Leaving Nottingham behind without as much as a glimpse of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, I headed off to visit Lincoln Cathedral, and on a whim, Lincoln Castle. For some reason, the Catherdal gets "first booking" in most tour guides -- a beautiful, huge, medieval Gothic style cathedral -- it was interesting, but I only spent about forty-five minutes touring it. Lincoln Castle turned out to be the real gem -- spent over three hours exploring it and could easily have stayed longer.
Built in the 1200's by WIlliam the Conqueror on the site of a 10th century Norman fort, the keep (main tower) and many of the original buildings have disappeared, but it still retains the feel of an impressive stronghold (with other interesting additions). It's one of the only castles in England where you can still walk the entire battlements (360 degrees) -- from this walkway, the red, medieval tile roofs below flow away from the castle to the Cathedral, looking much as they would have hundreds of years ago -- very picturesque!
The castle also retains the original Norman fort -- a somewhat rare original motte and bailey structure -- the Normans would find s high spot (in this case on a cliff), build a flat-topped, cone-shaped mound out of rocks and dirt (in this case, about forty feet high and forty yards in diameter), then build a tower (the keep) on top of it (complete with a fifteen to twenty foot high defensive wall encircling the top and an open courtyard) a lot of work, but very impressive! I was somewhat amazed that this thousand year old building was open for tourists to walk around in and on.
Again, due to the extensive use of gunpowder in warfare, the castle fell out of use as a defensive structure during the 1600's-1800's when if fluctuated between being a royal estate and a partial ruins. In the Victorian era it was revived as a prison, initially for men and then a separate section was created to house women -- the prison building still stands and looks pretty much as it did back then and is open to explore. For many years, prisoners held elsewhere were shipped there to be executed -- the prison is credited for being the first prison to use trap doors in hanging executions (before that, they just put a rope around the person's neck, hauled them up in the air and left them to swing in the breeze which could've taken twenty to thirty minutes to kill them -- the trap door method was seen as more humane by snapping their neck and causing almost instantaneous death.
Also on site is a stone tower dating from the 13 century that is supposedly actively haunted -- the upper floors were used as a storage building -- the lower, below ground-level floor was used a a dungeon where they would push prisoners thru a trap door into the pitch-black pit and forget about them. Ah, how romantic to have lived in medieval times! It was a bit spooky descending the few floors from the top down to the pit by myself, but nothing errie happened -- guess the ghosts decided I wasn't English enough and left me alone!
The real prize at the castle is that it houses one of only four original copies of the Magna Carta from 1215 -- written in Latin using a gall-based ink on sheep parchment it looks totally unimpressive -- unless you know what it was. Held in a glass case -- along with some other documents that spelled out the details of the Magna Carta and were considered much more important -- it was impressive. An added nicety, my experience was like a private viewing with only two other people in the room -- and we could have stayed there as long as we wanted.
Again, the history we were taught in school is really distorted -- after a lengthy period of war with his nobles, King John did sign the document (abolishing the absolute right of the monarchy to rule and not be challenged) but he had no intention of honoring it and went to the Pope in Italy and had it declared void -- which resulted in continued warfare for years until he died and his son was forced into reaffirming it or being deposed. A far cry from the "amicable" process taught in history classes.
