Lincoln, Castle and City

Wednesday 26 October 2022. The third and final article on our short stay in Lincoln.

If you have been reading these articles in order, you will know that we spent Wednesday morning inside the cathedral. We came out of the cathedral through the main west entrance overlooking the rear of Exchequer Gate.

Walking through the archways leads us to Exchquer Gate - the area in front of the archway with Steep Hill on the left and Castle Hill directly in front of us.

A cup of tea was what was needed. A small cafe looked inviting and was nicely decorated, but then the drinks came served in cardboard cups. Oh dear... Looking back from Castle Hill to Exchequer Gate and the Cathedral.

The castle grounds were free to enter and walk round. There was a charge of £15 each to go round the buildings and walk on the walls. I wasn't at all sure I was up for climbing up and down spiral staircases so we just had our free entry's worth!

As with so many city castles, Lincoln had retained its use over the centuries as a jail and court. At the opposite end to the main gate through which we had come was today's Crown Courts.

In one corner of the wall a dragon has forced its way into the wall and emerged on the opposite side of the tower known as Cobb Hall. This was a place of execution which saw the deaths by hanging of prisoners take place on the roof.

The castle saw a major battle on 2 February 1141 when during the Anarchy - the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda (aka Maud) - King Stephen's besieging forces were attacked from behind by a force loyal to Maud, led by her half-brother, Robert, the first Earl of Gloucester. They were eventually successful, after a fierce battle at both the castle and in the city streets, King Stephen was captured and taken to Bristol to be imprisoned. Maud assumed the throne for a few months until Stephen was exchanged for Robert of Gloucester who was captured in the Rout of Winchester the following September.

The next battle came in 1217 during the first Barons' War. Prince Louis of France had invaded and proclaimed himself King. Many of England's barons, whose power was diminished due to King John's Magna Carta, supported him until John's death in 1216 when his nine-year-old son, Henry III became king, guided by Sir William Marshall as Regent. In May 1217 Prince Louis had taken the city of Lincoln and was besieging the castle which was held firm for King Henry by a female castellan, Nichola de la Haye. Marshall marched from Stow to the north and gained the north gate of the castle whilst his crossbow men took high positions on the roofs of houses. They rained bolts on the besieging army who were then charged by Sir William's knights and footsoldiers and routed. As it was held that the city had supported Prince Louis by housing his army, the city was sacked and pillaged, this later being cynically referred to as the "Lincoln Fair".

We left this scene of death and destruction and walked (in my case, very gingerly) down Steep Hill. The photo shows the point at which it approaches its steepest point, the posts of its railings can be seen between the groups of people and I walked very slowly holding on with my left hand to the railings and right hand to my walking stick, trying to ignore my back which was saying "What the hell are you doing???" We found a model shop down this stretch and they had a good stock of Hornby and other makes of OO guage model railway locos, rolling stock and accessories.

And so we found ourselves back on High Street, having walked through the Stonebow.

We had lunch and then Miss Franny indulged herself in a bit of shopping before we emerged from a mall onto the River Witham. We were standing on a small pedestrian bridge over the river when something spooked around a million pigeons that were being fed a few yards away. We were not the only ones to duck...

207 High Street is built on the western edge of a bridge over the River Witham. Narrow gaps between it and the adjoining buildings lead down some steps to the banks of the river.

The riverside path takes you underneath a large bridge, wide enough for the path to be known as Brayford Tunnel. A mural has been painted along the walls and the tunnel is both pleasant and smell-free to walk through.

It brings you to Brayford Pool, with a marina and Lincoln University on the southern side and pubs, restaurants and a cinema complex on the north side.

Looking back to the road bridge/tunnel, as you walk west you read "Where are you going?" and now looking east a similar message reads "Where have you been?" I plonked myself on a bench enjoying the weak sunshine and numbing chill factor of the breeze whilst Miss Franny went back through the tunnel to buy herself a pair of boots. "I came out of a different door and had to get my bearings," she said, flicking at the icicles and frozen pigeon droppings that had unknowingly decorated my appendages whilst she had been away...

