Читать книгу Records, Historical and Antiquarian, of Parishes Round Horncastle онлайн

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The Church, St. Andrews, is a modern edifice, almost entirely rebuilt in 1857 by Messrs Maughan and Fowler, of Louth; a previous larger church having been erected in 1705, on the site of a Saxon church, mentioned by Archdeacon Churton, in his “English Church,” as one of the two hundred and twenty-two churches in Lincolnshire existing before the Norman conquest. No traces of the original Saxon church remain. The fabric, 400 years ago, is said to have been considerably longer, to have had a tower, and north and south aisles. In the later fabric, the aisles had disappeared, as shewn in an old print, and the tower which partly fell, in 1799, was then cut down to the level of the nave roof, with a small wooden bell-turret above it.

The Land Revenue Records (bundle 1392) state that there were “iij bells and a lytel bell.” In 1566 the Churchwardens reported a “sacringe bell” as still remaining (Peacock’s “Church Furniture” p. 81.) There are now only two bells; and a tradition still lingers, that the largest of the former bells now hangs in the belfry of Tetford church. In 1834, the Church, like several others in the neighbourhood, was thatched; at that date the roof was repaired, and covered with tiles.