Lincoln Castle - lots of history and pics - you've been warned!

Yesterday we visited Lincoln Castle.  From the outside, Lincoln Castle is dominated by its sand coloured walls.  Visitors entry is through the East Gate.

Above is the East Gate, viewed from inside the grounds.

Straight ahead from the East Gate is the Crown Court building - still very much in use today.  It as built between 1822 and 1826 - and unfortunately is only open to Court visitors - so we only got a look at the exterior if this magnificent building.  Recently the Court Service considered moving the Crown Court out of the Castle, but decided against doing so as it would be too expensive to do.

Above - Lincoln Crown Court seen from inside the castle grounds.


Also in the grounds is a large red brick building which was built in 1787 to house debtors and felons, and house the prison governor and his family.

The prison was extended in 1847.  For those convicted of felony, the regime was one of isolation - they were incarcerated in separate cells, and only referred to by number.  Daily they were taken to the chapel, with each prisoner wearing a mask before being placed in a little cubicle so that they could only see the Chaplin, but he could see every prisoner.

Prisoners incarcerated in separate system prisons were reduced to numbers, their names, faces and past histories eliminated. The guards and warders charged with overseeing these prisoners knew neither their names nor their crimes, and were prohibited from speaking to them. Prisoners were hooded upon exiting a cell, and even wore felted shoes to muffle their footsteps. The result was a dumb obedience and a passive disorientation that shattered the "criminal community." (source wikipedia).

The prison also housed debtors, who had some social contact - and when they attended they sat on wooden benches, sent back to the right of the Chaplin so that the felons could not see them.

Lincoln prison also housed some prisoners who were to be transported to America and later to Australia.  Capital punishment was also carried out at the Castle.  William Marwood, a local cobbler, developed a new method of hanging, called the "long drop", which had the benefit of killing the prisoner quickly by breaking his neck resulting in the prisoner dying of asphyxia while unconscious.  The previous "short drop" method killed the prisoners by strangulation and was considered which was particularly distressing to prison governors and staff who were required to witness executions at close quarters following the abolition of public executions by the Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868.  In his nine years as a hangman, Marwood hung 176 people.

Also housed in the prison block is an exhibition of the Magna Carta.  I was always under the impression that there was only one Magna Carta, but in fact 4 still survive, one of which is at Lincoln Castle (although it is owned by Lincoln Cathedral).  The Lincoln copy has been over to the USA, and was kept in Fort Knox during much of the WWII.  Two other copies are held by the British Library, and the fourth copy is owned and displayed at Salisbury Cathedral.  For obvious reasons, I could not take any photographs of the document.

And to conclude our tour of Lincoln Castle we walked around most of the walls (unfortunately due to restoration works we could not walk right round).

The Cathedral as seen from the North wall.

 

The West gate as seen from North wall.

Bottom left is the Court, then a new development (sorry no idea what) and then the prison - the 1847 addition is to the right.  In the background is the cathedral.

The east gate in the foreground, with the observatory flying the Union Jack in the back ground.

 A bronze sculpture of Lincoln Castle.