A jolliday in Lincoln 1

Lincoln is one of my favourite cities to visit. It's not too far, probably about an hour and half - two hours, depending on traffic. W were blessed with lovely weather on the day. We headed towards the cathedral for our first port of call.

I always make a point of visiting Katherine Swynford's tomb when I'm there. She was an amazing woman, first the mistress of John of Gaunt and then his wife, it is from her that most of our royal family and those of the continent are descended.
She is the great grandmother of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII. Her brother in law was Geoffrey Chaucer, of Canterbury Tales fame.

The cathedral was looking beautiful as the sun streamed in through the stained glass windows and threw colourful patterns on the floor and pillars.

 An interesting place, often over looked, is the cathedral library.  This was built by the then Dean of Lincoln, Michael Honywood. He commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to design it, It is one of the only two Wren libraries still in existence.

 Honywood bequeathed his five thousand books to his library, many of them originals, and they are still there. This includes one of the 250 surviving manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
After spending some considerable time here we moved on to the castle.