Week Ending 27 May - Alford, Lincoln

We are getting so tired of rain.  The mind is very kind to us when it comes to remembering things unpleasant.  I can't remember how many days we've had rain - seems like forever.  The rains have been heavy enough to cause some minor flooding.  This week is the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show.  The television spends at least an hour every night  on the  Big Flower Show.  Ruth tells us that it always rains at least one day of the Chelsea Flower Show.  So, some rain is expected, but even the natives are grumbling about it. Before I tell you about Tuesday's adventure, I have to tell you a little bit about Pam.  Pam was born an "Alford."  Pam"s hobby has been genealogy and for years she was secretary for the "Alford Family."  For years and years and years, Pam recorded every Alford in the US and published their newsletter.  The members of the family have known about the town of Alford, England, and some of its members have visited and brought home "Alford Pottery."  How could Pam live within an hour's drive of this historic place without visiting - the "Alford Mecca"? Tuesday we packed a lunch and headed east in search of "Fabled Alford."  From Southwell we drove east and south to the town of Boston, a coast town on the delta of the River Witham.  This area was as flat as the Sacramento-San Rafael Delta in California, so as close as we might have been to the English Channel, we saw no salt water.  From Boston we headed north  to Alford.  The town of Alford is a pleasant little agricultural town with a couple of tourist spots: the Manor House, the five bladed Windmill and, for some, the Alford Pottery Works.  The Manor House, "one of the finest examples of a thatched roof manor house in all of England," was closed for renovation.  We found the Alford pottery works down a small side road and after a brief visit to the pottery shop, we lunched at the Windmill.

This little thatched roof inn was located on the main street of Alford                                                                                             The five bladed windmill >

We all enjoyed the pottery shop and Pam bought several mugs to give to her family members as souvenirs.  They were embossed with an Alford City Crest  and were quite unusual.  The windmill was quite sophisticated.  It used slats for the sails - sort of like Venetian blinds.  The attack angle of the slats could be adjusted from inside the tower by the use of steel rods and bell-cranks  - each of the blades was adjusted at the same time.  The bottom of the tower had a 24" pulley  allowing for a power take-off via a wide belt.  This windmill was a real working machine; lots of steel parts and all seemed to be in working order

Upon leaving Alford, we headed west to Lincoln.  You may remember that we had been to Lincoln once before (Click here to review), but we spent so much time at the "Museum of Lincolnshire Life" that we didn't get to see either the Cathedral or the Castle.  The Cathedral is magnificent in its own right but had been recently made more popular since being used as a set in the movie "The DaVinci Code".  Lincoln Cathedral was the understudy to Westminster Abbey.  The Castle houses one of the four remaining original copies of the "Magna Carta" Guess what?  We were late getting to Lincoln and had time for one of the two.  We walked around the Cathedral from where we parked the car and went inside to find out what might be available but decided to do the castle instead.

I was a little disappointed in the Lincoln Castle.  From the outside it was everything a castle should have: a hill top location, high strong curtain walls, impressive bastions, and defendable portcullis.  Inside there were only two buildings - one a prison and the other the local Crown Courthouse still in use today.  Court was in session when we were there

The prison building housed the display of the Magna Carta. There were several displays explaining the background and history of the document and then the small, darkened room housing the document itself.  No photography was allowed in the room and a docent was there to answer any questions.  The Magna Carta was surprising small (about 18" square), lacking any decorations, with very small crowded Latin script.  Scribes had prepared the document.  The docent explained that the scribes of the time were usually monks while King John and the others "signing" the document were illiterate and attached their seals.  The ribbons and seal of King John had been removed because King John reneged and tried to undo the agreement.  The Pope told him that he ruled by "divine right" and that the document had no meaning. From the Magna Carta display we went into the prison.  The prison was pretty much as a prison should be except that all the prisoners were isolated.  In order to maintain this isolation the chapel was especially configured.  Each prisoner was hooded so that he could not be identified by the other prisoners and escorted to a box that allowed him to see the minister but not the other prisoners.

The Prison Chapel as seen from the Pulpit

"Sitting in the chapel was a challenge," says Nancy.  The seats were slanted and when the door between prisoners was closed, all you could see was up and at the minister.  We surmised that the seats were slanted so that the prisoners couldn't fall asleep during prayer.  As we left the chapel through the marked exit, we took a wrong turn and ended up in what appeared to be a furniture store.  What a furniture store was doing in an abandoned prison is a mystery to me.  When we left the prison we climbed the bastion pictured above and walked the castle walls.  The views were spectacular.

We left the castle and drove back to B&P's home base.  There was still daylight and Bruce and I decided to do a quick nine-holes.  The whole day had been scattered rain but it looked clear.  We lost again - I couldn't believe it.  We got to the 5th hole and a fast moving squall dumped buckets on us.  Didn't stop us - we pulled out umbrellas, stood under a tree and waited about ten minutes and the squall passed.  We were able to finish our round without any further interference.  After golf the ladies had dinner waiting - it doesn't get any better than that. I've told you that Pam is an experienced genealogical researcher.  I had reached a dead end in my  research on Nancy's family line.  I had traced Nancy's maternal grandmother's line back to her mother living in St. Paul in the 1900 census - that was my dead end.  I can find no trace of the maternal grandmother's family line earlier than that.  Pam had me pull up the 1900 census and check for other people living in the same house - there she was - listed as a boarder was an older woman.  The older woman proved to Nancy g-g-grandmother and from her we found the next older generation - her g-g-g-grandfather, born in 1803.  We were still unable to find anything on her g-grandfather before 1900, the husband of her maternal g-g-grandmother or the wife of her g-g-g-grandfather, but two generations is pretty good find. Wednesday we woke to rain, Surprise!  B&P drove us to the bus depot in Nottingham.  The trip back to Bristol was uneventful and a straight rewind of the trip out. We had scheduled the weekend to Paris, but there was some problem committing to the booking.  We checked with the travel agent the first of the week and the agent regretted that they couldn't get us a room in Paris - so the trip was off.  With the trip not happening we could enjoy being rained in for a couple of days.  Crappy weather meant we had to stay inside and work on "inside things".  Nancy worked on her knitting and I, with a fast modem and a genealogy quest, managed to keep happy and busy.  Anywhere but the brier patch!

Return to the Journal Home Page

Go on to the Next Page

Return to the Home Page