Before returning to the hotel, we took a stroll back up Bailgate for another cup of tea and to choose somewhere to eat our evening meal. We arrived once more at the Roman Newport Arch and wandered along the narrow street to its right to view the remains of the Roman city wall. Then a couple of hours in the hotel bar lounge where I looked longingly but ultimately and reluctantly self-denyingly at the Guinness pump tap - I'm not now allowed alcohol by doctor's orders. I left the camera in the room whilst we went out for a last meal and walk and we woke on Thursday morning ready to come home, gleefully uncaring that it was chucking it down with rain!

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Lincoln Cathedral

Wednesday, 26 October 2022. Our short break in Lincoln continues with a visit to the famous cathedral.

Wednesday morning starts with breakfast in the hotel as we look forward to visiting the cathedral and hopefully discovering the Lincoln Imp - a carving of a supernatural being, supposed to be a bit mischievous, but not supposed to be easy to find!

We walk through the grounds to the cathedral entrance. Some parts of the cathedral are free to enter, others require an entry fee. The upkeep of a building like this must be enormous (1.6 million pounds in 2021) so we didn't begrudge paying. Following the directions from the lady on the desk we arrived at the cloisters. Building started in the year 1072 and continued sporadically over several hundred years. In fact it was largely destroyed by a magnitude 5+ earthquake in April 1185. Only the lower part of the west end and its two towers exist of the former building. In 1311 a steeple was added to the central tower making Lincoln Cathedral supposedly the tallest building in the world for 238 years, the spire collapsing and somewhat spoiling the legitimacy of the claim in 1548.

The north walk of the cloister has open archways rather than continuous windows in a wall and an arch made a nice frame for a view of the central tower (previous photograph), whilst here you can see the grassed area that the cloister surrounds.

The Chapter House was the first octagonal chapter house in England and was used to depict that of Westminster Abbey for the filming of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code in 2005. Polystyrene replicas of Isaac Newton's tomb as well as other feature of Westminster were used, though the use of the cathedral for this purpose was not without controversy.

A painting of four former Bishops of Lincoln, all thought to be buried within this area of the church. They are: Robert Bloet 1094-1123; Alexander the Magnificent 1123 -1148; Robert de Chesney 1148-1167; and William of Blois 1203-1206. The painting is by Venetian artist Vincenzo Damini who in 1728 had been asked to restore an original painting from medieval times but instead just painted over it. As you do... The wall tablet beneath commemorates a bequest of the proceeds of bonds received by Dame Margaret Thorold after the failure of the South Seas Company "bubble" to be distributed between "Six poor old men of the city and Lincoln Cathedral".

There are so many sculptures of people, animals and imaginary beings on the walls of the cathedral that it is almost mind boggling. For instance, there are 33 different depictions of the Green Man (faces made up out of foliage or human faces with leaves and vines growing from facial orifices). Yes, I know... gross... but fun to spot!

A modern (2014) sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus by Aidan Hart in the Chapel of St Nicholas, or Cantilupe Chantry.

St Hugh's Choir. The stalls are in three tiers with the rear for canons, centre tier for Vicars Choral and the front row for choristers - where they can be kept an eye on! Hugh was elected Bishop of Lincoln in 1186, the year after the devastating earthquake. He had a pet swan that was devoted to him, eating out of his hand and following him everywhere, whilst attacking anyone else who tried to approach Hugh. He is the patron saint of swans, sick children, sick people and shoemakers. Work that one out...

The organ of 1898 has four manuals and 64 stops.

The pulpitum screen separates the nave from St Hugh's Choir. It dates from the 1330s and was originally colourfully painted.

On this detail photo of the pulpitum screen traces of red and green or blue pigment can be seen.

The head shrine of St Hugh - his head was detached from his body. I didn't find out how or why or if it was that turncoat of a swan... The modern iron sculpture represents the back and curved neck of the swan.

And finally... we found impish faces all over the place. But not the one we were looking for. In the end we asked and were told to look on a pillar above a king's head near the shrine of St Hugh. You can put 20p in a slot to light a spotlight that shines on him - thus picking him out but making a photo almost impossible against the surrounding gloom - The stonework looks a lot lighter here than it did in reality!

