Lincolnshire is having a moment. The often overlooked province has just been named a ‘trending hotspot in Britain’ by holiday giant Expedia, which reported a 70 per cent increase in the number of people looking to book a hotel stay there. Brighton, Swansea and Durham were listed as other emerging destinations.
The province is also a hotspot in other respects. On July 19, 2022, the town of Coningsby in Lincolnshire, already home to the world’s largest one-hand clock face, recorded Britain’s highest ever temperature: 40.3C (104.5F). You don’t have to risk queues and cancellations this year if you’re looking to beat the summer heat. Just visit Lincolnshire, where it can sometimes be warmer than the Sahara – but there’s more to see.
Lincolnshire, England’s second largest county, is used to breaking records. For more than 200 years, from 1311 to 1548, Lincoln Cathedral, ‘the most precious piece of architecture in England’ according to John Ruskin, was the tallest building in the world, with a central spire 160 meters high – the first such structure in 4,000 years . years to climb the Great Pyramid. Unfortunately, the spire fell during a storm.
Near the cathedral is a third-century Roman arch, the oldest in Britain still used by traffic, while the aptly named Steep Hill, a winding cobbled street lined with houses dating back to the Normans, and those of the cathedral leads to commercial Lincoln. , is the fourth steepest street in England.
Elegant Louth, in the Lincolnshire Wolds, is the most northerly town on the prime meridian and has the tallest church tower in England, 95 meters high. That honor used to belong to Grantham, where the tower of St Wulfram’s reached a height of 86 meters in the 13th century, the first church tower in Britain to reach a height of 76 metres.
Grantham was the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher in 1925, while a few miles to the west is Woolsthorpe Manor, a sprawling 17th-century farmhouse that was the birthplace of Isaac Newton on Christmas Day 1643. It was at Woolsthorpe that he observed an apple drop from a tree in the orchard and thus discovered gravity, and if you visit at the right time of year you can also see an apple drop from the same tree.
The tower of St. Botolph’s in Boston, the Boston Stump, is the tallest medieval church tower in Britain, 83 meters high and a prominent landmark for sailors on the Wash. It would have been a familiar sight to the Pilgrim Fathers. was from Boston, in 1607, that the religious separatists William Brewster and William Bradford and their followers first attempted to sail away to the Netherlands to escape persecution. A lone monument marks the spot next to Scotia Creek south of the city where they were captured after being betrayed by their ship’s captain, and the prison cells at Boston Guildhall where they were held awaiting trial can still be seen to see.
The following year the same pilgrims managed to escape, this time in the north of the county, from Immingham at the mouth of the Humber. Immingham was a small village at the time, but has since grown into one of Britain’s largest freight ports.
To the west, old meets new at Barton-upon-Humber, the oldest port on the estuary, where St Peter’s Church, with Britain’s finest 10th-century Saxon tower, slumbers in the shadow of the Humber Bridge. With a central span of 1,410 meters, this was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened in 1981.
Beyond Immingham, to the east, is the ancient fishing port of Grimsby, England’s oldest chartered town (since 1201). Once the largest fishing port in the world, the Victorian docklands are now a dystopian mix of modern warehouses and dilapidated infrastructure, including the grim remains of the world’s oldest and largest ice factory stubbornly awaiting rescue from vandalism and decay. From the waterfront you can catch a small glimpse of Italy, the most striking landmark on the east coast of Britain, the 61 meter high Grimsby Dock Tower, once filled with 30,000 liters of water to provide hydraulic power to operate the dock gates and disguised to resemble the Torre del Mangia in Siena.
The Lincolnshire coast starts east of Grimsby at Cleethorpes, where you’ll find the world’s largest fish and chip shop, Papa’s, on the pier. From here, 50 miles of glorious coastline run south to the Wash.
Mablethorpe, where the poet Lord Tennyson wandered the dunes, offers miles of sandy beach, Ingoldmells, where the first Butlins opened in 1936, now has the world’s tallest suspended looping rollercoaster, the Jubilee Odyssey, and in Skegness the iconic Jolly Fisherman, star from the railway posters of the early 19th century, still hops along the bracing coast of one of Britain’s most traditional holiday resorts.
Inland, the Lincolnshire Wolds, 350 square kilometers of gently rolling chalk hills, secret valleys, babbling streams and swaying barley fields dotted with bright red wild poppies, form an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and belie the county’s reputation for being flat. Wolds Top, 168 meters high, is the highest point between Yorkshire and Kent and offers spectacular views from the Humber to the Wash.
The small village of Somersby in the south of Woldië was the birthplace of Alfred, Lord Tennyson in 1809. Nearby is the glorious 17th century red-brick Harrington Hall, where the poet invited the daughter of the house to ‘Come into the garden, Maud…’, Gunby Hall, the 17th century home of the Massingberds, described by Tennyson as ‘ that meeting place of ancient peace’, and the ruins of Bolingbroke Castle, where Henry IV was born in 1367.
In the south of the county, elegant Stamford, with its five churches and many Georgian streets, was England’s first conservation area and a popular location for historical films and dramas. Britain’s first tomatoes were grown just outside the city in the conservatories of Elizabethan Burghley House, built for Sir William Cecil in 1555.
Crowland, 15 miles to the east, is home to Britain’s only triangular three-way bridge, built in the 14th century with three converging stages and left high and dry when the River Welland changed course. Grand Crowland Abbey claims to be the first church in England to have a chime, installed in the 10th century, and the current bells were the first ever recorded on radio by the BBC in 1925. The bell ropes, 90 feet (27 meters) long, are the longest in the country.
Perhaps the coolest place of all in our hottest county is the little town of Bourne, where pretty houses and pretty streets come together around a beautiful abbey church. A monk called Robert of Bourne, who taught here in the early 14th century, was the first person to write a book entirely in the English language, The Handling of Synne, in which he used the everyday language of the local Lincolnshire people and effectively standardized the Lincolnshire dialect. into a form of national English that is still recognizable today.
Where to stay
The Rest in Lincoln is a boutique hotel in a spectacular location close to the cathedral. Apartments on a B&B basis from €89.
The Crown Hotel in Stamford is a blend of stylish, modern décor and traditional charm in the heart of Stamford. Doubled from €150.
The Old Granary, Owmby, offers clean and comfortable self-catering apartments, conveniently located in the beautiful Lincolnshire Wolds. Doubled from €90.
For more places to stay, check out the best hotels in Lincolnshire.
This story was first published in August 2022 and has been revised and updated.