St Peter
Gayton le Wold, Lincolnshire
So small in fact it doesn’t appear on some of the larger scale maps, the brick church of St Peter sits peacefully on the hillside of this rural hamlet.
The best way to approach St Helen’s is by foot, walking the Viking Way through the gentle rolling Lincolnshire Wolds.
Biscathorpe is a deserted medieval village in the River Bain valley. And it is here that you will discover the church. St Helen’s is a stone and brick Gothic building, rebuilt in 1850 and restored in 1913. One of several churches in the area built in the early Victorian period, the pretty church is now sadly in a dilapidated state. It is an unusual blend of both ornate and plain in equal measure.
Open the door and step inside, it's as if time has stood still during a service. Hymn books and bibles with yellow edged pages which you daren't touch in case they fall apart, an old pedal organ still with sheet music propped up, some of the windows sadly have fallen out.
Outside, the churchyard is covered in buttercups but most of the gravestones are buried under vegetation.
The village is mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Book, as Biscopetorp, and prior to the Norman Invasion its Lord was Godric. Post the 1066 invasion Biscathorpe was ‘given’ to the Bishop of Durham. The village now though is very small, in fact too small to be featured on road maps! But there are certainly signs of that greater medieval activity in and around the church, it is ringed with earthworks for example.
