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Wonderful carvings by Grinling Gibbons are in several rooms, and also in the chapel, which is panelled with cedar wood.

ON THE WITHAM

Barkston is near the stream of the Witham, and is thence called Barkston-in-the-Willows; and ten miles off, on the county boundary near Newark, is Barnby-in-the-Willows, also on the Witham, which has arrived there from Barkston by a somewhat circuitous route.

Barkston Church is worth seeing by anyone who wishes to see how a complete rood-loft staircase was arranged, the steep twelve-inch risers showing how the builders got the maximum of utility out of the minimum of space. The last three steps below appear to have been cut off to let the pulpit steps in. There is a similar arrangement at Somerby, where the steps also are very high. A very good modern rood screen and canopy, somewhat on the pattern of the Sleaford one, has been put up by the rector, the Rev. E. Clements. There are two squints, on either side of the chancel arch, one through the rood staircase. The church has a nave and a south aisle, and the plain round transition Norman pillars are exactly like those at Great Hale, but are only about one-half the height. The arches are round ones, with nail head ornament, and from the bases of these pillars it is clear that the floor once sloped upwards continuously from west to east, as at Colsterworth and Horkstow. The chancel arch is made lofty by being set on the stone basement of the rood screen. The transitional tower has a beautiful Early English window in the west front, and the Decorated south aisle has a richly panelled parapet; but the Perpendicular porch is not so well executed, and cuts rudely into two pretty little aisle windows, and a niche over the door. It has over it this rhyming inscription carved in stone.