St Mary's Church, Rickinghall Superior

2013-06-26

Glass memorial to a missionary

This handsome church has a 14th-century three-stage tower and chancel, a broad 15th-century nave, with magnificent Perpendicular windows, and beautiful Victorian stained glass.

One pane of glass shows Samuel Speare, an altar boy at St Mary’s, who became a missionary aged 15 in Zanzibar. Having survived terrible conditions in East Africa, Samuel died in Lincolnshire three months after his return aged only 20.