Someone had just invested 20 pence, so I waited until the light went out and took several photos of which this was the sharpest I could manage. The legend goes that Satan sent two imps to the region. They caused all sorts of mischief in many churches until at Lincoln Cathedral an Angel sorted them out after they smashed tables and chairs and tripped up the Bishop. One hid under the wreckage of the furniture but this one climbed the pillar and was turned to stone by the angel whilst the other escaped.

A general look down the nave. By now it is getting perilously close to time-for-a-cup-of-tea, so we leave the calm of the cathedral and rejoin the secular world outside.

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Short Break in Lincoln

Tuesday 25 October 2022. We take a two nights stay in Lincoln, staying at The Lincoln Hotel near the cathedral. This article will deal with our arrival day and further articles will cover a visit to the cathedral itself and a final round-up of the castle grounds and the Brayford waterfront in the city centre.

We go for a couple of nights stay in Lincoln, staying in one of the hotels Clive and I used for work more than a decade ago, right on top of the hill at the side of the cathedral. Before heading up the hill however, we stopped near the waterfront as Fran wanted a look around the town centre. At the top of High Street we found the Stonebow, one of the medieval gates to the city. It began as a Roman barbican of 211 CE, set just forward of the city's southern wall. It sits on the Romans' Ermine Street. The city's Guildhall was incorporated into the first floor over the gateway. It was demolished in the late 1300s and the present building completed c1520, being delayed due to funding difficulties.

We spent a couple of hours up and down the High Street and then went to check into the hotel. By the time we were ready to venture out again it was thinking about starting to go dark. This was taken from the entrance steps to the hotel and shows just how close we were to the cathedral. The low wall on the right surrounds a pit in which the foundations for the Roman East gateway to the city can be seen.

We start to look for somewhere to eat. Lincoln is a large university city so, lots of restaurants and pubs served modern menus which either we would find too spicy or too loaded with strange untried flavours... We ended up in the Duke William Hotel, the "Duke William" in question being the Duke of Cumberland, the youngest son of King George II, who fought and won the Battle of Culloden over the Scottish Jacobites of the Old Pretender earning himself the nickname of "Butcher Cumberland" for his savage reprisals after the battle. The food was ok though and gave us no savage reprisals at all!

The White Hart Hotel was another of the hotels where Clive and I had stayed. The car park was on the opposite side of the road with the entrance close by the bollards blocking the end of of the street (Bailgate).

Steep Hill. It is... It starts off fairly steep and then gets steeper. Lower down it becomes almost unbelievable and a handrail has had to be installed on the steepest part which approaches the Stonebow archway seen previously.

Exchequer Gate (Lincoln had its own mint at one time) with Lincoln Cathedral towering behind.

The Magna Carta pub on the corner of Steep Hill and Exchequer Gate is so called as the nearby castle holds one of the four surviving original copies of King John's Magna Carta document.

Lincoln Cathedral is spectacular and we shall visit it in the morning with a view to finding the elusive Lincoln Imp! Whether or not we were successful will be seen in my next article!

A night-time view of the cathedral from the hotel. In the next article you can have the same viewpoint in sunshine! You lucky people!

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Halifax Piece Hall and Minster

Wednesday, 7 September 2022. We had been invited as guests of friends, David and Jeannie on a coach trip to the Piece Hall in Halifax. We said "yes" immediately without any clue as to what the Piece Hall was, because we have never yet had a bad trip with this particular group which is made up of pensioners who used to work for British Gas.

The Piece Hall is the only surviving example of a Cloth Hall - a market place for handloom weavers to fetch their woven cloth or woolen "pieces" to display them for sale. It is in the form of a quadrangle and dates from 1779. It has the look and feel of an Italian Piazza and would not look out of place in Trieste or Venice. There are 315 rooms for traders. After the Industrial Revolution the larger mills sold their products direct to buyers and it fell into disuse, being bought by Halifax Corporation for a wholesale market hall in 1868. Many of the small rooms were combined to form larger spaces.

Our first priorities on arrival were a toilet and then a drink! The ladies decided we could have some dinner, so they had cake and David and I had a sandwich each.

On the left in the foreground is a statue of Anne Lister (1791-1840), generally known as Gentleman Jack whose diaries revealed her as a lesbian and contained coded accounts of her affairs and techniques of seduction. She is buried in the nearby Halifax Minster that we shall visit shortly. The Clicky Monster was keen to fill up his camera storage card, but we decided that we would head for the Minster before exploring the Piece Hall at closer quarters.

