Today we went back up to Lincoln Cathedral and Lincoln Castle — but the Ham wimps decided to take the Walk and Ride Bus up the hill!! The bus runs at 20-minute intervals, with one of its stops just where Silver Street crosses where we were walking along Main Street. A lot easier on the legs!
Although the exterior of the cathedral is undergoing huge restoration works, the interior is fully accessible, and from the inside you would hardly know the work is going on outside!
The construction of Lincoln Cathedral was commenced in 1072. It was the tallest building in the world for 238 years (1311–1548), but when the central spire collapsed in 1548 it was never rebuilt.
The Dean's Eye
The Bishop's Eye
The two large stained glass rose windows, the matching Dean's Eye and Bishop's Eye, were added to the cathedral during the late Middle Ages. The former, the Dean's Eye in the north transept dates from the 1192 rebuild begun by bishop Hugh de Burgundy of Avalon, France, later known as St Hugh of Lincoln, finally being completed in 1235. The latter, the Bishop's Eye, in the south transept was reconstructed a hundred years later in 1330. Two interesting things about the Bishop's Eye are
- the tracery (the stonework around the glass). The tracery in the Bishop's Eye is particularly complex, one of the largest examples of curvilinear tracery seen in medieval architecture (where all the lines are curved patterns).
- the glass in the Bishop's eye is all original, but as all the glass in the cathedral had been destroyed over the years, this was re-glassed using fragments of the original. It was not possible to reconstruct the images, so the glass is organized randomly -- effectively, an early abstract stained glass window
There's a 14th century legend about a pair of imps sent by the Devil to do evil on Earth. They ended up in Lincoln Cathedral, creating mayhem. An angel appeared and commanded them to cease their mischief. One of the imps sat on top of a pillar and threw rocks at the angel, while the other simply cowered under the debris.
The angel petrified the first imp, but the second escaped. The first imp can still be seen sitting on the column in the Angel Choir.
There's a display of very modern, very well executed wooden carvings of the stations of the cross — The Forest Sta margin-top: 1em;tions, by William Fairbank — arranged around the sides of the cathedral. The woods were sourced from all over the world, to allow the sculptor to use their different colours without resorting to any form of staining. The sculptures are a tour de force, but some of the parishioners are somewhat upset at modern artwork "desecrating" the medieval walls of the cathedral. But you just have to look at the works to see that they fit as well as, if not better than, a lot of the Victorian additions that don't seem to be controversial at all!
The cathedral owns one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta, and had it on display there, but in 1993 it was passed across, on permanent loan, to Lincoln Castle, where it is now housed, and displayed to the public, within a secure vault. So our next visit was to Lincoln Castle.
The weather had turned a little sour, and it was raining lightly when we crossed Castle Hill. We went in, and the first thing Suzie wanted to do was to walk the battlements. Some good views — especially of Suzie in the rain!
The Magna Carta
Vault
Then we went into the Magna Carta vault — fascinating, as this is the only place you can see the 1215 Magna Carta and its "rider", the 1217 Charter of the Forest, displayed together. No photography in the vault, so you'll just have to take my word for it!
We went in to explore the Prison. This place is much like the Victorian prisons we have seen, particularly Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, and Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, but this one is Georgian, and it has one thing that makes it stand out. It was designed for the 'separate system', where prisoners were kept apart from any corrupting influences by other prisoners. This is expressed most clearly in the prison chapel, which is the only surviving example of a chapel with separate cubicles to prevent any interaction between the inmates. I wonder how successful it might have been if any efforts at rehabilitation had been made!
Anyway, we needed to get going on our way to Scarborough, so we left the castle, went back down Steep Street and along Main Street — this latter slightly interrupted by two trains making their way through the level crossing that cut across this pedestrianized street — and back to the hotel to collect the car and get on out way.
The drive took about 2 hours up the A15, and we had no trouble finding the Travelodge on St Nicholas Cliff and we were soon settled in. Parking was a little strange, however, as the hotel had none of its own — we were sent to a commercial car park a couple of blocks away. But no problems — we were able to offload our luggage before taking the car off to park it.
Seagulls everywhere! The architects of the hotel opposite, the Grand Hotel, had obviously not taken this into consideration — they had inadvertently designed ideal roosting points into the building, and virtually every one of them had an occupant!
Anyway, we settled into our hotel for a quiet night. Well, almost! We were just settling down when there was a loud and insistent "tap, tap, tap ... tap, tap, tap ... tap, tap, tap" on our window. We had a night visitor demanding food!
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