The team behind the Lincoln Castle Revealed project is about to unveil the £22 million job which includes refurbishing 1,000-year-old walls, building a vault to house a surviving copy of the 1215 Magna Carta, and an excavation which unearthed a Saxon sarcophagus.
Just in time to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta, project partners Woodhead Heritage, architects Arroll & Snell and Lincolnshire County Council are putting the final touches on the castle, which reopens on April 1.
Construction company Woodhead Heritage, as part of Robert Woodhead Ltd, has put in 250,000 operative hours on the project and The Lincolnite were invited for a behind-the-scenes tour with them of the new-look landmark.
On arrival inside the Victorian Prison, where men, women and children as young as eight were held between 1848 and 1878, visitors will step into a visual tale of the site. A 3D projection of eight historic milestones from 1068 is mapped across the room.
Also at the front of the building is the new shop with historic memorabilia and gifts, and the Langton’s cafe, with indoor and outdoor seating overlooking the castle’s six and a half acre grounds.
The prison, with its isolating ‘Separate System’, has been closed of to the public for many years but will now be fully open to visitors with cells furnished to replicate the conditions for inmates with museum-grade props.
“The prison project has been quite challenging when blending the new with the old,” explained Woodhead Heritage Project Manager Jamie Keegans. “We have had to be sympathetic to the area that we are working with and we have had to hand craft elements of the building to replicate the original feature.
“A very specific skills set has been required at times. The person who has been in charge of cast iron repairs for example is one of only a few people in the country with his skill.”
The new David P J Ross Magna Carta Vault is the crowning glory of Lincoln Castle’s £22m restoration. One of the four remaining copies of the 1215 Magna Carta and the 1217 Charter of the Forest will be displayed together in a subterranean room.
Jamie Keegans said: “The construction of the vault is robust. It was built to a four-hour fire protection standard. It also has a detection system which can spot any changes in the environment which would affect the document.
“It has a gas depletion system, which would pump the room with inert gas and deplete the oxygen so a fire won’t ignite.
“It also has very high-security technology build like CCTV and trigger security systems and people sensors.”
On entering the vault, visitors will be met with the Magna Carta text in English, which took four weeks to stencil, and one week to apply gold leaf to the sections which still apply today.
Alongside the vault is a new underground widescreen cinema with 210 degree wraparound screen and 3D sound.
After rebuilding sections of the castle wall, visitors will be able to walk the entire perimeter for the first time.
Behind every stone of the Lincoln Castle experience there lies a story of hard work, skill and historic challenges. Some contractors will even recreate the scene one evening on site where a ghostly horse and cart was seen to charge across the grounds.
During Woodhead’s time on the project, its biggest to date, the firm totted up a huge list of materials:
Tonnes of stone: 325 tonnes of new stone was selected from Lincoln cathedral quarry, where the original Red Bed stone was sourced. Up to 97% of wall fabric is original.
Scaffolding: Complex scaffolding was required to access the walls. All together 213,000 ft. of scaffolding boards were used, as well as 22,337 ft of scaffolding poles, equating to 296 tonnes; 60,500 clippings were also used on the project.
Concrete poured: Over 250 cubic metres was pumped through the grounds of the castle in 28 continuous hours for the Heritage Skills Centre foundation.
Waste removal: The team removed 2,000 tonnes of waste from the site.
Operative hours: (Site Based Trade Operatives) over 250,000 hours.
The reconstruction of the wall also saw a nine tonne Corten steel staircase and lift shaft inserted, giving access to wheelchairs for a section of the wall.
While excavating the foundations of the new lift in 2013, the team discovered an ancient church 3m below the ground. Within the building’s remains lay the skeletons of six adults and three children.
The most important find, however, was a seventh adult skeleton in a stone sarcophagus. Discovered in the wall of the excavation trench, the sarcophagus had lain undisturbed for over 1,000 years.
In it was a complete skeleton with its feet draped in leather fragments from shoes worn at the point of burial. The skeleton is that of an unidentified high status individual as only the wealthy would have been buried in stone sarcophagi.
