The Great Tommy sleep out.

 The sleepout is a national charity event to help homeless veterans from our armed forces. In the 21st century this should not be happening but here we are. 

In conjunction with our local village hall I decided along with Gordon Tilstone Aka GT to do our bit for them. So we will be sleeping out on the 24th March to raise funds for the charity. 

Any donations will be gratefully accepted. Thank You.

Please click on the link below.

https://socialsync.app/fundraiser/cr-5kjrndm5q0l4m

Lincoln Castle.

 Wednesday 15th January 2025.

Lincoln castle as we see it today goes back to the days of William the Conquerer, roughly a 1000 yrs old. But there has been a fortification on this site going back to the Romans and beyond. With it being a high hill it was perfect for monitoring the surrounding lands. It is also the home of an original Magna Carta, a Victorian Prison and a still working crown court.

Image Courtesy of "Lincoln Pride". 

William had the castle built in 1068 because of the trouble makers from the north and to show everyone that the Normans were now in command after they won the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

The Romans built their own fortress here and the stonework from the city then named Lindum Colonia was used in the Norman wall construction. Prior to this a wooden palisade had been constructed. A stone keep was built replacing a wooden one which can be seen today called Lucy Tower. Upper left in the image above now covered with foliage.

The castle has been in the wars over the years.

In 1141 King Stephen was in a war with his cousin Matilda over the English Crown and whilst this was going on it was claimed by Ranulf, the Earl of Chester. Stephen didn't get it back for seven months. This encounter was known as "The Joust of Lincoln".

Whilst under the leadership of Nicola de la Haye, 50 yrs later, the castle withstood a 40day siege by Richard 1st's chancellor, Longchamps, when he demanded the loyalty of supporters of the kings younger brother, Price John.

Nicola de la Haye was quite some lady, she was a wealthy landowner and administrator who had inherited it lands in England and Normandy from her father, Richard de la Haie. She inherited the title of Constable of Lincoln Castle.

She defended the castle once again in 1217, during a civil war caused because King John wouldn't honour the Magna Carta in 1215.

Rebel barons and the French forces allied to Prince Louis seized control of much territory including Lincoln town. However the castle was a Royalist stronghold guided by Nicole de la Haye and held out. If the Royalists had lost then England could have become ruled by the French.

The last battle was in 1644 where the Royalists were defeated by the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War.

Weather wise the day was forecast to be deteriorating so we opted to do the castle walls walk while it was still reasonable. We bought our tickets and made our way through the electric turnstiles and up the many steps of the large spiral staircase leading to the wall.

The route up to the walls.

View of Lincoln Cathedral from the Castle Walls.

Once on the wall we headed in an anticlockwise direction, the first point of interest being Cob Hall.

Cob Hall was a defensive tower in the North East quarter. Built round to deflect barrages. You can enter the "hall" via steep steps and even further into the dungeon cellars. The walls of the dungeons have graffiti scratched into them from prisoners. The arched ceilings suggest that it was possibly used as a chapel as well. From 1817 until 1859, 38 hangings took place on the roof with vast 15,000 crowd watching.

Looking down into the dungeons of Cob Hall.

The last prisoners to be hanged were called Pickett and Carey who were murderers.

The frontage of the Georgian Gaol. Opened 1788. The later Victorian Gaol can just be seen at the rear.

Outside the walls a large Keep like structure draws the eyes. We at first thought it was something to do with the castle but it is actually a water tower called Watergate. It hides a steel tank inside and was built between 1909 and 1911. It holds 3 million gallons of water which is piped 22 miles from Elkesley in Nottinghamshire. You can go into the tower and is probably worth a visit.

Westgate water tower on a murky day.

We passed the Law Courts which is itself a fine building still in use today. It does say outside that the public can enter the courts. However when we tried we were told that it wasn't part of the "Castle Tour". So we left abruptly.

The Law Courts.

In Georgian times there were numerous prisoners held in the Gaol in solitary confinement however this basically made the people into lunatics. So a lunatic asylum was built just outside the castle walls.

The columned frontage of the Lunatic Asylum. Opened 1820.

The asylum also took private patients as well as from the prison. It is documented that the asylum treated patients more humanly than other asylums where inhuman treatments including physical restraints and being locked up for hours took place. Straight jackets in Lincoln were done away with in the 1830's.

When public hangings ceased at Cobb Hall in 1868 the gallows were re-sited to the south wall known as Lucy's Tower. The first prisoner hanged at the new site was a female, Priscilla Biggadike. She was also the first female privately executed in England.

