THE WAPENTAKE which a particular chief held rule. The native chiefs of India, when they come to a Durbar, present their swords to the King or his representative in a similar manner, for him to touch.
Just south of Hough is the hamlet of Gelston, where, on a triangular green, is all that is left of a wayside cross, a rare thing in this county. Only about two feet of the old shaft is left and the massive base block standing on a thick slab with chamfered corners. This is mounted on three steps and is a very picturesque object.
There are some two dozen Wapentakes within the county, some with odd names, e.g., Longoboby; of these, eight end like Elloe in oe, which, I take it, means water.
From Hough-on-the-Hill the byway to the Grantham and Newark road, with villages at every second milestone, runs through Brandon, where a small chapel contains a Norman door with a tympanum and a rather unusual moulding, very like one we shall see in the old church at Stow, and then through Stubton, to Claypole, close to the county boundary. The beautiful crocketed spire of this fine church is a landmark seen for miles; as usual, it is Perpendicular, and on an Early English tower, which is plastered over with cement outside and engaged between the aisles inside. It is a cruciform building, and in the Early English south transept are three beautiful sedilia, not at all common in such a position. The flat coloured ceiling of the nave is old, though, since the restoration by C. Hodgson Fowler in 1892, the high pitch of the roof over it has been reverted to, both on chancel and nave. The nave is large with four wide bays, supported on clustered pillars, the capitals being all different and all ornamented with singularly bold foliated carving of great beauty. The chancel arch exhibits brackets for the rood beam. The large clerestory windows were probably in the nave before the aisles were added. Another set of sedilia in the chancel are of the Decorated period, and most of the windows have flowing tracery. On the north side of the chancel is a Sacristy, containing an altar slab in situ with its five dedication crosses. The porch has a very deep niche over it, for a statue, and there is another niche at the east end of the nave; the fine Perpendicular parapet leading to it being, like the rest of the church, embattled. The screen is a good Perpendicular one, and the desk of the well-carved pulpit was once part of it, this now is oddly supported by the long stem of a
