Some highs and lows in Lincoln Monday 23rd June

Another brilliant sunny day, with a maximum of 24, same as home, only this 24 lasted all day, and in fact when we got back to the car it showed 30!  I wore a long sleeve blouse which definitely is not suitable for that temperature, but the sun has a punch in it.

I also have had more than 2600 page views on my blog, I am pretty happy with that.

We made out way to park a few blocks from where the Hop on Bus left, outside the Cathedral, and we waited with some other people.  After 20 minutes one of them asked another bus driver, and we learnt that the bus doesn't start until 1st July, and we weren't waiting till then.  Of course that information is buried way down in the information sheets.

So into the Cathedral, another massive building that won't fit into a photo unless you were in a helicopter, so what I have will have to suffice.  Then inside and they were busy setting up chairs for a function, and I had been on a mission to find the Lincoln Imp, but had to do with finding it in the gift shop.

Have a look at the engraving on these columns I was impressed by them

Sir Joseph Banks was a regular

So we thought we would find the Bishop's House, as it was on English Heritage, and guess what, it was closed, only open Wednesday's onwards!

So third time lucky into the castle, ordered to be built by William, but unlike all his other ones, he never stayed there, and there were no grandiose white towers built around the walls.  More later.  But almost all the site was under reconstruction, trying to get the whole lot finished by 2015, for the 800 year anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, which is stored here, or rather one of the four remaining ones are housed here.

Lucky we saw it all in Salisbury.   But to compensate we were offered a castle tour, which was very informative. This castle is completely different to others, in that there is a prison inside, and has been one there for 1000 years.  Some of our convict relations probably started out inside this very same castle.

Over the years though, William's grandchildren King Stephen and Matilda fought tooth and nail for possession of the site, Stephen lost, giving it to Matilda, then Matilda lost face with the pubic and Stephen won!  Bit like Australian politics in the past.

Town square, look how few people, it was like that all day

The prison

The money man I bet

We were shown the different areas, and the castle grounds held the courts of the day, and even now, the Court is this beautiful building built in the 1800's to compliment the surroundings.

Before you get into the Court, you have to wait for a gate to be opened at the entry to the Castle, a bit intimidating I should think.

This old tree died, and the school children were asked to come up with a design for carvings on it.

The west gates

This old window has nothing to do with the castle, someone bought it and thought it would look good to hang off the building, and it does!

This is the moat area to the western side of the castle, the houses are built into the walls, Roman walls used to run along this area, and have been discovered by archaeologists rand landlords alike.  In fact one publican extended his garden, found Roman gates, ruined them by not doing a proper dig, got put in jail for 20 months, and then staged a No Wash policy, he did not bathe.

This was built as the Bath House, as a law was passed that said all prisoners had to have a bath, so the prison warden, a crafty old fellow, built a Bath House, without a bath!  Said he might have pocketed the funds which should have paid for the tradesmen to build it, and he used convict labour instead!

 This environmental friendly Skills centre has been built inside the castle, to blend in, complete with grass roof

And the remains of King George the rest is in storage, a long tale about this one

Back into the square for lunch, and we sat outside in comfort.  Couldn't get over the lack of people

 Steepest street

And we found these old Roman Walls when we were walking back to the car

 Look 30 degrees

They used to have 9 windmills in Mill street, now there is one, opened, you guessed it, on the weekend!

An image of the Cathedral, all built in a whitish limestone, which is found along the Escarpment which we drove along today.

Thanks to modern technology and our house sitters, some photos of the Humber Bridge, they crossed it twice!

Pretty good photos, I think you will agree, especially the underneath one!  Thanks Mick and Lyn