OLIVER ST. JOHN
Henry VIII., when urged to erect a suitable monument to
Queen Katherine of Aragon in the cathedral, had said he would
leave her one of the goodliest monuments in Christendom,
meaning that he would spare the cathedral for her sake, but
at the time of the civil war nearly all in the nature of ornamentation
was destroyed, including the organ, the windows, the reredos,
and the tombs and escutcheons of Queen Katherine herself, and
of Mary Queen of Scots. After a time Oliver St. John, who had
married twice over into the Cromwell family, as a reward for
political services in Holland obtained a grant of the ruined
minster, which was actually "propounded to be sold and demolished,"
and gave it to the town for use as a parish church.
It still remained in a sad state, but was being gradually put into
order all through the nineteenth century, and at last the tower,
which rested on four piers, all of which were found to be simply
pipes of Ashlar masonry filled with sand, was taken down in
1883 and solidly rebuilt, and the whole fabric put in order, the
white-washed walls scraped, new stalls excellently carved by
Thompson of Peterborough and a beautiful inlaid marble floor,
the gift of Dean Argles, placed in the choir, which was prolonged
westwards two bays into the nave, on the old Benedictine lines,
till now the interior is fully worthy of the uniquely magnificent
west front.
At Easton there was a Roman station, halfway between Casterton and Ancaster. It was important as being the last roadside watering place, the Ermine Street passing through a waterless tract for the next twelve miles.
A mile and a half to the east, the Great Northern line tunnels under Bassingthorpe hill at 370 feet above sea level, and, with the exception of one spot in Berwickshire, this is the highest point the line attains between London and Edinburgh. Immediately after this the line crosses the "Ermine Street," which from Stamford to Colsterworth is identical with "the Great North Road," but it splits off to the right a mile south of Easton Park, and keeping always to the right bank of the Witham, takes a straight course to Ancaster, leaving Grantham three miles to the left. After this parting, the North Road crosses to the left bank of the river and runs up to Great Ponton. The tall tower of the late Perpendicular church, built in 1519 by Anthony Ellys, merchant of the staple, of Calais, who lived in a manor house in the middle of the village, has Chaucer's
