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The north-eastern road from Sleaford to Horncastle passes over a flat and dull country to Billinghay and Tattershall, and thence by the interesting little churches of Haltham and Roughton (pronounced Rooton) to Horncastle. The road near Billinghay runs by the side of the Old Carr Dyke, which is a picturesque feature in a very Dutch-looking landscape.

KYME TOWER AND PRIORY

SOUTH KYME

This road crosses the Dyke near North Kyme, where there is a small Roman camp. The Normans have left their mark in the name of “Vacherie House” and Bœuferie Bridge, close to which is “Decoy House,” and two miles to the south is the isolated village of South Kyme. Here is the keep of a thirteenth century castle, which is nearly eighty feet high, a square tower with small loophole windows. The lower room vaulted and showing the arms of the Umfraville family, to whom the property passed in the fifteenth century from the Kymes by marriage, and soon afterwards to the Talboys family, and, in 1530, to Sir Edward Dymoke of Scrivelsby, whose descendants resided there till 1700. The castle was pulled down about 1725, after which the Duke of Newcastle bought the estate and sold it twenty years later to Mr. Abraham Hume. The existing tower communicated from the first floor with the rest of the castle. The upper floors are now gone.