She was wrongfully executed for the murder of her husband when their lodger admitted to the murder a year later.

We made our way downwards before rising again to Lucy Tower. The tower stands on the same site as the first Norman Castle. It used to be a story higher and had the living quarters of The Constable of the castle and was built of wood. The grounds today include a cemetery of those hanged or died of natural causes in the prison.

Lucy Tower

Lucy Tower cemetery

One of the grave markers.

Prior to finishing the wall trek we passed the back of the Victorian prison exercise garden with it's high wall.

The victorian prison and exercise garden. The Observation Tower in the background was not accessible to visitors. I presume it to be unsafe at this time.

In the gloom is the front aspect of the Law Courts.

Walking past the Observation Tower brought us back to the large spiral stairway and the end of the wall.

The prison and the Magna Carta which are within the castle walls will be the subject of a separate post.

The Castle complex is an ideal place to spend the day, the staff are exceptionally helpful and knowledgeable. They helped greatly to put this post together.

RAF International Bomber Command Centre. (IBCC)

Tuesday 14th Jan 2025.

The next thing on our Lincoln to do trip was to visit the IBCC. We were staying at the Premier Inn which was in an ideal location to do everything we wanted to do in Lincoln. I checked the map and decided it was an easy walk from our hotel and would take about 30-40 minutes. We could have caught a bus or even got a taxi, both very convenient.

Setting off south down the busy A1434, it was rush hour, it was busy and the footpaths were quite congested with students heading for the colleges and Uni. The footpaths are quite wide and we made good progress. At one point we had to cross the road and take 2 flights of stairs onto a flyover which led down to Canwick.

On route we crossed the River Witham and the footpath of the Spires and Steeples trail which fellow blogger Bowland Climber had recently completed. 

We passed a well kept cemetery and I noticed on the map there was a large field area called "Cow Paddle". We crossed the road again onto south common, a stretch of open land, "common land" which had many horses grazing. An unusual sight in a town these days.

A footpath borders south common and takes you to a gate in the IBCC north fence. It was icy and quite steep in places, muddy too but we made it to the fence without falling or ice skating back down the slope. The gate was locked and the sign read "not open until March". I thought why don't they put a sign at the bottom of the path and save people wasting time. A question I asked in the IBCC reception. The answer I received was "I didn't know it was locked". 

Anyway we walked round the perimeter fence until we came to a bus stop with the adjacent gate open.

We paid the entrance fee of £12 each and I got £1 off for being an old codger. Very generous. The museum was only opened in 2018. The centre was created to mark the sacrifice given by Aircrew, ground crew and all the support staff that lost their lives whilst serving with RAF Bomber command.

The first thing you see apart from the 31metre tall memorial spire which is a visible landmark from everywhere is a model bomber.

Large Model Lancaster Bomber, outside reception.

Once inside there is an interactive map showing you where the air bases were including the training bases. There is also a gift shop which I thought was very expensive. I was going to buy a "t" shirt as I am a bit of a collector, but not at £26. There is also a very nice cafe which we sampled. The staff being extremely enthusiastic.

Once into the museum proper, we sat down in an amphitheater to watch a film about the history and reasons for RAF bomber command. 60 nations were involved with BC and there is a large map on the wall with all the missions lit up by date so that you can see where the bombers were used as the conflicts grew. As we all known the life expectancy of a bomber crew was not very long, bombers are large, slow and easy targets for anti-aircraft guns. I didn't realise that Bomber Command still operated until 1968.

The reality.

There was lots of video footage and audio of what was said during a mission and also individual memoirs of those that survived the war.

In the grounds of the IBCC there are memorial gardens and as I mentioned earlier there is a 31 metre tall spire and many walls of remembrance with the names of those that never came home. We saw quite a few of our own namesakes with we will look into in the near future.

Looking through the spire you can see Lincoln Cathedral.

I was very impressed with these laser cut steel plates of the bomber crew. In certain light they look almost real. 

A view of Lincoln Cathedral from outside the spire.

Looking upwards through the spire. It reminded me of a bomb bay.

Anyone remember the Anderson shelter. I remember going down into my Gran's shelter in the 1950's.

I hope that this next paragraph doesn't put anyone off from going because it is worth a visit.

