes through them alone, the sovereign could indirectly break the power of his unruly barons, and, naturally, in a city of commerce such as Lincoln was, as well as the not unfrequent seat of Parliament, and the residence of powerful members of the nobility, the Jews were an important element in the population. Among the Pipe Rolls of the Public Records, there are frequent mentions of them; the famous Aaron and his kinsfolk figuring largely among them. I here give a few brief extracts taken from those Rolls (31 Henry I. [11301]1 John [11991200]).

William of the Isle renders count of the ferm of Lincolnshire . . . and (cr.) by payment of Kings Writ to Aaron the Jew, £29 8s. l0d. . . . owes £12 4s. 9d. He renders count of the same debt in the treasury £2 6s. 9d. new money, for £2 4s. 9d. blank money, and £10 in two tallies, and is quits.12 Hen. II., Rot. i. mem. i. Linc.

The Sheriff accounts for the ferm of the counties, And (cr.) by payment by Kings writ to Aaron of Lincoln and Ysaac Jew £80.22 Hen. II., Dorset and Somerset.

Benedict brother of Aaron, and Benedict son of Isaach, and Benedict son of Jaocb render count of £6 for one mark of gold to be quits of the pledges of Isaac son of Comitissa.25 Hen. II., City of Lincoln.

The following looks very like Jews leaguing together to Jew a fellow Jew:Brun the Jew owes £400 of the fine he made with the King at his transfretation; but they ought to be required from Aaron of Lincoln, and Ysáác, and Abraham, son of Rabbi, and Ysáác of Colchester, his sureties, who have acknowledged that they received those £400 from his chattels.28 Hen. II., Lond. and Midd.

Benedict, brother of Aaron, renders count of £6 for one mark of gold, to have in peace his mortgage of Barewe (i.e., Barrow). Abraham, son of Aaron, owes £6 for one mark of gold to have his debts (settled).29 Hen. II., Linc.

Brun the Jew renders count of £1,000 out of the 2,000 marks of the fine he made with the King, and of which Aaron of Lincoln has to answer for 500 marks.30 Hen. II., Lond.

The following again looks suspiciously like a bit of Jewish sharp practice:Jacob, sisters son of Aaron, and Benedict his son, owe one mark of gold, because they kept back the charters of Benedict of the Bail, which had been acquitted.31 Hen. II., Linc.

Accordingly, as a succeeding entry, we find that:Benedict of the Bail owes 4 bezants, for him, and for fat Manasses, and Vives son of Deulcresse, and Josoe, son of Samuel, to have their charters from Benedict, son of Jacob, and from Jacob, sisters son of Aaron.31 Hen. II., Linc.

But, after all, honesty is the best policy, as shewn in the result of crafty dealing, in the following:Benedict, son of Aaron, owes 20 marks for right to £4 8s. 8d., against Meus the Jew of Lincoln; where Benedict has to pay more than three times the amount of the debt to obtain it.

The following seems to point to a playful practical joke:Jacob, Aarons sisters son, renders count of 20 marks, for an amerciament, for taking off a priests cap, and for the deed of Gerard de Sailby.33 Hen. II., Linc.

Aaron Jew, of Lincoln, Abraham son of Rabbi, and Isaac of Colchester, owe £400 of the chattels of Brun the Jew, which they received in old money, of the fine which he made with the King at his crossing over the straits (otherwise called his transfretation).1 Ric. I., Lond. and Weston.

Of the debts of Aaron of Lincoln, 430 are named, amounting to about £1,500, a very large sum in those days.Rolls, 35 Ric. I.

Here again we have a case of Jewish trickery:Ursell, son of Pulcella, owes 5 marks because he did not give up to Ysaac his debt, and Matathias the Jew owes half a mark because he has confessed what he previously denied.3 Ric. I., Linc.

In the time of Richard I. anti-semitic feeling ran high. In a Roll, 3 Ric. I., Chent (Kent), we find:The town of Ospringe owes 20 marks because it did not make a hue and cry for a slain Jew. In another, 4 Ric. I., we find:Richard Malebysse renders count for 20 marks, for having his land again, which had been seized in the hand of the king on account of the slaughter of Jews at York. William de Percy, Knight, Roger de Ripun, and Alan Malekuke owe 5 marks for the same. In Lincoln, however, it has been generally supposed that the Jews escaped violent treatment, but in a Roll, 3 Ric. I., Linc., there is a list of 80 names of men of the city fined, as amerciament for assault on the Jews.

