ASHBY-CUM-FENBY of the church, is entirely of good, hard, grey Yorkshire stone. Some "Blow Wells," which are circular pits of very blue water 100 feet deep, are in a field half a mile to the south-east of the church. There are others at Laceby and Little Cotes, both in the valley of the Freshney river, six miles off. The water comes through faults in the limestone ridge four or five miles to the west. A stream also flows through Tetney, which comes out of the Croxby pond near Hatcliffe, the only piece of water in the neighbourhood. The roads we have been writing of are all entirely in the flat ground, but from the Louth and Grimsby main road a branch goes off to the left, after crossing a fourteenth century bridge with ribbed arches, at Utterby, which runs north along the western edge of the Wold past Brocklesby to Barrow on Humber. This, when it is opposite to Waith, has on its left a place called Ravendale, and, on its right, a little hidden away village, called Ashby-cum-Fenby. At Ravendale there was once a priory belonging to a Premonstratensian abbey in Brittany. It was seized by the Crown with other alien priories in 1337 to form part of the dowry of Joan of Navarre, Queen of Henry IV. Ashby-cum-Fenby has very pretty Early-English two-light windows in the belfry, set round with dog-tooth moulding. A Crusader effigy of 1300 is at the west end of the tower, and two fine monuments to two sisters of the Drury family are in good preservation; one to Sir F. and Lady Wray closely resembles the Irby monument at Whaplode, and, as the families are related, probably the work is by the same sculptor. That of Susannah Drury in the chancel is a good piece of sculpture, but the whole has literally been whitewashed, which does not improve it. The churchyard is for the most part deplorably neglected, and a few sheep would greatly improve it. A row of almshouses with tiny gardens, made like the Workmen's row at Tattershall, adjoins the west side of the churchyard.
The road after this passes nothing of importance near it, till it reaches Brocklesby.
Close to the bell ropes in the tower at Tetney is a neat little brass which aptly commemorates a fine old parishioner as follows:—
Matthew Lakin
born 1801 died 1899 One of the regular bellringers of
Tetney for 84 years and sometime Clerk and Sexton.
