Day 257 - Lincoln Revisited - the Castle and Jail

Castle tower in background,
jail building in foreground

Happy Canada Day!  Again!   (I thought I should address the legal requirement that we celebrate the day on the 2nd).  Although the title of today's post would suggest otherwise, we didn't stay in Lincoln but, since today was spent travelling south to stay at a hotel next to Gatwick Airport (in anticipation of our flight to Venice in two days), it was more exciting to talk about the second half of our outing to Lincoln.  That involved us taking a tour of Lincoln Castle and the  Jail that remains.  The castle was built on the original site of the Roman fort and much of what exists today began with the Normans who built the stone walls in 1068.  The concern by William the Conqueror that there was a need to fortify the area against the attacks from the north by the remaining Danes was reason for its construction.  It became part of a family feud in the 12th century when two cousins, the ruling English King Stephen was challenged for the throne by Empress Matilda, the daughter of the previous English King Henry the 1st.  Stephen was his nephew but when Henry had no surviving sons the powers that be supported him rather than her.  The castle was a royalist stronghold and survived attacks by Matilda's army.  She got the last laugh though because when Stephen eventually died, Matilda's son became the next King, Henry the 2nd. 

Victorian prison with "new style"
isolated prison cells

If only our classrooms were like this....

The castle was always used as a prison but it was in the 18th century when its use as a strategic fort was replaced by the need for an expanded prison facility.  It it was built to keep others out it certainly could be used to keep others in.  Internal structures within the castle's extensive courtyard were removed and a courthouse and jail were constructed.  The concept of isolation was being introduced at the time.  This meant that individual cells would keep them apart as opposed to in larger rooms and they had designed it for both women and men.  Access to isolated courtyards was also introduced.  An interesting remnant of the isolation approach included a chapel where prisoners were also isolated in separate stalls (see picture) prompting Professor Sanderson and myself to wonder if such a system could be used in a classroom setting....   Eventually the need to put multiple prisoners into cells because of limited space for new convicts led to the disuse of the facility in 1878. 

Professors Sanderson and Walsh
pondering education reform.
Hanging wall in background.

Public hangings were moved from the town center because of the rowdiness and drunkenness of the crowds that surrounded the hanging rope.  Instead they were performed on the northeast tower of the castle where crowds could view from below in the upper part of the town.  It is here that the first "long drop" hanging was performed where instead of choking to death, the executed were dropped a sufficient distance so that their necks were broken - a more humane approach and one that became the common method. Bodies were then taken across to the  Lucy Tower (so named after Lucy, the Countess of Chester in the 12th century) which had its top filled in with dirt so as to allow for a cemetery that exists to this day.   The court house also remains and is still used to handle court cases in Lincoln.

After a long hot afternoon walking the walls and visiting the cells resulted in ice cream on the bench and eventually our return to Market Overton.

Ale of the Day: Magna Carta Amber Ale, Lincolnshire Brewery, Lincoln.