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Thursday 15 August 2019

Lingering a little longer in Lincoln before leaving.



There has been an oil mill on this site since 1790, and before that it was the site of Lincoln's first 'modern' hospital. It first started in 1790 as the mill of John Summerscale. It was later sold to his son in law Doughty who further developed it until about 1891. The mill was closed in 1990 and the various parts have been converted to flats.

After the wind of yesterday the full offering of the 1940's weekend was able to get going today. I liked the old fashioned police man.

There was vehicles and equipment to be seen, and there were many folk out to walk around. There were plenty of stalls up at Steep Hill and Helen was able to add to her store of Christmas presents.

The West face of the cathedral is covered in scaffolding and sheets, but this frieze shows so newly repaired work and may well be the temptations of Hell.

We left about 1300 and headed up the Witham. Amy came for the ride.

These aluminium and steel figures span the river in City Square. They are called 'Empowerment' and were created by Stephen Broadbent and sponsored by Siemen's (Alstom Power at the time). It was erected in 2002.

In times of high river levels and flow the restricted width of the river through the Glory Hole, or Murder Hole as it used to be called, and the flow is really strong. There are traffic lights that warn you of the strong flows, or prevent passage.

Here you can see the barrel vaulting at the far end that is from the oldest, Norman, part of the bridge from 1160. The arched vaulting is from when it was widened in 1540. We dropped Amy off as we cleared the Witham and entered the Brayford Pool, and the Fossdyke Navigation. It seems that they have extended the official visitor moorings as we seem to remember that there was only room for a couple of boats previously. Once clear of the permanent moorings we were soon at the very lovely Burton Waters Marina for fuel. All was very efficient and 85p for the cheap rate.

Saxilby is always busy when we have passed by previously. There was room but we didn't want to stop today and passed through.

Just about the only bend on the Fossdyke is at Drisney Nook. This little place seems to have been the centre of a modern slavery ring last year!

It is amazing to see how little it has changed since the early 1900's. The Humber keel is a very rare sight now though. It is interesting to see that it is towing something behind as well as its dingy. They used to load to a draught for the Humber and Trent, but coming into the Fossdyke the depth was left so cargo was transferred to a 'lighter' and towed behind to its destination. How on earth did they prevent it colliding with everything that they passed with it on such a long line.

This was taken on Monday morning, but when we arrived on Sunday evening the Cottam Power station was off line. No smoke from the chimney and no steam from the cooling towers. Monday morning must need more power. There is a combined cycle gas turbine power station on the site too. It seems that both will be closed by September 2019.

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