Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project

The Leaning Tower of Surfleet

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Postcard made available by the Heritage South Holland website.

The tower of St Lawrence’s Church, Surfleet leans towards the main road through the village, which straddles the River Glen. Inside, you’ll find the life-size effigy of the knight Sir Hugh de Cressy (1313-47). This perhaps gave birth to a local legend, which has it that the tower bowed to a passing knight.

Sir Hugh’s effigy, June 2025.

This legend is quite widely known locally, but has left no notable extant literary legacy. It may have inspired more thoroughly developed folk tales in the past, but if so, those have been lost. The even more impressive church in the neighbouring village of Pinchbeck also has a leaning tower, though no extant legends seem to exist regarding that one. Many other nearby village churches also have a discernible tilt, e.g. at Quadring. The explanation is obvious: the ground in this fenny part of the country is, or was, marshy, and not especially stable.

Words by RORY WATERMAN

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● About the project

‘Lincolnshire Folk Tales: Origins, Legacies, Connections, Futures’ is a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/Y003225/1), and is led by Dr Rory Waterman and the Research Fellow Dr Anna Milon in the School of Arts and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University. The project explores the origins, legacies, intertextual and social connections and futures of Lincolnshire folk tales (LFTs), and is intended to facilitate wider engagement with this heritage from writers, the general public, and scholars.

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