The Saxon sarcophagus unearthed during the Lincoln Castle excavations. Photo: Lincolnshire County Council
While the Sarcophagus will be on display for member of the public within the prison, tests are still ongoing to determine the story of the skeletons.
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A pair of anti-vaxxers have decided to temporarily stop sharing conspiracy theories on Facebook and stage a protest at a roundabout in Lincoln instead.
The duo were spotted on the Riseholme roundabout on the A15 on Friday afternoon, armed with misinformation signs that appear to suggest England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has an “evil agenda”.
The protest signs appeared to be against child vaccinations, which suggests that the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation were against young people being jabbed, despite a statement in July saying the Pfizer dose had been authorised for use in people aged 12 and over.
They seem to be at loggerheads with Lincolnshire’s own Jonathan Van-Tam, none other than England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, who urged people this week to “trust professionals, not Instagram” as fake propaganda posted on social media is being attributed to vaccine hesitancy.
Another sign held up spouts rhetoric about heart problems from the COVID-19 vaccine, while a third notice shows children with masks on and reads: “Is this the future we want for our kids?”
For reference, in case you cannot make it to the Lincolnshire Showground for your vaccination, there will be a free shuttle bus service to take you to and from the jab site starting next week. Read more here.
Up to 86% of adults in Lincolnshire are double-jabbed, and over 25% of 12-15-year-olds.
A special lights show celebrating Lincolnshire’s plants will take place at Boultham Park on Saturday.
The Lincspirational Lightshow will start at 5.30pm on October 23 after the original event was postponed earlier this month due to the weather forecast.
The free show is the final of event of Lincolnshire Wildlife Trusts’ LoveLincsPlants project.
The evening will feature a lightshow parade, artwork projects, park illuminations and music inspired by nature from Sinfonia Viva. During the event the 30 artworks created by the public will be projected onto a large screen.
There will also be an opportunity to bid on the 130 artworks submitted as part of the exhibition. They will be available via an online action, with the 30 winning pieces starting at £40.
The evening will feature a lightshow parade, artwork projects, park illuminations, and more. | Photo: Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust
The money raised from the sale of the artworks will help fund nature’s recovery in Lincolnshire. It will also help the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust create wildflower rich habitats across the county.
Lincolnshire County Council’s Labour Group will call on the Conservative-led authority to rethink its policy of turning off street lights in built-up areas overnight.
The present situation, introduced in 2016, means that most street lights in Lincolnshire are turned off at midnight, as the council said in March this year that lighting has “no impact” on night-time crime levels.
This statement came after a petition signed by over 5,000 people demanded that street lights were kept on overnight following the death of Sarah Everard in London this year.
The response to Sarah Everard’s death was one of concern for women’s safety, to which the council responded by saying “women’s safety is about much more than street lights.”
A memorial for Sarah Everard in Lincoln on university campus. | Photo: The Lincolnite
More than half of Lincolnshire’s street lights were turned off in 2016 as the council looked to save £1.7 million, and despite the petition and concerns raised, just one parish council asked for lights to be switched back on in 12 months, according to the county’s highways chief.
Now Kev Clarke, Labour County Councillor for Boultham Division in Lincoln and member of Lincolnshire County Council Highways Scrutiny Committee, will be raising the issue at the next meeting on Monday, October 25.
He will be calling for a review of LCC’s street lighting policy, and asking for the council to consider the possibility of keeping the lights on overnight.
Councillor Clarke argues: “After recent sad events – attacks on females – a lot of people feel unsafe and anxious when walking home at night when the county is plunged into darkness at midnight.
“Lincoln is being promoted as a university city with young people leaving home for the first time and moving to Lincoln to study here and gain a first class education. Wonder if the parents were told that lights go off, if so they may look at other locations for their children.
“To boost our local economy we want to attract visitors to Lincoln to visit not only as day–trippers, but to stay over for longer periods to enjoy the benefits of the city and county – one of which is not the turning off of the lights.
“Labour County Councillors are not alone in this plea to Lincolnshire County Council to review the current street lighting policy particularly in Lincoln before it’s too late. Students at the University of Lincoln also want to see changes to the current policy.”
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