December 14, 2020 10.38 am This story is over 39 months old

Large queues as 3,500 visit Lincoln Castle in four hours

Tickets must now be pre-booked
Lincoln Castle after its doors had closed on Saturday. | Photo: Steve Percival

Some 3,500 visitors went to see the festive display at Lincoln Castle in a four hour period on Saturday, prompting pre-booked tickets to be introduced.

Lincoln Castle Illuminated was cancelled due to Lincolnshire being placed into tier 3 lockdown, but there is still some festive sparkle and people can see parts of the walls lit up and walk through Christmas tree lined walk ways.

The opening hours have also been extended so that the castle grounds stay open longer in the evening until 7pm.

This proved very popular and last week some queues were seen from the castle to beyond the Magna Carta pub, but the event did not close or finish early like comments on social media had claimed.

As a result of the busy queues, particularly on Saturday, free tickets must now be pre-booked in advance here, with an allocated time slot for the after dark experience between 4pm and 7pm.

Will Mason, head of culture at Lincolnshire County Castle, said: “On Saturday, from late afternoon onwards, we had significant numbers of people wanting to attend the grounds, and unfortunately we needed to turn a number of people away.

“Our absolute priority is keeping people safe and ensuring social distancing. With this in mind, people now need to book a ticket. I’d suggest booking quickly though as we only had limited numbers remaining.”