This is no York Minster - it is the size of most parish churches - unsurprising as that was its role until it was raised to Minster status only as recently as 2009. It dates mainly from the 1400s, but includes some stonework from a Norman church previously on the same site some 300 years earlier.

"Old Tristram", carved circa 1701 by John Aked, holds the alms box and is thought to be an effigy of a real beggar of the time.

The font is thought to be as old as perhaps the 15th century and the undoubtedly medieval cover was once painted and generously gilded.

The tomb of Archdeacon Charles Musgrave lies underneath the church tower. He was vicar of the parish church from 1827-1875 and was instrumental in improving the town's sewerage system from an open sewer and a single privy which had to cater for 221 people. The average lifespan of a labourer in the locality at the time was a mere 22 years!

Standing in front of the organ pipes is a pulpit on wheels. To the left is the chantry chapel of William Rokeby who was vicar here from 1502-1521 and who from 1511 also became Archbishop of Dublin and who baptised King Henry VIII's first daughter, Mary Tudor, later "Bloody" Queen Mary. On his death, Rokeby's heart was sealed into a lead box and buried within the chapel. The box also contains his bowels... There was an English language class being taught to some Afghanistan refugees in the chapel so we couldn't go in. We'll have to sniff out the bowels at some more convenient time.

The organ was rebuilt in 1928 but still contains pipes from the original Snetzler organ of 1766. The church's first organist was L. William Herschel before he became King George III's personal astronomer and became famous to this day and forever as the first person to discover the planet Uranus.

To either side of the chancel gateway are carved heads on bench ends. Happy-looking souls...

The Wellington Chapel in the south east corner of the church contains the Duke of Wellington's Regimental Colours - the flags seen here, carried by standard bearers onto the battlefield.

A set of chairs in the Wellington Chapel were made by the famous furniture maker Robert "Mouseman" Thompson - also known as "Mousey" Thompson. In the 1920s he had started carving a mouse on each piece of furniture. Even on a set they would be placed in different positions and were not always easy to spot. On this one, modelled by Miss Franny, the mouse is on the front right-hand chair leg.

Fran buys one or two things from the shop and we thank the guide who had come down to point out the mice on the chairs. The sky is not promising too much as we come out to look at the external features of the church. The clock and sundial on the tower and the gargoyles.

And so back to the Piece Hall, where I gratefully sink into a chair again and we have a drink. (A lot has happened since my last post - I was sent for a repeat of some routine blood tests in June this year and in short order over the next month was told that I had cancer on the liver, that it was too large to remove and that it was incurable and would mean regular visits to St James Hospital in Leeds to keep tabs on it.) Life has become precious!

As we walk around the balcony of the second storey we are treated to the sight of our waitress of a few moments ago, waving David's jacket and trying to get our attention... The balconies are lined with the doors to the old trading rooms, all now containing artisan and craft or specialised shops, such as the Christmas themed products. I walked around a few of the shops and then went back down to let the others complete the circuit of balconies whilst I sat down and nodded off. "Is John alright?" asked David. Fran apparently looked over the balcony to see me head down and said "Yes, he's asleep..."

The tower and steeple of the Square Church, a non-conformist church dating from the 1850s are all that remain of the church which suffered from two fires and gales and which was demolished in 1976, leaving the tower and steeple, now incorporated as part of the new Central Library of 2017. A spot of rain wakes me up - trust a bald man to know when it is raining... Then back to the coach for the trip home which includes a very good meal at the Calf's Head near Clitheroe in the Ribble Valley.

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Singing For The W.I.

Wednesday 3 November 2021. After going down well at the Over Wyre Social and Activity club I was asked to perform for the Women's Institute in Knott End at their AGM this week.

I had been contacted through my old school chum and long-standing friend Janet who is a member of both organisations. We first met when we were eleven and that is [ahem - CENSORED!] years ago now!

Janet made me laugh when she told me afterwards that one of the group had said to her 'When he went on stage I thought "Well... he doesn't look like a rock star! But boy! Can he sing!"' Agh - I don't look like a rock star???