Under the Romans, Lincoln was a flourishing colony named Lindum Colonia, and was at the northern end of the Fosse Way Roman road. The stone Newport Arch, which was the northern gateway to the Roman city, is the only Roman arch in England through which traffic still passes. Only foundations and fragments of the other three Roman gateways remain. The Romans also dug the Fosseway Canal (Fossdyke), linking the rivers Witham and Trent, and also dug an inland quay at the Brayford Pool ('bray ford' means 'the place to cross the swamp'). This allowed boats to get freely all the way to Lincoln and beyond, and the city became a flourishing inland port. During this period it was populated mainly by the local populace and retired legionnaires. After the legions left in 410, the drainage ditches and waterways fell into decline, and by the close of the 5th century the city was virtually deserted.

After the first destructive Viking raids the city once again rose to some importance. In Viking times Lincoln was a trading centre important enough to issue coins from its own mint. After the establishment of Dane Law in 886, Lincoln became one of five boroughs in the East Midlands. Over the next few centuries, Lincoln once again rose to prominence. In 1068, two years after the Norman Conquest, William I ordered a castle to be built on the site of the former Roman settlement.

The first Lincoln Cathedral, within its close or walled precinct facing the castle was commenced when the see was removed from Dorchester and completed in 1092; it was rebuilt after a fire but was destroyed by an unusual earthquake in 1185. The rebuilt Lincoln Minster, enlarged to the east at each rebuilding, was on magnificent scale, its crossing tower crowned by a spire 160 m (525 feet) high, the highest in Europe.

The bishops of Lincoln were among the magnates of medieval England: Lincolnshire, the largest diocese, had more monasteries than the rest of England put together, and the diocese was supported by large estates outside the county. When the Magna Carta was drawn up in 1215, one of the witnesses was Hugh of Wells, Bishop of Lincoln. A copy is now preserved in Lincoln Castle. Among the most famous bishops of Lincoln were Robert Bloet, the magnificent justiciar to Henry I; Hugh of Avalon, the cathedral builder canonized as Saint Hugh of Lincoln; Robert Grosseteste, the 13th century intellectual; Henry Cardinal Beaufort, a politician deeply involved in the Wars of the Roses; Philip Repyngdon, chaplain to Henry IV of England and defender of Wycliffe; Thomas Cardinal Wolsey.

The administrative centre was the Bishop's Palace, the third element in the central complex. When it was built in the late 12th century, the Bishops' Palace was one of the most important buildings in England. Built by the canonized bishop Hugh of Lincoln, the palace's East Hall range over a vaulted undercroft is the earliest surviving example of a roofed domestic hall. The chapel range and entrance tower were built by Bishop William of Alnwick, who modernised the palace in the 1430s. Both Henry VIII and James I were guests of bishops here; the palace was sacked by royalist troops during the Civil War in 1648.

By 1150, Lincoln was amongst the wealthiest towns in Britain. The basis of the economy was cloth and wool, exported to Flanders; Lincoln weavers had set up a guild in 1130 to produce Lincoln Cloth, especially the fine dyed "scarlet" and "green" the reputation of which was later enhanced by Robin Hood wearing "Lincoln Green". In the Guildhall that surmounts a city gate, the ancient Council Chamber contains Lincoln's civic insignia, probably the finest collection of civic regalia outside London.

Outside the precincts of cathedral and castle, the old quarter clustered outside the Bailgate, and down Steep Hill to the High Bridge, which bears half-timbered housing, the upper storey jettied out over the river, as London Bridge once had. There are three ancient churches: St. Mary le Wigford and St. Peter at Gowts are both 11th century in origin and St Mary Magdalene, built in the late 13th century, is an unusual English dedication to the saint whose cult was coming greatly into vogue on the Continent at that time.

Lincoln was home to one of the five most important Jewish communities in England, well established before it was officially noted in 1154. In 1190, anti-semitic riots that started in Lynn, Norfolk, spread to Lincoln; the Jewish community took refuge with royal officials, but their habitations were plundered. The so-called "House of Aaron" has a two-storey street frontage that is essentially 12th century and a nerby "Jew's House" likewise bears witness to the Jewish population. In 1255, the affair called “The Libel of Lincoln” in which prominent Jews of Lincoln, accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy ("Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln" in medieval folklore) were sent to the Tower of London and 18 were executed. The Jews were expelled en masse in 1290.

During the 14th century, the city's fortunes began to decline. The lower city was prone to flooding, becoming increasingly isolated, and plagues were common. In 1409, the city was made a county corporate. The dissolution of the monasteries further exacerbated Lincoln's problems, and between 1642 and 1651, during the English Civil War, Lincoln was on the frontier between the Royalist and Parliamentary forces. Military control of the city therefore changed hands numerous times. Many buildings were badly damaged. Lincoln now had no major industry, no easy access to the sea and was poorly placed. As a consequence of this, while the rest of the country was beginning to prosper in the beginning of the 1700s, Lincoln suffered immensely, travellers often commenting on the state of what had essentially become a "one street" town.

The Reformation cut off the main source of diocasan income and dried up the network of patronage controlled by the bishop. When the great spire rotted and collapsed in 1549 and was not replaced, it was a sign of Lincoln's decline; however, the comparative poverty of post-medieval Lincoln preserved structures that would have been lost in more prosperous contexts.

By the Georgian era, Lincoln's fortunes began to pick up, thanks in part to the Agrarian Revolution. The re-opening of the Foss Dyke allowed things like coal to be brought to the city.

Coupled with the arrival of the railway links, Lincoln boomed again during the industrial Revolution, and several world-famous companies arose, such as Ruston's, Smith-Clayton's, Proctor's, and William Foster's. Lincoln began to excel in heavy engineering, building diesel engine trains, steam shovels, and all manner of heavy machinery.

Lincoln was hit by a major typhoid epidemic between November 1904 and August 1905, caused by polluted drinking water from Hartsholme Lake and the River Witham. Over 1000 people contracted the disease and fatalities totalled 113. Westgate Water Tower was constructed to provide new water supplies to the city.

In the world wars Lincoln naturally switched to war production. The first tanks were designed and built in Lincoln by William Foster & Co. Ltd during the First World War and population growth provided more workers for even greater expansion. During the Second World War, Lincoln produced a vast array of war goods, from tanks, aircraft, munitions, and military vehicles. Ruston and Hornsby produced diesel engines for ships and locomotives, then by teaming up with former colleagues of Frank Whittle and Power Jets Ltd, in the early 1950s, R & H (which became RGT) started to produce gas turbine engines for land-based & sea-based energy production. They were taken over by GEC in the late 1960s (diesel engine production was transferred to a division of GEC in Newton-le-Willows), merged with Alstom of France in the late 1980s, then in 2003 were bought out by Siemens AG of Germany, now being called Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery. In the post-war years after 1945, new suburbs were built, but unfortunately industry declined towards the end of the 20th Century.

This page was last updated: 24 August 2005

Town history extracts are taken from Wikipedia and are licensed under GFDL