GREAT PONTON : CHURCH OF HOLY CROSS
Church Post Code NG33 5DP
Open by arrangement
Visited September 2025
It was a sunny September morning in 2025 and a full day’s Lincolnshire churchcrawl started off in South Kesteven, at the church of Holy Cross at Great Ponton. This turned out to be one of the most enjoyable trips out for some time; with all 11 churches open, albeit the church here, which is normally closed to visitors out of service times, being opened up by a friendly and helpful keyholder.
Pages for Aslackby, Belton and Threekingham can be found on this site, all of which were from this same Lincolnshire crawl.
Great Ponton can be found alongside the A1; and is home to a population in the high 300s. It can be found some three miles south of Grantham, with the church of Holy Cross a familiar landmark to those travelling between Grantham and Stamford, the latter around 18 miles to the south.
There is plenty of history here, with the remains of a Bronze Age barrow found between the village and neighbouring Sproxton. There was no church or priest recorded here at the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, in lands that were owned by King William. In more recent times there was a railway station here, which was opened in 1853 and closed in 1958.
This was a revisit; with the first trip here on a cold and bright winter morning back in 2012, on the first day of a five day cycling churchcrawl of the area. The church was closed that day, and was again on a revisit between lockdowns in 2020. This was on my list of churches that I most wished to see inside, and the church was very helpful in making this happen.
The present structure dates back to the late 13th century and consists of west tower, nave with north and south aisles and clerestories, south porch and chancel.
The tower was built in 1519, by rich wool merchant Anthony Ellys, who was a member of the Staple of Calais, who controlled the export of wool to the continent during the late medieval period. This replaced a previous tower. When we think of ‘wool churches’ this isn’t the area which would possibly spring immediately to mind but there was some serious wealth here and the tower was rebuilt to the glory of God, but also with more than half an eye, no doubt, to lessening the time that he and his family would spent in purgatory, as a result! Ellys also had the manor house built alongside the church, which at one point was the rectory.
With respect to the rest of the church exterior, I am going to concentrate on the tower, which is a very fine structure; and would stand highly in any to be found in a village parish church. The perpendicular tower is of three stages and is heavily buttressed with empty image niches on the buttressing to the lower stage, ‘Thynke and thanke God of all’ can be seen low down on the south wall.
Higher up, across the top of the tower is a frieze which contains coats of arms. Above this is a battlemented parapet which has repeated quatrefoil design. There are eight crocketed pinnacles with two finely carved gargoyles looking out from each side.
These are of great quality with two being human with the remainder being beats. Starting with the human figures, one of these, almost cartoonlike in appearance, is depicted with spectacles; he peers out to the south over his specs; holding a pen in one hand. Obviously the subject matter and symbolism of what is what has been lost over the last 500 years or so. Two things here though, perhaps this could be the architect who actually built the tower or perhaps more likely this could well be a portrayal of Anthony Ellys himself.
The other human figure is depicted with long flowing beard and headdress; holding something undetermined in one hand. This has the feel of an Old Testament prophet to me but possibly not.
The grotesque beasts are of great interest. My photographs of those to the north and west were affected by the sun with the carvings cast in to shadow but the others show creatures with deep cavernous eye sockets. One has its tongue stuck out in gesture of insult. A close looks shows a pipe between its legs which would have been amusing after it had rained heavily before the more modern water chute was placed on its back. One further is a mouth puller.
One shows its ferocious looking fangs whilst holding on to a smaller figure which may be its child or perhaps its lunch! Close by we see a crouched skeletal figure with lichen encrusted forehead which appears to be deep in thought.
There are various other carvings throughout the rest of the tower; some again cartoonlike in appearance, such as a human figure who leans against a wall appearing to be drunk. More serious bearded figures look out in a disapproving manner. What appears to be a tiny dog with curiously wide face and tiny eyes looks out from the south; an owl perches to the north.
The finely carved west door has the Ellys coat of arms in the spandrels to the left. The door is flanked by elaborate niches which are empty of statues, with these doubtless falling foul of the reformers, in all probability not too long after they were installed.
The weather vane is of interest. During the 17th century a fiddle player played for people locally and made enough money to pay for him to go to America where he made his fortune. On arriving back he gave his thanks by having a weather vane made for the church in the form of a golden fiddle. What we see today is a copy not the original.
There is a ring of five bells here, which were looked at in some detail by Thomas North in his study of the church bells in Lincolnshire, which was published in 1882. North notes that the first of the ring has the inscription ‘IHESUS BE OUR SPEEDE’. Ihesus was the common spelling of Jesus in Latin and medieval English. This was cast by Henry II Oldfied of Nottingham with a date suggested of 1601.
