St Martin's Church

St Martin’s Church stands in open Lincolnshire fields beside the A16 between Grimsby and Louth. Built of local limestone and ironstone, the church began life in the 10th century and grew through later centuries. James Fowler of Louth restored it in 1861 for the Haigh family, and the Churches Conservation Trust now cares for the building. By the 2000s the church had fallen into decay, its bell openings near collapse and its interior littered with debris and bat droppings. Repairs cost nearly £350,000 and started in October 2005. The Anglo-Saxon tower rises at the crossing between nave and chancel, its three stages topped by a plain parapet. The nave has north and south aisles and a small south transept, while the chancel ends in an apse lined with five lancets. The walls carry lancets and cinquefoil windows, and the south transept doorway is framed by buttresses and a lancet above. Inside, the nave arcades separate the central space from the aisles, and the walls show bands of red brick and ashlar stone. The chancel apse is framed by blind arcading of marble shafts and limestone arches with carved capitals. The floor and walls are covered with Minton tiles, and stained glass by Ward and Hughes and Powell fills the windows. A carved font, stone pulpit on a marble base, and pitch pine pews date from the 1861 restoration. Beneath the altar lies the Haigh family mausoleum, and in the churchyard stands a 14th-century cross restored in 1861.