Graffiti including a post mill and apotropaic marks on the outside of Belton House Stables. The stables are contemporary with the house c1688 and probably the work of master mason William Stanton.

DB 4 December 2017

"Byard's Leap is associated with the activities of the Knights Templar, who perhaps held tournaments and jousts on the site ...

The story, re-told by Ethel Rudkin, states there was a witch called Old Meg, an evil crone who plagued the local villagers from her cave or hut in a spinney near the turning to Sleaford on Ermine Street, here called High Dike.

She was a bane of the countryside and caused the crops to whither.

A local champion, a retired soldier, came forward in response to the villagers' requests, and he asserted that he could kill her by driving a sword through her heart.

To select a horse suitable for this task, he went to a pond where horses drank and dropped a stone in the pond, selecting the horse that reacted quickest, and this horse was known locally as 'Blind Byard', as he was blind.

The champion went to the witch's cave and called her out, but the witch refused, saying she was eating and he would have to wait.

However, she crept up behind him and sank her long nails into the horse who ran, leaping over 60 feet (18 m).

The champion regained control of the horse when they reached the pond, pursued by the witch, where he turned and thrust his sword into her heart, and she fell into the pond and drowned"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byards_Leap 

DB 22 February 2020

This odd shaped stone once stood in a field near Fonaby Top Farm, Caistor (about 1 mile north of the town).

The tale goes as follows: One day, St Paulinus was riding by, when he spied a farmer sowing corn, and requested grain from the nearby sack to feed his ass. The grudging farmer replied  "That's not a sack - it's a stone".  "Then stone it shall be" said the saint.  And so it was.

The stone is said to be broken up now, and lying under a nearby field hedge.

See: www.themodernantiquarian.com

Undated postcard

Laughton is a small village some 6 miles north of Gainsborough. It's name comes from the Old English for "leek enclosure" or "herb garden".

postcard, 1906

Laughton is a small village some 6 miles north of Gainsborough. It's name comes from the Old English for "leek enclosure" or "herb garden".

postcard, 1908

Photograph from the 1920s?

Photo courtesy Neil Wright