The second and third of the ring are of great age and interest; cast by Robert Burford who worked out of London and who was an active founder between 1392 and 1418, meaning that these bells would have been here for over 100 years when the present tower was erected in 1519. The first of Burford’s two has the inscription ‘SANCTA KATERINA ORA PRO NOBIS’ which translates as ‘St Katherine pray for us’.
Burford’s second, the third of the ring is inscribed ‘SIT NOMEN DOMINI BENEDICTUM’ ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord’.
The final two are each from George I Oldfied, again from Nottingham. The first is dated 1632 and is inscribed ‘I Sweetly Toling Men Do Cal To Taste On Meats That Feeds The Soule’. My spell checker did not care for this inscription!
The fifth of the ring has the names T Askey and J Askey, the church wardens of the day, along with the inscription God Save The King’.
​
The man who had kindly offered to unlock for me arrived and it was time to take a look inside. The visitor enters in through the south porch and doorway and the work of the 19th century restorers is evident throughout with all of the fixtures and fittings except the font dating from that time.
We have already noted that the tower was rebuilt during the 16th century and there are other elements of the interior which also date from that time. There are three bay arcades to north and south, which have octagonal piers and moulded capitals. Looking to the west, the tall slim tower arch also dates from that time.
The church organ sits at the east end of the north aisle and an ogee headed 14th century doorway at ground level to the south of the chancel arch gave access to the rood stairs. A corresponding doorway higher out gave access to the rood itself; this being a carving of the crucifixion with Mary the mother of Jesus and John alongside the cross. These were hated by the reformers; being taken down and destroyed, being seen as idolatrous as the worship of God was stripped back to basics, worshiping God rather than worshiping the images that were also present alongside.
Strange to think how times changed very quickly, with things that were a staple part of church life suddenly being outlawed. Government ordered destruction of roods started in the autumn of 1548, only 30 years or so after the tower was added by Anthony Ellys in a different religious world! I couldn’t find a date of death for Ellys but I wonder what his mindset would have been to see the church stripped back if he was still alive!
Moving in to the chance, which is the oldest part of the church, dating from the 13th century we see more survivals from the 16th century with sedilia and piscina set in to their traditional positions against the south wall and an aumbry to the north. The altar is plain and simple, small with cross central, more elaborate is the reredos which consists of five ogee headed crocketed blind arches, all of which have text on them. Central we have selected Bible verses concerning the communion; these are flanked to our left by the Ten Commandment and to our right by the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. The east window is of three lights and is of patterned glass.
There is little in the way of stained glass here; one two light window set in to the south wall of the chancel shows Jesus with Mary and Martha the sisters of Lazarus. In the first panel both sisters are praying with Jesus, who has arrived after the death of Lazarus. Jesus tells them ‘Thy brother shall arise again’. In the second panel this has come to pass with Lazarus emerging from the tomb, with hand raised in blessing, his sisters looking on, still at prayer.
There are some fine intricacies to be looked out for when looking and stained glass and one came to mind here when looking at this stained glass depiction. Often we see stained glass depictions of Mary and Martha we see it from a little earlier, before their brother had died. Mary always is shown sitting at Jesus’ feet whilst Martha is always busy and is often shown holding a jog or with keys to indicate this. Here though we are further on in time and Lazarus is dead; to be revived by Jesus shortly before his arrest. We see a different mindset here from Martha; both of the sisters are shown at prayer!
There is one other stained glass window here; a two light window showing Jesus as the Good Shepherd. The font is plain and square and thought to be Norman which would make it older than the church itself. A small piece of graffiti resembled a small part of a human leg!
The church grounds are large and well maintained with a decent number of slate gravestones. There is nothing of any great rarity though and nothing has its own Grade II Listing. However, mention should be made of a stone to a local blacksmith whose epitaph reads ‘My sledging hammer lies declin’d/My bellows too have lost their wind/My fires extinct my forge decay’d/And in the dust my vice is laid/ My coal is spent my irons gone/May nails are drove my work is done/The Lord receive my soule’.
This is not a bespoke epitaph for this particular blacksmith; with a few examples recorded for those with a similar occupation with minor differences in wording’.
It was time to head off; and it was really good to see inside the church here for the first time, a few years after first visiting. One day I would like to return, strangely in worse weather conditions to see if I can reshoot the gargoyles high up to the north and west of the tower which were affected by the sun on previous visits. Exterior photographs are from the September visit with a few added from the revisit in 2020.
It was time to head off, skirting Grantham to the east and picking up High Dyke, a road which heads north east towards the important Roman town of Ancaster and which follows the route of Ermine Street, a Roman road which connected London to Lincoln; with the church at Londonthorpe being our second church of the day.
