Nettled

As we walked today from Barnetby to Caistor, we encountered little sign of the Vikings, save in the endings of place names: Searby;Clixby, Ownby; Grasby. This should have been a day of churches: the Way passes 5 which are worth a visit. Unfortunately we were frustrated to find four of those five locked. In Barnetby we visited the main church of St Barnabas. This is a modern (1920s) brick built church but was reputed to have a medieval lead font. The church was locked but a nice lady who was doing a class in the adjacent church hall let us in. She correctly informed us that the lead font had been taken away to a museum, in London, she thought. (A reading of the church guide suggests that it is actually in Barton on Humber, where we were yesterday.) She could not assist us in getting into the much older church of St Mary's at the other end of the village: this is looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust and the local man who held the key had just died - his funeral was last week. Phone calls were made but the current whereabouts of the key remained unclear. So as we left Barnetby we were able to look at the outside of St Mary's, very secluded, up a track, with a large graveyard, but we could not go inside this Domesday church.
At Bigby there is church with a huge tomb to Sir Robert Tyrwhitt and his wife, with all 22 of their children carved around the base, together with a rood beam carved in Oberammergau, but we saw neither of them as the church was locked and the nearby keyholder out. At Searby the church was locked with no hint of the whereabouts of a keyholder. At Grasby there were people outside the church, waiting for someone with a key to let in a group of schoolchildren, but the need to reach our destination prevented us from waiting.
We finally succeeded in getting into a church at Clixby. This was a CCF church, with an open sign in the churchyard. (A passing cyclist had assured us that we would find it open, because Marjorie who lives opposite always opens it when the weather is fine.) Only the chancel of this 13th century church survives. The interior is unspectacular but pleasing: the usual sedilla and piscina.  There is an impressive octagonal 15th century carved font, brought from another church at Low Toynton.
The locked churches all usually share a vicar, and a parish newsletter pinned in the porch at Bigby referred to a longstanding vacancy for this position. There was a plaintive reference to a locum vicar possibly becoming available in a nearby parish. The sea of faith is ebbing from the shores of Lincolnshire.

Curiosity of the day was the Somersby monument, an elegant carved pillar erected in 1770 to celebrate 29 years of conjugal happiness by Edward and Ann Weston of Somberby Hall. We could not find out the significance of 29 years: they were both still alive when the pillar was put up.
The sections of the Way which run near villages, seem fairly well walked, perhaps by local dog walkers, but much of the route is only lightly used. At this time of year this results in an overgrowth of nettles. If the Vikings came this way in September, I hope they did not make my mistake of wearin shorts.