There are several more mentions of transactions of Lincoln Jews, but these will suffice.Archæol. Review, Vol. ii., No. vi., pp. 398410.

There were at one time 52 churches in Lincoln besides the Cathedral; now they number 15. There were also in the city 14 monasteries. Honorius, the fifth Archbishop of Canterbury, was consecrated by Paulinus in Lincoln, in 627.

Services in some of the churches have been held somewhat irregularly even in this cathedral city, for in answer to queries from the Bishop in 1743, it was found that in St. Bennets there was divine service once a month, and twice on the greater festivals. St. Marks had services on the three greater festivals, and four times a year besides. St. Martins had services four or five times a year, St. Mary le Wigford once every Sunday. An epitaph in the churchyard of the last-named church, on an old tombstone, a specimen of Lindocolline wit, runs as follows:

Here lies onebelieve it, if you can Who, though an attorney, was an honest man. {125}

We have only to add that when Remigius of Fecamp, the first Norman Bishop, presided over the See of Lincoln, his diocese was far the largest in England, extending from the Humber to the Thames, and embracing no less than eight counties. It was reduced to something like its present dimensions on the appointment of Bishop Kaye in 1827; except that, since then, a portion has been taken off and included in the new Diocese of Southwell. Truly our bishops were princes in those olden times.

Yet, interesting as Lincoln is, to the archæologist one thing is lacking, viz., a fitting museum, wherein to bring together, tabulate, and conserve the many precious relics of the past, which are now scattered about in private hands, and liable to all sorts of accidents. When we visit such collections as those in the museums at Newcastle or Nottinghameven the limited and crowded, but very interesting, one at Peterborough, and, above all the very fine collection (especially of Roman antiquities) at Yorkwe are tempted to exclaim, with a sigh of regret, O! si sic omnes! At Lincoln, colossal fortunes have been, made in the old staple city, now vastly grown, and growing, in its trade; will not some one, or more, of her wealthy sons come forward, and build, and endow, a museum worthy of the place, and while there are yet so many priceless treasures available to enrich it? The Corporation, indeed, have, in the year of grace 1904, commenced at last a movement toward establishing a county museum, but no site is yet secured for it. A few objects, chiefly of Natural History, are already placed for safety in the Castle, till better accommodation can be provided.

We now return to some remains, possessing considerable antiquarian interest, in our neighbourhood, within easy reach for the visitor to Woodhall Spa, and belonging to a period later than that of the Briton, or Roman, or even the Saxon and the Dane; when, as the poet says:

Another language spread from coast to coast, Only perchance some melancholy stream, Or some indignant hills old names preserve, When laws, and creeds, and people, all are lost.

The name Woodhall implies the existence, at one time, of a hall in a wood, and that of sufficient importance to give its name to the whole demesne. {126a} Of such a building we have the traces.

The reader of these pages will have learnt that Woodhall Spa is but a modern creation, in what was, not long ago, an outlying corner of the parish from which it gets its name. The original village of Woodhall, comprising a few scattered farmhouses and cottages near the church, is distant some four miles from the Spa. The church will be more fully described in another chapter; it is here merely referred to as a landmark in connection with this hall. Immediately adjoining the churchyard, on the south and south-east, are a farmhouse and buildings of no great age; but directly south of these, and within 150 yards of the church, is the site of the ancient Wood-Hall. There is the hollow of a former moat, enclosing an area of about 120 feet by 90 feet, and beyond this can be traced the channel of a dike, which would seem to have connected the moat with a small, but limpid, stream, {126b} locally called, by the Norse term, beck, which rises in the gravel, some mile and a half distant eastward, in the parish of Thornton, not far from Langton hill; and which, passing Woodhall, finds its way, by Poolham and Stixwould, into the Witham. Covering a space of some two acres, there are mounds, beneath which, doubtless, was the debris of what must, in their day, have been extensive buildings. They are dotted about with gnarled hawthorns of considerable antiquity; but otherwise the wood is now conspicuous only by its absence.

Mr. Denton says (England in the 15th Century, p. 252, Bell & Sons, 1888), the ancient hall or manor house was usually moated for the purpose of defence, in times which were apt to be lawless; and in the case of the Moated Grange connected with a greater religious house, there was the further advantage of the ready supply of fish for the restricted diet of the monks, amongst whom, except for sick members, animal food was prohibited.

