Historic Churches 2018

BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON HISTORIC CHURCHES 25 TH ANNUAL EDITION 17 in terms of their modern application and their location within a historic tradition. The heritage significance of the site is innately complex and has two main strands. On the one hand it is an architectural, archaeological and historic symbol of the past, while on the other it is a fully operational workshop whose activities have a distinct historic and cultural basis. Its work is of inherent technical value through providing the culturally sensitive expertise needed to manage this complex historic site. Furthermore, it also provides the professional conditions necessary to foster artisanal creativity, which has a much wider social meaning. The tangible remains at the workshop attest to the wider development of the city of Lincoln as a historically-rich urban tapestry and contain significant evidence for the specific development of a historic craft community on this site. Firstly, the site sits at a critical point in the historic spatial distribution of the city. It is situated immediately outside the scheduled east gate and walls of the Roman fort and later colonia of Lindum, and its significance includes potential archaeological evidence relating to its location in the settlement’s immediate extra-mural areas. The site also lies at the critical transitional space between the medieval domestic suburb of Eastgate and the city’s core ecclesiastical centre clustered around the cathedral itself. The Close Wall for example, built in the 14th century to protect the clergy from the rabble, forms the site’s southern boundary. Beyond it are the medieval close properties. On the site itself are two administrative buildings which date from the 17th century, possibly earlier, although substantially altered with Georgian, Victorian and early Edwardian façades. The buildings were historically used as a bakery, an inn and lodgings before the works department moved to the site in the late 1880s. Beyond these broader archaeological and standing remains, the site also includes infrastructure specific to the development of the site as a craft base focused on the cathedral. On the site is a series of late Victorian vernacular workshops, altered and expanded throughout the 20th century. These workshops provide a physical locus to the craft tradition to which many of the craftspeople at the site feel they belong, knowing that the skills they practise here have been used on this site for over a century. This communal sense of continuity and tradition is supplemented by the works yard archive, which includes historic photos of masons and other craftspeople working on the cathedral (page 16). Woven into the fabric of these workshops are historic pieces of machinery, including a 1920s compressor that has chugged away here for nearly 100 years, providing a constant background heartbeat. The site includes a large collections store with relic sculpture taken from the cathedral during years of conservation work, including internationally significant examples from the medieval period. There is also a series of hidden underground shafts used to store precious stained glass during the second world war to protect it from air raids. These buildings and collections also have a unique visual and emotive impact in relation to the surrounding context, which includes fine examples of historic domestic and ecclesiastical architecture. These contrasting uses add to the rich narrative of both the area’s historic growth and the specific lifecycle of the cathedral itself. In terms of its tangible remains alone, the Lincoln Cathedral Works Yard is significant because it is indicative of the development of Lincoln as a rich historic multiphase settlement from its earliest period. It also exemplifies the subsequent development of domestic, commercial and light industrial activities with close associations to the growth of the cathedral as a distinct and complex space within the wider urban milieu. The tangible remains, however, are only one part of the story. There are numerous ways to frame the intangible elements of the site but two of the most evident are the distinct ways of working associated with it and the value of the end-product. There are ways of doing things at the site that have intrinsic value to the people who work there. In particular Lincoln Cathedral Works Yard with administrative buildings to the front and workshops behind (Photo: Antony Lowe) Detail of the 1/2500 Ordnance Survey map of Lincoln published in 1907: the Cathedral Works Yard is circled in red and the arrow indicates the view shown in the photo below. (Reproduced by kind permission of The National Library of Scotland.) https://maps.nls.uk/view/114649050

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