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Lincoln (England)

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Dick Turpin

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Mar 28, 2018
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We are off on a long weekend break to Lincoln on Thursday. I know it’s an ancient city, and does have ghost walks around the town centre, but does anyone on here have any first hand experiences of Lincoln.??
 
Was there in November.
The cathedral is breathtaking and the little artisanal shops down Steep Hill are great - bit reminiscent of Glastonbury.
Found a couple of lovely pubs too but was only there for the day and have no experience of ghost tours.
 
It's worth walking round the castle too.
 
Lincoln has a strangely disparate city centre. At the top of the hill is all the old (medieval etc.) stuff. The cathedral (very impressive) and the castle (worth a visit), as well as one of the old city gates, various tea rooms and cafes etc. At the bottom of the hill it is a fairly mediocre town centre with ordinary shops. However, there is also a riverside and marina worth a look.

I can't really say much about Fortean sights or sites, but the Lincoln Imp is iconic: a stone carving of an imp inside the cathedral. It is not a huge or "impressive" imp, but is quite charismatic and worth seeing.

A nice pub for a beer (but not food) is the Morning Star which is not far from the cathedral. There are plenty of places at the top to get decent food.
 
Dick Turpin said:
We are off on a long weekend break to Lincoln on Thursday. I know it’s an ancient city, and does have ghost walks around the town centre, but does anyone on here have any first hand experiences of Lincoln.??
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I lived there for a year whilst doing my PGCE, but that was a few years ago now! Is the best secondhand bookshop in the world still halfway up the Steep? A proper higgledy piggledy L-space bookshop that smelt of old paper and dust. The Cathedral hill felt like the heart of Lincoln - I spent plenty of time in the Cathedral itself, and always hunted out the Imp.

If you drive south on the A15 you'll come across the haunted bit of road discussed in a thread somewhere!
 
Dick Turpin said:
We are off on a long weekend break to Lincoln on Thursday. I know it’s an ancient city, and does have ghost walks around the town centre, but does anyone on here have any first hand experiences of Lincoln.??
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Looking through the dust ridden shelves of Tunn Towers here I found Mysterious Lincolnshire by Daniel Codd pub by Breedon Books 2007. Alas and **** it, it isn't indexed and is ordered by the type of phenomenon.

A quick look through I can find Newport Arch, Lincoln allegedly scale by Spring Heeled Jack The Observatory Tower of Lincoln Castle - haunted bya lady in black.. The Greenstone stairs leding to the cathedral where in 2006 a photo supposedl showing a phantom horse was taken, also a 17th C cleric supposedly hanged himself. The Cathedral haunted by a ghost monk on the steps of the west front and a white lady who joined a ghost tour in 2007. Cobb hall was meant to have gallows erected on the top so that executions were visible to all - said to be an urban legend. In the castle is the grave of a poacher whose dog haunted the Smuggler's Inn.

Book is worth a read if you can find it.
 
Re: the above ~

Why is that so many hauntings feature monks/nuns etc? I'm not so sure that it's merely the result of anti-religiious or anti-Catholic sentiments & propaganda, as we're often told.
 
Steven said:
Re: the above ~

Why is that so many hauntings feature monks/nuns etc? I'm not so sure that it's merely the result of anti-religiious or anti-Catholic sentiments & propaganda, as we're often told.
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I think this has been mentioned elsewhere, a lot of costumes from the past probably involved some sort of hood, or even hoodies from today. This seems to be interpreted as a "monk".

We also get ghosts of cavaliers as well but IIRC until the advent of Cromwell's Ironsides the sides were identified by a coloured sash as the dress was similar and not uniform. I doubt that I'd be able to date a ghost based on its costume and I'd probably be spending my time thinking "WTF is that?" anyway.
:)
 
Maybe the habits somehow give the impression of scariness/mysteriousness too.
 
Dick Turpin said:
We are off on a long weekend break to Lincoln on Thursday. I know it’s an ancient city, and does have ghost walks around the town centre, but does anyone on here have any first hand experiences of Lincoln.??
Click to expand...

Had a good time exploring the area in 2022 - Steep Hill is (obviously) very steep! The Castle prison building is worth a look, they also host a copy of the Magna Carta there. You can also visit New York (and witness the amazing RAF training flights that close the road periodically) and of course, Boston!

Mr J's vid of our visit to NY, Lincs:


The dragon that lives within the walls of Lincoln Castle:

IMG_2311.JPEG
 
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@Dick Turpin I was taken to Slow Rise pizza place at the bottom of the hill for my birthday din-dins and it was schpectaular, if a bit basic seating-wise. Worth going to sample!
 
So how was it Mr T?
I presume that at some point you got drunk and; fell over, lost something/someone/got lost yourself...................
 
:):). Very good Mr F. The weekend was great and I loved Lincoln, and hope to return back next season (if Lincoln City FC don’t get promoted that is). Both the cathedral and Castle are stunning. I loved the Victorian prison and found the prison chapel quite creepy, but alas no spooky experiences to report.

I did have a bit of a drunken stumble walking down steep hill, but then it’s so steep, I’d be forgiven for taking a stumble stone cold sober. :cool: (not)
 
I went into Lincoln today and had a bit of a mosey about while I was waiting for my motorbike to be service. I may have been a little unfair with some of my earlier assessment.

Top of the hill: the old city, cathedral, gate, castle, quaint shops and places to eat, all good, as I said before.

Bottom of the hill, a fairly mundane/mediocre provincial city as I said before.

However: a little bit further down, I had forgotten about the other ancient stone gateway, High Bridge: the canal bridge with the half timbered buildings on it, and an area I had never previously visited known as the Cornhill Quarter where there are small shops, eateries, and some old buildings.

Coincidentally, I also went to see my mother, who lives in Boston, Lincs, and she mentioned the story of Snips, the dog that raised money for charity in the 1950s. Snips' owner charged people a penny to stroke the dog, and raised thousands of Pounds. Snips is commemorated by a plaque, and a statue is to be erected in his honour.

I found this link to the Snips story.

Here's High Bridge.
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Mikefule said:
I went into Lincoln today and had a bit of a mosey about while I was waiting for my motorbike to be service. I may have been a little unfair with some of my earlier assessment.

Top of the hill: the old city, cathedral, gate, castle, quaint shops and places to eat, all good, as I said before.

Bottom of the hill, a fairly mundane/mediocre provincial city as I said before.

However: a little bit further down, I had forgotten about the other ancient stone gateway, High Bridge: the canal bridge with the half timbered buildings on it, and an area I had never previously visited known as the Cornhill Quarter where there are small shops, eateries, and some old buildings.

Coincidentally, I also went to see my mother, who lives in Boston, Lincs, and she mentioned the story of Snips, the dog that raised money for charity in the 1950s. Snips' owner charged people a penny to stroke the dog, and raised thousands of Pounds. Snips is commemorated by a plaque, and a statue is to be erected in his honour.

I found this link to the Snips story.

Here's High Bridge.
View attachment 75394 View attachment 75395
Click to expand...

Good post, but - on a tangent - can the Tourist Offices of our towns please stop retro-naming areas as “Quarters.” It’s faux-mediaeval and cringey.

maximus “Curmudgeons’ Quarter of Boringtown” otter
 
Would anyone like to live/sleep here?
At first I thought it would be great to be above a canal, but I'm not so sure now;

linc.png
 
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