I have said that the Wood-Hall, or Hall in the Wood, must have been sufficiently important to give its name to the demesne. It may be doubted, however, whether the name Woodhall has always applied to the whole parish, now so called. In Camdens Britannia, written about 1586, Gibsons Edition being 1695, although the names of all the adjoining parishes appear in his map, that of Woodhall is absent, {127} and in its place we find Buckland. This latter name still survives in Buckland lane, given in the Award Map, in the north of the parish, and near to which, within the writers memory, there remained a tract of waste, and wild woodland. This name, therefore, is interesting, as indicating the former presence of the wild deer in our neighbourhood. It is, as it were, the still uneffaced slot of the roaming stag,a footprint in the sand of time, still visible. And, since this Buckland lane leads to nowhere beyond itself, we may well imagine it to have been a sort of cul-de-sac, a sylvan retreat, in which especially the antlered herds did congregate from the larger wood of the Manor Hall; and, in connection with this, we may notice that, not far from this lane, there still remain two woods, named Dar-wood, which may be taken, by an easy transition, to represent Deer-wood; further indicating the wild forest character of the demesne. Buckland lane terminates at a small enclosure, now known, for some unrecorded reason, as America, the sole plot of land, besides the churchyard, remaining in the parish attached to the church. The modern incumbent may indulge his fancy by supposing that, notwithstanding the strict monastic rule, this bit of church land may, in the olden day, occasionally have furnished a fatte buck for the table of the lordly Abbot of Kirkstead. {128a} In the Liber Regis, or Kings Book, issued by Commissioners under Henry VIII., the benefice is called Wood Hall; but it would seem, from what has been given above, that it was not until a later period that the whole Civil Parish became known by that name. There is nothing to show who were the occupants of this Wood Hall, but, until the Reformation, they probably held it in fee from the Abbots of Kirkstead. One little evidence of the connection with the great religious house survived, till within the last few years, in the Holy Thistle (Carduus Marianus), which grew in an adjoining field, as it also did about the ruin of Kirkstead Abbey, but it is now, it is believed, extinct. The monks found an innocent recreation in gardening, but they are gone, and even their plants have followed them.

In this same parish, and within two miles of this old Wood Hall, are the traces of another similar ancient establishment, viz., High-hall. We have already stated that Brito, son of Eudo, the Norman Baron of Tattershall, gave to the Abbots of Kirkstead two portions of the parish of Woodhall, which would seem to imply that he retained the third portion for himself. {128b} In that case this residence of the superior Lord of the Manor might naturally be distinguished from the Wood Hall by the title of the High Hall; and the traces of it which remain indicate that it was on a larger scale than the former. The position is in the second field northward from the road called Sandy lane, which is the boundary between the Woodhall Spa Civil district and Old Woodhall, and just outside, westward, the present High-hall Wood, which formerly extended further than it now does, so as completely to shelter this hall from the north and east. There are traces of three moated enclosures, from 70 yards to 100 yards in length east and west, and from 40 yards to 60 yards in width, covering an area of some three acres. Here, also, as at Woodhall, the moats, for the sake of fresh water, are connected by a channel with a running stream near at hand, though now at this point only small, named Reeds Beck, which rises within the High-Hall Wood.

At what date this old Hall fell into decay we have no means of knowing. The turf which now covers its foundations has at some time been levelled, and beyond slight indications of walls in the central of the three enclosures, the moats alone survive to shew its extent. The writer is in possession of an interesting relic, an old pistol of curious workmanship, which was found near the place by Mr. Atkinson, of the farm adjoining, in digging a ditch. The peculiar make of the weapon would seem to indicate that it was of the date of about Charles I.; {129} in which case we may suppose that the Hall was at that time occupied as a residence, and the pistol, being of French manufacture and rather handsomely chased, may have belonged to the wealthy occupant of the mansion; or, perhaps more likely, may have been part of the accoutrements of a cavalier of rank in the Royalist army, which, after their defeat at the battle of Winceby, near Horncastle, Oct. 11, 1643, was dispersed over the whole of this neighbourhood; and a fugitive officer may have sought shelter and hospitality at the High-Hall.

It is not a little remarkable that there should have been these two Halls, so near to each other and within the one parish; but they represent to us the lay, and the ecclesiastical, powers that were.

There were, also, other large, moated, ancient residences in our immediate neighbourhood, but in this chapter I confine myself to the two situated in Woodhall. The others will claim attention hereafter.



CHAPTER IX. ARCHÆOLOGYcontinued.

