7 August 2010 Lincoln

Lyn in the Lincoln shopping precinct which is on a steep hill


Lyn about to kiss the man from Goldfinger


Swan anyone?


St Swithins church. The West family has history here.


Ellis' Windmill




Rain threatening but we were up early as we had to book ahead for the next couple of nights. It is much cheaper to stay in hotels if we book early but we never book early enough to get the best deals. It gives us more flexibility though.

We booked a couple of nights at a B & B in Skegness as Mick has a cousin living there and he used to go there with his parents when he was a boy. It is about the closest seaside town to Nottingham.

One major disadvantage of Skegness is that the sea goes out about 5 kilometres when the tide is out so if you want to go in for a dip you’ve got a fair walk.

Having booked Skegness, we then got a Skype call from Simon, our son, and Lincoln, our Grandson, who had a lot to say and gurgle respectively.

It was then off sightseeing and doing the shops.

Mick needed socks as Lyn had managed to turn most of his white socks grey in the washing machine and somehow they did’t look the same. But Lyn doesn’t need an excuse to do the shops.

After the shops we went searching for the house the West family had lived in for 50 years only to find that it wasn’t there anymore and instead a multistory car park had been built and/or a building put up in the 60’s.

After a long chat to a Traffic Warden who works for the Lincolnshire Police, we headed of to look at the Ellis’ Windmill.

The tower of the Ellis’ Windmill has been there since 1798 although it is recorded that there were mills in uphill Lincoln as early as 1241.

This mill is the sole survivor of a line of nine, which stretched from the southern end of Mill Road to the Burton Road roundabout and was worked until the 1940’s by the then miller, Frank Ellis.

When milling ceased the mill was then left to rot and eventually fire destroyed all but the brick tower.

In 1977 the Lincoln Civic Trust acquired the mill and began a restoration project, which was completed in 1980.

In April 1981 the mill ground it’s first flour for forty years and is now a tourist attraction.

Unfortunately when we were there, there wasn’t enough wind to turn the sails so we never got to see it work.