James Tucker in Cov

So, I emerged from Birmingham to head North East for a day-trip, this time to the city of Lincoln. Lincoln's been around for about as anyone can figure out- it's on top of a really big hill, near a river that runs to the sea. The Romans took it over from some locals about 2000 years ago, and it's been a pretty major place ever since (although that implies it's pretty major now; it's not). Lincoln has a lot in common with Durham, in that it's got a castle and cathedral built side by side, which went up in at the same time after the Norman conquest. Lincoln was a pretty major city during the 12- and 1300s, but hasn't done an awful lot since, which is why it's so nice now. For some reason, there were no tourists though- I guess it really is that obscure?

As you can see to the right, the castle and cathedral are at the top of possibly the steepest hill I've seen in a city. The top part of the street (past this picture) is actually called "Steep Hill". On the left of the picture is a pair of houses built in the 1100s, known as the Jew's House and Jew's Court. They were the centre of a England's largest medieval Jewish population until a series of pogroms in the 1300s. The remains of the shrine of St. Hugh- the fictional boy killed and eaten by the town's rabbis- are still in the Cathedral. The cathedral itself is on the right. It's hard to avoid creeping into most pictures. It was built around 1100 and was probably the first English attempt at gothic, with the result that there are a number of mistakes and just plain mistakes, like the part of the ceiling that doesn't quite match. The towers were added slightly later, and additions like the great bell and the circular windows periodically threaten to collapse the whole structure.

Below the cathedral are the ruins of the Bishop's Palace, which was gutted in the Civil War. Someone parked a sportscar there, so all the pictures I took there tend towards ads for Lotus. Across the square from the cathedral is the castle, from which you can get some pretty long views. The top left picture is from the observatory tower, below. It houses one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta, and an victorian prison which was pretty eerie. They tried a system of total isolation, with prisoners wearing masks when mingling so that no-one knew who he was in with. Even the chapel was arranged so that each inmate could only see the preacher.

Anyways, the day was about perfect, in the low twenties with a clear blue sky, which is as nice as it is rare around here.