CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER
A white marble tablet of chaste design on the wall of the
nave shows a couple of sprays of bay or laurel beneath the
Christian monogram, bending to right and left over the inscription,
on the left to "Charles Tennyson Turner, Vicar and Patron
of Grasby, who died April 25, 1879.
True poet surely to be found
When truth is found again."
and on the right to "Louisa his wife, died May 20, 1879.
More than conquerors through him that loved us.
They rest with Charlotte Tennyson in the cemetery at Cheltenham." Charlotte was his brother Horatio's first wife; his wife Louisa was the sister of Lady Tennyson, the two brothers having married two Miss Sellwoods, nieces of Sir John Franklin. Tennyson's grandfather had married Mary Turner of Caistor, and Charles succeeded his uncle Sam Turner.
The church, with its low broached spire, has a nave and a north aisle, but has little of the old left in it, except the south doorway and some Early English clustered pillars, and a curious plain font set on four little square legs mounted on steps. The church was rebuilt, and the schools and vicarage built de novo by the Tennyson-Turners, for until his time the vicar had lived at Caistor. Under the east window outside is a stone let into the wall with three dedication crosses on it.
We must follow this Caistor and Brigg highway along the edge of the Wold to Bigby, where it turns to the left, and only a byway runs north to Barnetby le Wold which looks down on Melton Ross, so named from the Ros family to whom Belvoir came by marriage with a d'Albini heiress in the thirteenth century. Sir Thomas Manners—Lord Ros—was created Earl of Rutland in the sixteenth century.
Barnetby Church has a most ancient appearance; it stands high in a field by itself, the village lying below. A long, high wall of brick and stone, grey with lichen, a low tower and a flat roof and windows irregularly placed, make up a building of undoubted antiquity. Inside, and lately recovered from the coal-hole, is a Norman lead font, thirty-two inches across. This is unique in Lincolnshire, though twenty-eight others are known in other counties, the best being that at Dorchester-on-Thames. From Barnetby we must retrace our steps for a couple of miles to see Bigby, which is well placed
