GROUPS OF FINE CHURCHES date, having a small window into the chancel. The tower is Early English and is curiously placed at the south-west angle of the south aisle. That at Whaplode is at the south-east angle. Both tower and spire are in their original condition (the latter of timber covered with lead) and are the best and earliest specimens of their period. The tower stands on four magnificent arches now blocked, above which outside is a rich arcading like that in the north transept of Wells Cathedral. Above this the belfry windows are double, having a three-light window inside, with a two-light window outside, the mullion coming down to the outer edge of the splay; a very unusual arrangement. The spire is clasped at each corner by a spirelet, and rises to the height of 162 feet. Altogether this church is the fitting crown to our long string of stately churches. There are larger single churches with twelve to even twenty clerestory windows in Norfolk and Suffolk, but I doubt if any group in the kingdom can rival these, though the Sleaford group runs them hard. And certainly the Marsh churches between Boston and Wainfleet, and the still more characteristic group round Burgh-le-Marsh and Theddlethorpe have a charm—owing a good deal to their old oak fittings—which "can only be described in superlatives." Next to these for interest I would put the Pinchbeck group in the triangle formed by Boston, Spalding, and Donington, and the group of old pre-Norman towers like Clee which are found near together to the south and west of Grimsby. Of course, Lincoln Minster with Stow, Grantham with Hough-on-the-Hill, Boston Stump, and Louth spire, stand outside every group in unapproachable greatness. Long Sutton is not without neighbours. Two miles to the north is Lutton, where Dr. Busby, the famous headmaster of Westminster, was born. He died in 1695. The large inlaid Italian pulpit with elegant canopy, put up in 1702, was probably his gift.
Three miles east is Sutton bridge, only separated from Norfolk by the uninhabited Wingland Marsh, while three miles to the south is the village of Tydd-St.-Mary, the last village on the Wisbech road which is in Lincolnshire, Tydd-St.-Giles being over the border in Cambridgeshire; for both Norfolk and Cambridge here touch the county; Wisbech, which is itself the centre of a grand group of churches, being in the latter county.