It was stated in the preceding chapter, that, besides the two ancient moated mansions in the parish of Woodhall, there described, there are other remains of a like character in our immediate neighbourhood. I will first mention a residence, the site of which I have not been able definitely to fix, but it would probably be somewhere near the Manor House of Woodhall Spa. I have before me a copy of a will preserved at the Probate Office, Lincoln, {131} which begins thus:The 6th of Dec., 1608, I, Edmund Sherard of Bracken-End, in the parish of Woodhall, and county of Lincoln, gente., sicke in bodye, but of perfect memorie, do will, &c. We may pause here to notice that the name Bracken-End would seem to imply that the residence stood at an extreme point of what is now Bracken wood, and, as the position would naturally be viewed in its geographical relation to the centre of the parish, either to the Woodhall by the parish church, or to the manorial High Hall, this point, we may assume, would be on the far, or south, side of Bracken wood, as the present Manor House is. In a similar manner a row of houses in Kirkstead, from their outlying situation, are called Town-end. In an old document, in Latin (Reg. III., D. & C.D. 153), mention is made of Willelmus Howeson de Howeson-end; and the residence of Lord Braybrooke, in Cambridgeshire, is named Audley End. There are known to have been a succession of buildings on the site of the present Woodhall Manor House, and we can hardly doubt that the residence here referred to as Bracken-end also stood there.

The will is of further interest as shewing the testators connection and dealings with members of families of position once, or still, well known in the neighbourhood or county.

His first bequest is (that which is the common lot of us all) my bodye to the earth whence it came. He then goes on to bequeath certain sums To Susanna my weif . . . To Elizabeth Sherard my daughter . . . To my sonne Robert . . . To the child my weif is conceaved with . . . The portions to be payde when my son Robert is xxj. years of age, and my daughters portions when they are xx., or shall marrie. My executur to keepe and maintaine my children, &c. He then wills that, in accordance with an arbitrament between Sir John Meares, of Awbrowy (Aukborough), in the county of Lincoln, knight, and another, with the consent of Willm. Sherard, of Lope-thorpe, in the parish of North Witham, knight, on the one partie, and I, the said Edmund Sherard, of the other partie . . . that the said William Sherard shall be accomptable . . . every yeare, of the goods and chattles of John Sherard, late of Lincoln, gent., deceased . . . and, I desire my said brother William Sherard, knight, . . . that he should discharge the same accordinglie to the benefit of my weif and children. Item, that Robert Thomson, my Father-in-law, shall have all my sheepe in Bracken End, which I bought of him, and owe for only fourty of them; that he shall paye to my wief for them vs. iiijd. (5s. 4d.) apeece. He then mentions as debts dewe:John Ingrum of Bucknall for sheepe of lord Willoughbie xijli.; Edward Skipwith of Ketsby, gent, for lx. sheep xxvvijli.; and if he refuse the sheepe, to pay to my executrix xls., which the Testator payde for sommering them: Edward Skipwith to be accomptable for the wool of the sayde sheepe for this last year, but (i.e., except) for vli. he hath payde in parts thereof. The Lord Clinton oweth for 1000 kiddes. Thomas Brownloe, servant of lord Willoughbie of Knaith, oweth for monev lent him, lvs.Prob. at Lincoln 9 Jan. 16089.

On these various items we may remark that, from the figures here given, 60 sheep cost 27 pounds, or 9 shillings each, of the money of that date, and for the sommering of them was paid 8d. each. In the first case his father-in-law was only able to pay 5s. 4d. each, because the testator still owed him for 40 of them.

The Lord Clinton named as owing for 1000 kiddes would at that time be residing at Tattershall Castle, which was one of his principal residences, Sempringham being another (Camdens Britannia, p. 478). We here have the thoroughly Lincolnshire word kid for faggot. {133} The name Lope-thorpe for the residence of the testators brother, Sir William Sherard, is a variation from Lobthorpe. A moat and fish ponds still mark the site of Lobthorpe Hall in North Witham, and there are several monuments in the church of Sir Brownlow Sherard and other members of the family. As there is no mention of the burial of this Edmund Sherard, Gent., of Bracken-end, in the Woodhall parish register, he was doubtless also interred at North Witham.

