Tallington. CHURCH : ST LAWRENCE
July 2009 and a long weekend on the cycle in South Lincolnshire. Friday was spent re-visiting a few of the churches in the rough vicinity of Bourne. I had made my way up from Chesterton in glorious sunshine, taking in Sutton (the one near to Castor), Ufford and Uffington before heading to Tallington.
I have had a bad record in visiting this church. On two previous visits sunshine had disappeared, to be replaced by heavy cloud by the time that I arrived. The same happened this time and cloud had built up by the time that I arrived, leaving very poor shooting conditions. I asked a lady in the church grounds if the sun ever shined in Tallington. She confirmed that it did, and to be fair in the previous two so called English Summers the sun very rarely shined anywhere!
I decided to cut my losses and head off in to Market Deeping for some lunch....and behold, the clouds lifted whilst I was eating and when I arrived back there it was a glorious sunny afternoon!
You may have gathered by all the waffle thus far that there appears to be hardly any information at all on this church on the internet. No historical tidbits at all. So if anyone out there can help with anything in that respect, please get in touch. Thanks.
Tallington is a village that is probably most famous for its lakes and its dry ski slope. The church of St Lawrence is tucked in a sleepy lane. Very quiet and peaceful. The rural feel is furthered by the sheep that are found grazing in the field ajoining the church. This church is normally left oepn during daylight hours for prayer and visitors. Inside it is quite dark and my photographs of the interior suffered quite badly as a result.
The west tower is 14th century. The arcades and possibly the transepts are 13th century. It appears as if there was a structure here as far back as the 12th century as two pieces of 12th century stonework are inset in to one of the interior walls. There was Victorian restoration here, and it looks as if the stained glass comes from that era.
A gargoyle sits at each of the four sides of the tower, nice pieces of work but like the rest of us they are past their best! There are three bells at St Lawrence, plus a sanctus bell. The first bell is thought to have been cast by Robert Newcombe of Leicester in the 16th century. The second bell, according to North in his 19th century book on Lincolnshire church bells, was thought to have been cast by an early Nottingham founder. A quick check on the National Church Bell Database shows that this bell was re-cast by John Taylor and Co of Loughborough in 1950. The third bell North allocates to one William Ffounder. This bell has the initial IS and a coin mounted on it, and this could point to it being made by a founder with the same initials in Reading in the 1550's.
One gem in the church grounds was a slate gravestone dating from 1734, marking the final resting place of one Alice Walter. This is in slate, so this has not deteriorated over the years.This is a death head stone. These stones used pictures to get home a particular message in days when little of the population could read or write. This is in the same way that wall paintings were once used to tell Bible stories when the people attending the church couldn't read.
The message here is a simple one. We are all mortal, and we will go the same way as the deceased. There is a human skull in the bottom left hand corner of the stone. In the bottom right are crossed human bones and the gravediggers tools of pick and shovel. Sometimes, but not here, these are accompanied by a torch as burials were undertaken at night. These are all images of Man's mortality and stones such as these are relatively common. To my mind, this is a particularly nice example.
A good stay here. Always good to visit Tallington, and particularly good to see the sun shine here as well! Would have liked very much to have seen a booklet available detailing the history of the church. As mentioned above, if anyone reading this has anything that I might put in this page then please let me know, I will be pleased to hear from you.
On to my next point of call. This was just a little way away at Barholm, where I braved three ferocious sounding dogs, each at least the size of a small to average cat, in order to get the church key!!
