St Margaret
Somersby, Lincolnshire
Early Perpendicular, Grade II listed church and birthplace of Alfred Lord Tennyson, the Victorian poet whose father George Clayton Tennyson was rector from 1806 until his death in 1831.
Ashby Puerorum, Ashby 'of the boys', is so called because in the late 13th century the living was appropriated to provide an endowment for the boy choristers of Lincoln Cathedral.
St Andrew is a fairly straightforward building, constructed of greenstone with limestone dressings.
The Perpendicular tower, shorn of its bell stage in the early 19th century, is patched with brick and has sugar loaf pinnacles. Inside the tower are two medieval bells. The earliest of these, dating from around 1150, is the oldest bell in the country. The church was restored in 1850 and again in 1878 by Ewan Christian and all the windows date from that time.
Inside you will find a sturdy Transitional arcade, also built of greenstone, a plain 15th century font and 17th century altar rails. Mounted on the south wall are a number of 16th century brasses to members of the Littlebury family of Stainsby, the figures a product of a London brass workshop. Under the altar, covered by a carpet is an early fourteenth century incised slab of a priest, his head, hands and feet were formerly of brass.