Lincoln Cathedral

Visited on Monday April 22nd 2024 with Gill

Lincoln cathedral is one not to be missed.

John Ruskin said ‘the Cathedral of Lincoln is out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British islands and, roughly, worth any two other cathedrals we have got.’ And my book ‘The Cathedrals of England’ by Alec Clifton-Taylor states that Lincoln is ‘probably, all things considered, the finest of the English cathedrals’.

Approaching it on Sunday evening from the south-east I admit it took my breath away. Standing on top of a hill, a ‘precipice ridge’ so I understand, viewed from a distance it is magnificent. Close up it’s just as stunning. We took an evening walk from our AirBnb to see it in the evening sunshine (the only sunshine we had during our visit…):

It is a MASSIVE building, which served a MASSIVE area – the ancient diocese of Lincoln stretched from the Humber to the Thames.

This cathedral is made of Lincolnshire limestone, with Purbeck marble pillars, and, apart from a few Norman sections, essentially a creation of the 13th century with 14th century additions. Can you believe it, there are no foundations to this massive building – no crypt, no foundations. The west front friezes had major repairs in the 1990’s – some were so badly damaged they were copied and the originals are now kept in the visitor centre. The west door deserves a closer look…

A model showed what the cathedral looked like when the 3 spires were still standing in medieval times, and it was the tallest building IN THE WORLD! The cathedral suffered from both a fire and an earthquake during its history.

Monday morning a guide called Sue gave a group of us a tour around the roof:

The middle photo is called ‘Banks’ view’ – after Joseph Banks, the botanist.

We went up to the roof via the south-west tower which is 2 degrees out (cf the Leaning Tower of Pisa which is 4 degrees out). Once you’ve been told, it’s really obvious. Sue showed us stones in the wall of the tower which had an X carved into them – this meant they were good to reuse after the fire.

One of the interesting things she told us while we were standing looking at the oak roof timbers was that spiders don’t like oak – I’m reluctant to Google it in case it’s not true, but it explains the lack of spiders’ webs in the rafters. Another fact – there are 3 and a half acres of lead on the roof and because lead dissolves oak (apparently…) the timbers supporting the roof are made of Baltic Pine.

The view of the Nave was especially impressive being empty of pews (it never had any) or chairs (which are put out for events – the next day was going to be a big one – the new Dean was being selected).

In the afternoon a different guide also called Sue gave a group of us a tour around the floor:

So many interesting things she showed us! They included, from left to right, the Gilbert Pots – large pottery candlesticks, named in honour of St Gilbert of Semperingham (1083-1189); the ‘cadaver’ tomb of Bishop Fleming – above he’s wearing his full bishop’s robes and below he’s an emaciated corpse – even bishops end up dead; and a series of stone slabs in the floor which had their brass coverings ripped off by Parliamentary soldiers during the Civil War, to be melted down to make weapons.

A selection of the profusion of beautiful stone carvings, a lot of which are medieval in origin:

And the tomb of the bishop who became St Hugh, or rather what remains of it after Henry VIII’s agents had finished plundering it:

Of course, here’s the Lincoln Imp who once flew around the cathedral making mischief until the angels turned him into stone, above the shrine to St Hugh:

There was a ten-sided Chapter House for secular activities, begun in the 1220’s – the single pier from which the stone vault springs supports 20 stone ribs which fan out into a beautiful star-shaped vault… and some Cloisters, unusually on the north side of the main building, instead of the south and three walks of which are medieval, dating from the late 1200’s. The library (which we didn’t see as it was under repair) was designed by Sir Christopher Wren.

And lots of stained glass including medieval examples among the Victorian:

Looking at my cathedral books I realise there was so much more at Lincoln that we didn’t actually see, although the two Sues did a thorough job I reckon we needed several more hours to fully explore. It seems that John Ruskin was right – it’s worth 2 of any other cathedral.

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The next day I paid a visit to St. Botolph’s church at Boston, commonly known as the Boston Stump, that you can see from miles around over the flat Lincolnshire countryside. It was a very hurried visit as I got there only half an hour before it closed, at 3pm. However, I managed to rush up the tower…

It’s very tall – inside and out…

Views from the top, of the nave roof and the River Witham flowing into the Wash in the distance:

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As usual I managed to include some local walking and bird-watching. I went out on the Lincolnshire coast bordering the Wash. It’s quite different to the Norfolk side – fewer beach huts, more cabbages. I aim to explore it some more, making sure I return at a High Tide when you can see the birds much better. As it was I saw 72 species; 11 of those were the first time this year, and one was a LIFER!! A Lesser Yellowlegs, if you’re interested 🙂

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Gill and I tried to work out actually how many cathedrals were on our list to visit. As far as we can work out, there are 42. This is counting just Anglican cathedrals in England and is plenty to be going on with! At our present rate of seeing 3 or 4 a year we will be into our 80’s before we complete the task….

Here’s the list as it presently stands, combining information from our 2 books on cathedrals – it may well change – some included here are definitely queries… the ones we’ve visited already are in BOLD CAPITALS:

Birmingham, Blackburn, Bradford, Bristol, Canterbury, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Chester, Chichester, Coventry, Derby, Durham, ELY, Exeter, GLOUCESTER, Guildford, Hereford, Lichfield, LINCOLN, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Newport, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Ripon, Rochester, ST ALBANS, St Edmundsbury, St Paul’s, SALISBURY, Sheffield, Southwark, Southwell, Truro, Wakefield, WELLS, WINCHESTER, Worcester, York

We’ve chosen our next trip already – in October we are spending a weekend seeing Portsmouth and Chichester!