SIR ADRIAN SCROPE Grimoldby exhibits only one style, it is the transition between these two. The most noticeable thing in the church is the alabaster altar tomb to Sir Adrian Scrope, with effigies of his five sons over whom is the legend 'similis in prole resurgo,' and two daughters and an infant, over whom is written 'Pares et impares.' Does this mean "Like in face but different in character," or "Like their father but not so good-looking"? The knight is represented armed and half reclining on one elbow, with his helmet behind him and his mailed glove by his knee, the head and face very life-like, the hands and fingers extremely delicate. On a brass plate he is described as the thrice honourable Adrian Scrope, Kt., etc., and this verse follows:—
Tombs are but dumb day-books, they will not keepe
There names alive who in these wombes doe sleepe,
But who would pen the virtues of this knight
A story not an epitaph must write.
It was not easy to find the way to South Cockerington as the road to it literally forms a square, and then passes on from the churchyard gate right through a farm; but to reach North Cockerington you seem to go round at least five sides of a square or squares, then cross the Louth River, and then a bridge just above a water mill, and passing by two gates through a farmyard you arrive in a grass field, in which, devoid of any sort of fence on the north and west sides, the plain-looking church of Alvingham stands; a gate leads to the south door, near which a few yards of grass is mown, but the rest of the churchyard is a tangle of long grass and tall nettles; and amongst them, within a stone's throw, stands a second and larger church of North Cockerington, in which no service is held. "There is some wildernesses!" was the apt remark of our driver as we reached the churchyard gate.
Two churches in one churchyard are to be found at Evesham in Worcestershire, and at Reepham in Norfolk. These I have seen; others are at Willingate in Essex, and at Trimley in Suffolk. At Evesham there is even a third tower for the bells. This is of stone, but in a few other places, as at Brookland in Romney Marsh, the bell tower is a separate timber erection. The reason for two here was that Alvingham, dedicated to St. Adelwold, is the parish church, but there was once a Gilbertine priory for monks and nuns close by, to which the other church served as a chapel. This was also the parish church of North
