St Michael
Coningsby, Lincolnshire
On the 15th century tower is a unique, one handed clock, painted direct onto the stonework, 16.5 feet in diameter and the hand is 9 feet long.
Church and castle are all of piece, along with the remains of what was once the college; a trio of buildings that were the brainchild of Ralph (Lord) Cromwell, who was Chancellor to Henry VI. He died before the church was completed, so the rest of the work was supervised by the Bishop of Winchester.
The church is very large, and all in the Perpendicular style, and so flooded with light from enormous windows. The original conception for the church was that all the windows should be filled with brightly coloured stained glass, and so they were until the 18th century, when a vicar suggested that the stained glass be removed and replaced with clear. By 1754 all the stained glass was gone. At this point there was a misunderstanding or dispute over how much the new, clear glass would cost, with the result that the chancel windows were left with no glass and other windows were bricked up. Today, some of the original stained glass can still be seen in the east window.
Local legend tells of Tom, a native of Tattershall, who was reputedly just over 18 inches tall and lived to the age of 101 when he passed away in 1620. However, beyond these meagre statistics it becomes almost impossible to unpick fact from fiction and discover more about the man buried beneath this plaque.