I was somewhat disappointed with the Museum. It's more of a learning centre and remembrance centre in my opinion. A museum should have lots of memorabilia, Bombs for example of the different types used for different objectives, maybe one bomber at least. I wanted to climb into a bomber. Bomb aimers tools, charts, Anti aircraft guns, Searchlights etc etc. This is what I had an impression of in my mind before going and that is the reason I was disappointed. 

It would have been nice to see this old Fordson tractor. Well, there has to be a tractor doesn't there.

Image courtesy of IBCC.

A couple of images taken from the wall of the cafe. I thought they said it all.

 

Lincoln Cathedral- incredible.

 Monday 13th January 2025.

It's taken me a bit of time to get time to write this post due to family troubles which I won't go into here.

 Why did we pick a trip to Lincoln? Well i had read a couple of books about Tudor times in Lincoln and watched a video about the history of Lincoln. It was a place I had never had an inkling about visiting previously but I had this feeling that I had to go.

The first thing we had to see was the cathedral. We had seen Liverpool, York, Glasgow and Durham in the past but although Lincoln is statistically not the biggest it needs to be seen to be believed.

Our route to the cathedral was via the "Steep Hill". Aptly named but not as bad as it is portrayed. Once you see the cathedral towers and you walk under the archway, it takes your breath away.

We stood in awe at the sheer magnificence. 

I cannot put everything we saw or was told or read into this blog post but I will trying give you an idea of the history and the splendour.

The front of the cathedral was having works done just inside the main door which was a shame but if you click on the image to enlarge it the kings freeze can be seen above the door where the truck is.

(Sorry for the sloping image but the frontage is just so huge).

Once inside the door you are greeted with an image it is hard to forget.

Two images above are only 1/3 of the length of the cathedral.

Looking back towards the main door.

We paid the entrance fee of £12.50 each and we decided that we would do a tour. Two options available,  one, a tour of the ground floor or two, a tour of the roof. We decided that we could do the ground floor ourselves so chose the roof tour. That was another £7.50 each. They know how to charge. 

Here are a few images of the ground floor.

The Cathedral organ was built in 1898 by Henry Willis. The original case from the earlier William Allen organ of 1826 had to be modified to take it. The 32ft Posaune was installed in 1903.

There is a tour of the ground floor as well as the roof tour that we chose. We met our guide, a spritely lady, older than we expected but she was very fit having just cycled 5 miles up hill to do the tour.

Through a heavy door we ascended the spiral staircase, a bit scary at times. 338 narrow steep and uneven steps to the top of the tower. On the way we stopped for breath at a drawing room and workshop.

The wooden walkway in the centre of the photo was used in a swashbuckling film. They must have been very brave as it looked quite flimsy.

A wooden template.

Our very knowledgeable and spritely guide.

The concrete in the lower section of the photo is actually the roof of the cathedral main isle. The one shown in the 2nd image.

The metal rod and ring actually holds up one of the cathedral chandeliers. I thought of Only Fools and Horses sketch. 

The craftsmanship and design is completely overwhelming.

An incredible feat alone was getting the heavy oak timbers up here in the first place. Some of the beams are over 2ft square and a hell of a length. Oak of this size would weigh around 200lb per ft.

No electric tools can be used in the roof space due to the obvious fire risk so tools are hand or air powered. Lying on one of the benches was an air saw which "Sparked" my interest. (Sorry, pun intended).

It was an Ingersol Rand safety saw.

The saw was from the 1920's. The Patent says 1924.

In the middle of the 1920's Crowe Manufacturing Corporation which was also called the Crowe Safety Saw Company Inc, was established by John M Crowe. They manufactured saw emphasising the safety aspect and were marketed mainly to railway company's and stone cutting yards.

In 1927 Ingersol Rand announced a range of air driven saws using the Crowe safety Guard system and this is the saw we see here.

In 1929 Crowe Manufacturing went under and the patent rights were sold to Stanley Electric tools co. and Skilsaw Inc.

There was only four of us on the tour and as we went for a look at the front of the cathedral I spotted an OS Benchmark. I highlighted it to the tour guide who didn't know anything about it but the other chap with us unbelievably was a surveyor and had constructed many benchmarks over his 41 yrs working. It was a rivet benchmark so quite a rare one.

At this point I will end the post. There is so much to see that the post would be just enormous. The history is fantastic. If any readers decide to go and see the cathedral and do the roof tour I suggest that you take a good powerful torch so that you can see the detail in the roof space and also take warm clothes as it can be bitterly cold up there depending on the time of year.. You will not be disappointed.