No Eagles but History by the Shed Load

Driving into Lincoln you can't but be impressed by the cathedral sited on the hill. This is a magnificent building which some claim is the finest of its kind in Europe. We spent an excellent afternoon in the company of one of the cathedral staff and, later, had the pleasure of listening to a Swiss choir practising for Evensong service. No matter how many time I visit the place I'm always impressed - that's been over 55 years now ...

The walk up Steep Hill, which is another old haunt of my childhood, from the town centre, seems to have increased in steepness. The Jews House is one of the historic buildings at the base of the hill and was, for a short time, owned or rented, by my ma's distant family - or so I was told when a snotty nosed brat.

We spent an informative morning at St Mary-le-Wigford church visiting the vicar (Jeremy), an acquaintance we made last year when he was a curate in Sleaford. This guy is not your average priest; ex-military intelligence via the Bosnian conflict and, to be polite, I just say he calls a spade a shovel. He has reopened the church after many years of, more or less, closure to the riff-raff. The place is now a drop-in centre and doing well giving what support it can to those who are outside nice, polite society.

British Heritage have approve plans for a major update of the facilities at the church - kitchen, meeting rooms, photo-voltaic panels and a covered cloister which are add-on structures to the historic building. St Mary's is THE oldest church in Lincoln and there is archaeological evidence that it is possible that there were Iron Age settlements on or near the site.

On our way back to Sleaford we tried to find the remains of a Knights Templar preceptory just south of Cranwell but were put off by the lateness of the afternoon and the farm track that lead to what I thought was the building's roof; the only thing we could see that was remotely like a tower and visible over the hedge rows. This will be investigated again ...