The Sir John Meares of Aukborough mentioned as a party to the arbitrament was a member of a very old Lincolnshire family, whose chief seat was Kirton near Boston, Sir John being lord of that manor; and there are several monuments of the family in the church there. Sir Thomas Meares, of Meres, was M.P. for Lincoln in eleven Parliaments, and was knighted at Whitehall in 1660 by Charles II.; and another Thomas Meeres was Member for the county in three Parlaiments temp. Henry VI. The Edward Skipwith, of Ketsby, Gent., also mentioned, is again a scion of one of our very old county families, their chief seat in this neighbourhood having been South Ormsby, to which Ketsby is attached. The church there has a brass of Sir William Skipwith, Knight, his wife (who was a Dymoke) and children. Among the Lincolnshire Gentry of 1634 named in a list preserved in the library of the Heralds College, are Robert Sherard of Gautby, and John Sherard; Robert Meeres of Kirton, and Anthony Meeres of Bonby; Edward Skipwith of Legbourne, Edward Skipwith of Grantham, and Samuel Skipwith of Utterby.

In the person, then, of this former squire of Bracken-end in Woodhall, we have an individual belonging to a family of knightly rank, his friends being members of some of our oldest county aristocracy, and his transactions connected with such Lords paramount as the Baron Willoughby of Knaith and Lord Clinton of Tattershall. I may add that the family is now represented by Lord Sherard of Leitrim, in the Peerage of Ireland, who is connected by marriage with the Reeves of Leadenham, the Whichcotes, and other good Lincolnshire families.

I now proceed to mention a few more of the ancient moated mansions in our neighbourhood. It was mentioned in the last chapter that, besides two portions of the land of the parish of Woodhall being given by Baron Brito, son of Eudo of Tattershall, to the Abbey of Kirkstead, the rectory of that benefice was also in the gift of the Abbot. In like manner the Abbot held lands in Thimbleby, erected a gallows there on which, at different times, several persons were hanged; and he owned the advowson of that benefice; and the present rectory house of that parish, built about 1840, stands on the site of a former residence, which was guarded by a moat. Within this enclosure there is still an ancient well, lined with Spilsby sandstone, of which the church, like most in the neighbourhood, is also built. This well has been said to be Roman, {134} but, without venturing to give it so early a date, we may, perhaps, safely say that it belonged to the lesser religious house formerly there existing, as a dependency of the Abbey of Kirkstead. There was, however, a Roman well found a few years ago, at Horncastle, within the old Roman castle walls, at the spot where the National Schools now stand. Similarly, the Abbot of Kirkstead was patron of the benefice of Wispington, another neighbouring parish, by the gift (about 1400) of another and later descendant of Eudo of Tattershall, who owned a moiety of this parish, the Bishop of Durham holding the other moiety; and, accordingly, here again there are extensive moats, ponds, and mounds, indicating a former large, and strongly protected, residence. Portions of this still form parts of a farmhouse (Mr. Evisons), and the farm buildings on the same premises, as well as of those now occupied by Mr. Gaunt, whose very name carries us back to the days of the great Norman magnate, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, scarcely less powerful than his ancestor, Gilbert de Gaunt, to whom the Conqueror gave no less than 113 manors; but to John belonged the peculiar distinction of being father of Henry IV., the only sovereign born in our county. This mansion was for some generations the property of a family of substance, named Phillips. The head of this family, in the reign of Elizabeth, is mentioned among those patriotic individuals who subscribed his £25 towards the cost of the Fleet which was intended to repel the Spanish Armada. One of this family, Phillips Glover, who was sheriff for the county in 1727, had a daughter Laura, who married Mr. Robert Vyner, of Eathorpe, Warwickshire, whose family are now amongst our greatest landowners, and draw an almost princely revenue from the Liverpool docks.

We now pass on to another neighbouring moated mansion. About 2½ miles from Woodhall Spa to the east, and only separated from Woodhall parish by a green lane, is White-Hall wood; on the opposite, northern, side of this lane being the High-Hall wood, already mentioned. Both these woods take their names from the old residences contiguous to them. The visitor to Woodhall Spa, if a pedestrian, leaving the road from Woodhall Spa to Horncastle, in that part of it called Short lane, because it is so long; after passing the two small woods, called Roughton Scrubs, on his right hand, and just before reaching the slight ascent near Martin bridge, may take to a cart-track, on the left or north side of the road, through a wood, crossing the railway, which here runs almost close to the road; pursuing this track through the wood some 200 yards, and then, turning slightly to the left in a north-westerly direction through two small grass fields, he will find, in an angle on the north side of the wood, a moated enclosure, between 75 and 80 yards square, shewing slight irregularities of the ground, on its northern side, indicating the site of a former building. Outside the moat are traces of another enclosure; a large depression shews where there was probably a stew pond for carp and tench; and the channel of a dyke is seen running north-west till it joins a small ditch, which may probably, at one time, have been a feeder to one of two streams already mentioned as being near the High Hall remains, and named Odds beck. I may say here, once for all, that the moats and ponds of these large establishments were a matter of considerable importance and care. They were protected from injury by the Acts, 3 Ed. I. and 5 Eliz., c. 21 (Treatise on Old Game Laws, 1725). The fish-stews were scientifically cultivated, and so arranged that they could be drained at will. When the water was run off from one, the fish were transferred to the next. Oats, barley, and rye grass were then grown in it; when these were reaped it was re-stocked with fish. The ponds were thus sweetened and a supply of food introduced; suitable weeds were also grown on the margin, and each pond, or moat, was treated in the same way in rotation.Nature and Woodcraft, by J. Watson.

