What a Lark!: Lincoln

So then off to visit Lincoln for the first time ever and certainly not the last. We all left the boats to follow our noses up this steep hill, so steep it's called Steep Hill, to the Information Centre in town where we booked onto a Walking Tour. There we met Vic who was a bit of a star. He had only lived here since the 1960's and confessed he was just settling in. He had a way of imparting knowledge that really bought you in.

So whoever knew that Lincoln was one of the biggest and most important trading cities in the country? Well that was going back a a bit. The Romans or maybe their slaves built The Fossdyke Canal, which brought ships and thus trade, The Anglo Saxons followed on and The Vikings just sailed up the rivers causing a bit of havoc on the way, then in later centuries the same rivers gave huge trade to the city from certainly all over Europe but much further afield too. Many languages being spoken around the ships anchored here in Bray Pool.

Before we visited here I am not completely sure I could have been able to point to Lincoln on the map.

Vic pointed out to us Roman remains, and as we were only the five of us he took us in here, to a beauty parlour on the high street, well this was a first for Joe David and Geoff thats for sure.

See the stone table? Well its the base of a Roman Column

So where Vic is pointing his umbrella is the column in the Beauty Parlour basement!!!

It is such an amazing thought that we still have these treasures almost available for all to see here in the city centre.

Look again at the illustration above and here below is a remaining a section of the wall of the complex. Roman walls just sat there!!!!!

Amazing.

More treasure, look at these;

See the upstairs window how its changed over the centuries?

These are Medieval buildings built in stone, highly unusual. Thriving Lincoln had businesses and merchants aplenty, however if one reads their bible, Old Testament, you will of course know that to trade here you had to be a Guild member, to be a Guild member you had to be a Christian, IF you were a Christian then it was against Gods holy law to lend money, now the Jews however were fine on that, they became society's moneylenders, as Vic pointed out, it was a gap in the market, so these houses were built in stone as the more usual timber framed houses weren't considered safe enough to be the early banks.

Not very PC but called The Jew House, later David Lesley and I had a FAB lunch in the restaurant that it now is.

More usual medieval house, "Wobbly house", the last occupant had his bed in that top R corner propped up to make it level said Vic who knew him.

Wobbly House in the fore ground, Stone House in middle ground and Cathedral behind.

Now making this a little bit surreal was all these motor bikes, Vic informed us that it was the first Harley Davidson Gathering/Convention/Motorfest to be held in the UK for 22 years, so amongst all this ancient history and culture were this horrendously noisy bloody things full of people who simply looked like they needed a good wash, (Ooooo sorry that was my mother talking) however they caused little trouble aside aggravating me and they spent their good gold in the shops here.....

Roman City Gate, see the two arches one in and one out? Impressive huh?

Use your imagination, here are the two thousand year old remains of the gatehouse. Very impressive.

A hotch potch of medieval rooftops plus a few modern ones.

Altogether an enthralling day in Lincoln learning much, a good lunch, then the castle when Group Captain rejoined us after lunch after walking the dog to visit the castle.

Here are a few magical pictures from the afternoon.