ABSTRACT
All Saints church at Holbeach in the Lincolnshire fens contains one of the most impressive and formally unusual of all mid-14th-century English funerary monuments. The Humphrey de Littlebury tomb stands in the centre of the westernmost bay of the north nave aisle at Holbeach. To provide a fresh assessment detailed analysis of the tomb in necessary, beginning with the plinth. Of more immediate relevance to a mid-14th-century monument at Holbeach are the chests of the tombs of Sir Robert and Bishop Henry Burghersh in Lincoln Cathedral, and the shrine base, probably of St Hugh's head, which adjoins them to the west. During the first half of the 14th century, diaper in a range of forms was common in English micro-architecture, although the decision to vary the size of the individual units on the Littlebury tomb is uncommon in a monumental context.
