Stories Unlocked Kirton in Lindsey – St Andrew

Clocks, Bells, Reverends, Knights and Organs! THE CLOCK The church had a clock as early as 1573 but it seems to have been troublesome as the churchwardens’ accounts record a number of payments for repairs and complaints from residents that it wasn’t working. In 1619 an agreement was made for keeping the clock in good repair for £12 per annum – a large sum for the time. Two pounds of goose grease were purchased in 1623 for the clock and the bells. From this time until 1900 we have little information about the clock but the photograph taken before the 1860 alterations shows a clock face overlying the East windows in the tower; the clock face was not central, but was displaced so that it overlaid the more northerly of the two windows. The present clock was installed in 1901. Writing in the Church Magazine for June 1901, Mr Charters says: ‘The old clock is supposed to be about 100 years old and was fixed on a stage in the bell chamber, just behind the dial (the staging is still there today). The new one is in the chamber below the bells and operates the hands by a rod 20 feet long. The hands can be regulated by a small dial in the works. It is guaranteed not to vary from

accurate by more than 3 seconds in a week’. The cost was £130 (about £14,000 today). The clock strikes the Cambridge (or Westminster) chimes at the quarters. The accuracy of the clock is often remarked on and one of the reasons is the machinery itself. It’s a scaled down version of that in Big Ben; the Dennison three-legged gravity escapement, to give it its proper name, was probably the ultimate in mechanical accuracy for time keeping in its time. Dennison, the inventor, was a Lincolnshire man, another in the long line of the county’s watch and clockmakers. He became the first Baron Grimsthorpe in 1880. THE BELLS OF ST ANDREW Earliest record of the bells is from 1553 when 4 bells were delivered. Other records regarding the bells also go back the 16th Century; at that time, according

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  to the churchwardens’ accounts, they were probably the most expensive item the wardens had to deal with. In 1600 a new bell was added, or possibly an old one recast, as in 1765, there were still four bells. In 1798, these were recast at Barton by James Harrison into a ring of six. The new peal was opened by ringers from Barton on 1st September 1798. A ringing floor was also installed, probably as part of the 1860 restoration. It has a particularly ornate ceiling. In 1881, the Lincolnshire Chronicle

stated that a Mr Marris of Kirton Lindsey (possibly of Marris Brothers and Beverley who had a foundry in Kirton) re-hung the bells, the result being a ‘definite improvement’. In April 1896 a representative of Taylor & Co of Loughborough had inspected the bells and found that they needed immediate overhaul. He said that the clappers had been striking so long on the same spot that the part was in danger of being worn through. The arrangement by which the bells swung was beyond repair and also needed renewing completely. The bells were re-hung by Taylors in 1897.

In 1898, on the 100th anniversary of the new peal, the Barton Ringers again visited Kirton. The bells were again re-hung in 1968 and rung on 4th October 1969, the first time since 1925 because it had been considered dangerous to the tower structure to ring them. They were hung in a metal frame and, at the same time, they were re-tuned and quarter turned. Two more bells were added in 1982 to complete the octave. The bells were regularly rung on festive occasions. Some of these are quite interesting!: • The birth of the infant son of Charles I (1630); •Christmas Day - even during the Commonwealth; •St James’ Day (25th July) •St Andrew’s Day (30th November) •5th November (Guy Fawkes) •5th August (to mark the escape of King James VI of Scotland (who became James I) from death at the hands of the Earl of Gowrie in 1600) •New Year’s morning •at the start and end of agricultural functions SIR GILBERT WATERHOUSE Knight of Kirton in Lincolnshire England, was granted a coat of arms by Henry III who reigned from 1207 to 1272. He married in 1250 and was senechal (a royal officer in charge of justice and control of the administration) of Kirton. However, there is some doubt about whether this

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  effigy is him because sources differ in their references to Kirton – Low Kirton – K in L. But we have a strong claim. The effigy (pictured) is badly damaged, probably by Cromwell’s troops during the Civil War. It is mentioned as being intact in 1641 but no further record is found until was rediscovered 1862 buried under the floor of the church during the restoration work. REV DANIEL SHEPPARD WAYLAND (1812-1858) Born in 1783, he and was a first class scholar but of strange appearance and was given a hard time by the people of Kirton. Rev Mozley’s ‘reminiscences’ (1885) which give an insight into how Kirton was viewed at the time: ‘D S Wayland must have been from infancy what he continued to be - a bunch of old bones held together at all sorts of angles, but a most interesting character. Wayland had a troublesome time of it at Kirton and suffered some persecution of a very cruel sort. In 1819, he took the Curacy of Bassingham but retaining the living of Kirton in Lindsey. ….this was a move from comparative barbarism to comparative civilisation.

The North of Lincolnshire, from my childhood, I always heard of as a rough place where people did what was right in their own eyes, there being no strong body of clergy, or towns of any importance to check headstrong rural tendencies…. All my father’s stories of Kirton indicated a place of misrule …. No-one who had ever heard of Kirton could be surprised to hear Mr Wayland left it a disappointed man.’ He was also the prison (pictured) chaplain at Kirton Bridewell and Oxoniensis (the pseudonym of Revd. Canon Charles Moor, who wrote many parish histories the early 1900s), recalls this incident: ‘Upon taking duty for the first time, he felt some uneasiness at finding himself in close quarters with a crowd of very unpleasant looking characters. Nor was he reassured by observing on the reading desk two pistols ready cocked one on each side of the prayer book. 'What are these for?' he

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  anxiously inquired. The warder explained that he need have no fear of the criminals; but that there were some lunatics among them, and they could not be depended on. 'If one of them should spring at you, shoot him instantly.' Happily the occasion never occurred." MUSIC AND THE ORGAN The earliest surviving first-hand account of music at St Andrew’s is in a newspaper cutting of an interview with Dr C F George, the local physician, in 1902. Concerning the music of the church, he said: ‘I can remember the double archway being discovered when the church was restored in 1860. Previously, there was a gallery at the West end where the town choir and musicians sat. There was no organ in those days and no harmonium’. Some of the neatly copied manuscript books used by those players have survived. They contain an interesting collection of popular church music of the time, hymn tunes all in very high keys by present day standards. One of the violinists was William Hunsley, whose family gave their name to Hunsley House in Sylvester Street. By the middle of the 19th Century, church bands were dying out, largely because of the opposition of the clergy. Most of the bands were long-established, self governing bodies and their music did not fit in with the new ideas of the Victorian church reformers; many clergy were eager to install a harmonium or an organ, an organist being easier to control than a band. The Rev John Francis Stuart was appointed in 1859 (more of him later)

and soon introduced the harmonium, and in 1874 he was responsible for ordering the present organ. He travelled to London to place an order with J W Walker & Sons, Organ Builders. Shortly after returning home, he became ill and died on Whit Sunday, 24th May. The organ, which he ordered, is the one still in use today. It cost £332 15/- About £40,000 in modern money. It has recently been restored (2014), thanks to a legacy, and was re-dedicated on 29th March 2015.

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