Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/454

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subjects that delighted the humour of the medieval sculptor to portray.

Then another mile brought us to Tattershall, a small hamlet dominated and dwarfed by its truly magnificent church (more like a cathedral than a village fane, and of a size out of all proportion to the present, possibly also the past, needs of the parish) and by its stately old castle, towering high above all around. The church we found open, but desolate within, it being given over to workmen for much-needed repairs; the pavement in places, we noticed, was fouled by birds and wet with recent rain that had come in through holes in the roof. It was a pathetic sight to behold the grand old church in its faded magnificence, bare, cold, and colourless, robbed long ago of its glorious stained-glass windows, that once made it the pride of the whole countryside. Strange it seems that these splendid windows, that had miraculously escaped the Puritan crusade, should have been allowed to be carted away only the last century (in 1757) to enrich another church! Truly the Puritans were not the only spoilers. Here in the north transept is preserved a series of exceedingly fine and very interesting, though mutilated and damaged, brasses, removed from their rightful place in the chancel pavement some years ago, and now huddled together in a meaningless way. One of these is of Lord-Treasurer Cromwell, the builder of Tattershall church and castle. Another very fine brass is that of a provost with a richly-adorned cope. These brasses will well repay careful study.

Of Tattershall, besides some insignificant and