HARLAXTON AND DENTON times, and their predecessors are probably represented by the fine but mutilated alabaster recumbent effigies now in the northern, or Trinity, chapel of the church. In the north-east angle of this chapel is a very graceful canopied recess on a bracket, much like those at Sedgebrook, about five miles off on the border of the county.
The north aisle and nave are older than the tower and south aisle; and a curious staircase ascends at the east of the south aisle wall, from which a gangway crossed to the rood loft.
There are many aumbries in various parts of the church, and a tall, Decorated font, with grotesque faces in some panels, and in others sacred subjects oddly treated, such as our Lord crowned and holding a Chalice. In the south aisle is an old oak post alms-box resembling one at Halton Holgate.
A doorway leads out from the south side of the east end, an entrance probably to an eastern chapel. The two doorways, one on each side of the altar, at Spalding may have led to the same, or possibly to a vestry, as in Magdalen Chapel, Oxford.
The spire has a staircase, passing curiously from one of the pinnacles. A very massive broken stone coffin, removed from a garden, lies in the south chapel. The fine row of limes, and the ivy-grown walls of old Harlaxton Manor, add to the beauty of this quiet little village, and a group of half-timbered brick buildings, said to be sixteenth century, though looking more modern, which are near the church, are a picturesque feature.
Denton Manor, the seat of Sir C. G. E. Welby, Bart., is just beyond Harlaxton, and there one might once have seen a fine old manor house, now replaced by a large modern hall of fine proportions; the work is by Sir A. W. Blomfield, good in design and detail, and containing a notable collection both of furniture and pictures. St. Christopher's Well, a chalybeate spring, is in the park, and in the restored church are a good recumbent effigy of John Blyth, 1602, and a figure of Richard Welby, 1713, with angels carefully planting a crown on his wig. After this the road passes into Leicestershire, so we turn to the right and in less than four miles, halfway between the Melton road and the Nottingham road, and more in Leicestershire than in Lincolnshire, we come to Belvoir Castle. The mound on which it stands is over the border and is not a natural height, but was thrown up on a spur of the wold as early as the eleventh century by Robert de Todeni, who thence became known as Robert de
