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- Lincoln Cathedral -
‘No gem in England’s diadem shines more brightly,’ reckoned Arthur Mee in his ‘Kings England’ volume on Lincolnshire. ‘Certainly not one of our cathedrals – not even Salisbury or Durham – is outwardly more striking.’
In penning his own admiration of Lincoln’s glorious cathedral, Nikolaus Pevsner touched on one of the reasons for its grandeur: ‘Apart from Durham,’ he wrote, ‘there is no English Cathedral so spectacularly placed as Lincoln.’ For Lincoln Cathedral towers above the ancient Roman and medieval city, dominating the picturesque old quarter, and its three grand towers perched on the crest of the hill can be seen by travellers from all directions as they approach Lincoln.
It is the third largest cathedral in England, and for its artistry and amazing scale it is arguably the finest. When it was first begun around 1072 by Remigius, England’s first Norman bishop, it replaced a Saxon Minster, and although an earthquake destroyed much of the Norman building in 1185, the magnificent west front survived.
Most of what tourists come to see today was begun in 1192 in the early English style by bishop Hugh of Avalon and completed about a hundred years later. It is a fantastic concrete expression of faith, whose ambition and execution is frankly breathtaking; to the people of Lincoln, of course, it is sacrosanct.
In 1995 the prospect of funding from the national Lottery led some in the city to call for the spires, which originally topped the cathedral’s three towers to be rebuilt. The central spire was destroyed by a storm in 1548 and the two on the west towers were considered unsafe and taken down in 1807. In view of the ongoing £750,000, which is spent each year on maintaining the cathedral in its present condition, however, the idea of restoring the spires was soon forgotten.
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