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Not much to report, but we took a quick trip to Lincoln. Parts were fantastic, parts were difficult. The nice part was Lincoln itself. The difficult part was everything else. It rained very heavily most of the day, we couldn’t figure out the parking, and it was freezing cold (about 0C). Being Wisconsinites, the cold shouldn’t have presented much of an issue, but we dressed for English rain, leaving us shivering most of the day.

The highlight was the medieval Bishop’s Palace. Lincoln used to be a very rich and powerful diocese (reaching from the Thames to the Humber), and the church built a magnificent palace (mostly constructed by Bishop Robert de Chesney and Bishop St Hugh from 1155 - 1200). Unfortunately, war and crown intervened and ruined much of the structure. Henry VIII’s seizure of church lands removed the supply of money to pay for the site. Later, the Royalists in the English Civil War sacked the building, mainly by violently stripping the lead roof and plumbing fittings, which left the weather to do the rest. The site has since been picked up the English Heritage Foundation (since the church doesn’t want to pay for upkeep) who have done a magnificent job turning it into a topnotch tourist attraction. The admission includes an excellent audio tour of the site, and is well worth following. While marvelous, the only shortcoming was the lack of access to the the Victorian Bishop’s Chapel (built over the medieval service halls) because it is still in use by the current bishop.

A View of the Lower East Hall, with the well at the end.

A view of the ruined palace from Bishop Alnwick’s Tower and The Central Column in the Chapter House.

The rest of the day was screwy because of our adventure timing events. Being Sunday, the Cathedral was busy with service, but we snuck in during an intermission. Of note were the Lincoln Imp and the Chapter House (which was used as a double for Westminster Abbey’s Chapter House). It was beautiful, yet incredibly dark (so the photos came out slightly blurry from the handheld long exposure). To warm up, we had lunch and beers at two local pubs (The Strugglers Inn was the CAMRA recommended one*), but missed entrance to the Castle. To make us more upset, not only is the Castle an amazing building with a long and morbid history, but also houses one of the only four copies of the Magna Carta (owned by the Cathedral since 4 days after the signing in 1215).

* Note to selves: Pubs serve Sunday lunch generally until 2-2:30. Arrive early (since the pub had the most amazing sounding menu, that they refused to serve us).

We visited St Albans last week for a quick afternoon. My guess, is that its probably the nicest place in Hertfordshire, though we haven’t poked around enough. Regardless, St Albans at least has the most history of any location in Hertfordshire. Originally, it was called Verulamium and was the third largest city in Roman England. Later, around 250AD, a Roman citizen named Alban sheltered a refugee Christian priest, Saint Amphibalus and was executed for doing so. Supposedly, a shrine was built at the point of execution and Alban becamse St. Alban, England’s first martyr.

The local cathedral, built around the shrine, was only made a cathedral in 1877, prior to that it was one fo the largest abbeys in England (with much of the original building starting in Norman times, around 1100). However, the Dissolution of the Monastaries (blah, blah, blah, Henry VIII) act destroyed almost all of the abbey, and left only the church and a gatehouse. The church was purchased by the township, and became the parish church was upgraded to a cathedral in Victorian times.

Unfortunately, while we saw the cathedral, we missed the Roman History museum (called the Verulamium) and anything else of significance. The Good Beer Guide lists 8 marvelous pubs to visit, and we managed to miss all of them, though that will certainly change sooner or later. And finally, a couple of photos were taken:

St Albans Cathedral from the front.

The Nave; The Ceiling of the Tower

Running behind, this is a week old, but we had a lovely afternoon last Sunday visiting Ely Cathedral. It’s really stunning. Driving up from Cambridge, the Cathedral can be seen rising above the fens 5 miles away (as seen on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Division Bell).

Most of the interesting history is available on wikipedia, but to highlight a couple of intersting points:
- The Lady Chapel was a 14th century addition and is the largest chapel attached to any British Cathedral, and is huge, bright and marvelous.

- Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monastaries combined with the zealous Bishop Thomas Goodrich led to a reasonable amount of damage to the interior of the Cathedral. Many of the faces on the historic sculptures were bashed/scratched off. Also all traces of the original shrine to Ethelreda (the 7th century founder of the site) were lost. (Note: I can’t find any online clarification that Bishop Goodrich was responsible for this, though I remember this from the information onsite, but take with a grain of salt)

- There is a bunch of wonderful stained glass in the cathedral. I particularly liked the RAF window, commemorating those who protected the skies above Ely during World War II.

One of many wonderful Gargoyles.

Heh. Keep off the Grass. Also, the Cathedral from the rear, Lady Chapel is on the right.

Finally, many of the other users of flickr have better pictures of the Cathedral. I particularly liked LawrenceOP’s photos. In particular, he has a wonderful collection of the stained glass photos, including an example of the RAF window.