Nothing now exists of this former mansion above ground, but the moats and mounds cover an area of more than two acres, shewing that it was a large residence. It is in Martin parish. Within the writers recollection there were marigolds and other flowers still growing about the spot, survivals from the quondam hall garth, or garden. This was the home of a branch of the Fynes, or Fiennes Clinton, family, whose head, Edward, Lord Clinton and Saye, Lord High Admiral of England, was created Earl of Lincoln by Queen Elizabeth in 1572; the present head of the family being the Duke of Newcastle, whose creation dates from 1756.

The connection of this great family with our neighbourhood came about in this wise. The line of Lord Treasurer Cromwell having become extinct, Henry VII., in 1487, granted the manor and other estates to his mother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and in the following year entailed them on the Duke of Richmond. The Duke died without issue; and Henry VIII., in 1520, granted them to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. On the death of the two infant sons of the Duke, surviving their father only a short time, the estates again reverted to the Sovereign; and in 1551 Edwd. VI. granted them to Edward Lord Clinton and Saye, afterwards, as we have said, Earl of Lincoln. These estates included that of the dissolved Abbey of Kirkstead, and other properties in this neighbourhood; and among them the White Hall and its appurtenances. When the earldom of Lincoln, through a marriage, became absorbed in the Dukedom of Newcastle, several of these estates remained with junior branches of the Clinton, or Fiennes, family. Of the particular branch residing at White Hall, probably the most distinguished member was one whose monumental tablet is still in Roughton church; the ministrations of which church they would seem, judging by entries in the registers, to have attended, in preference to the church of Martin, in which parish the estate was situated. The lengthy inscription on this tablet is as follows:Here lies the body of Norreys Fynes, Esq., Grandson to Sir Henry Clinton, commonly called Fynes, eldest son of Henry Earl of Lincoln, by his Second Wife, Daughter of Sir Richard Morrison, and Mother of Francis Lord Norreys, afterwards Earl of Berkshire. He had by his much-beloved and only Wife Elizabeth, who lies by him, Twelve children, of which Four Sons and Two Daughters were living at his decease, which happened on the 10th of January 17356 in the 75th year of his age. From the Revolution he always livd a Non-juror, {137} which rendered him incapable of any other Publick Employment (tho by his Great Ability and Known Courage equal to the most Difficult and Dangerous) than that of being Steward to two great Familys, wherein he distinguishd himself during his service of 40 year a most Faithful and Prudent manager, of a most Virtuous and Religious Life. His paternal estate he left without any addition to his son Kendal his next heir. His eldest son Charles was buried here the 26th August 1722, aged 36 years, whose Pleasant Disposition adornd by many virtues which he acquired by his Studys in Oxford made his death much lamented by all his Acquaintance. Possibly, as being a Non-juror, he may have thought it best not to attend public worship in his own parish church at Martin, and so have gone, with his family, to the church of Roughton, where, as an outener, he would be asked no questions. I find in connection with his family the following notices in the Roughton Registers, the spelling of which would certainly shew that the writer was not a Beauclerk:1722 Mr. Charles fines burried Augst ye 26. 1722; Madame Elizabeth fines was buered May ye 29, 1730 This was the only and much loved wife of Norreys Fynes, and the title Madame was a recognition of her superior rank. Norreys Fynes Esq. was buried ye 10th January 1736/7 This entry was evidently so correctly made by the Rector himself; as also was probably the next one, Dormer Fynes ye sonn of Kendall Fynes Esq. and Frances his wife was baptized Nov. 10. 1737. Cendal (Kendal) fins, the son of Norreys fins was buried June the twenty foorst, 1740. (Note the Lincolnshire pronunciation foorst). Francis Fynes, widow of Kendall Fynes buried May 13. 1752.