Bailgate and Chapel Lane in Lincoln

 

Fleurs-de-lys details on Westgate water tower

Newport Arch in Lincoln forms the northern gateway to the Roman city of Lindum Colonia, where Ermine Street passed through it on the way to the city of York and the line of which, to the south, Bailgate, Steep Hill, The Strait and High Street still follow on the way down to the Stonebow.

A view up Bailgate from Castle Hill

When planning my day out in Lincoln, I knew that nearly all the buildings on Bailgate - which runs from Newport Arch to Castle Hill – are built in brick and, although there are numerous interesting historic buildings here, I decided to walk down to the west end of Lincoln Castle via Chapel Lane.

38-40 Bailgate

Before doing so, I went to have a look at a couple of buildings at the northern end of Bailgate – a house at 38-40 Bailgate, where the lower half is built in Lincoln stone and dates to the C13, and Bailgate Methodist Church.

 

Bailgate Methodist Church

Bailgate Methodist Church is not a listed building, but it is a good example of the work of the Lincoln based Bellamy and Hardy, the architects who were responsible for the rear extension to the old Corn Exchange on Cornhill and the new Corn Exchange, as well as Retford Town Hall.

 

Bailgate Methodist Church

Built in the Decorated Gothic style in 1879, the gabled front has three bays divided by buttresses, with a close inspection revealing that all the dressings are in Ancaster stone, with its characteristic ripple structures being clearly seen here.

 

Ancaster stone quoins and Lias walling

The thinly bedded and very fine grained blue-grey walling stone, however, is a material that I had never encountered before in a building, To the west of Lincoln Edge, there is a broad swathe of low lying Lower Jurassic rocks known as the Lias Group, which is the probable source of this stone – with quarries once operating alongside the River Trent at Newark and Long Bennington.

 

A geological map of Lincolnshire

It consists predominantly of grey, well bedded, marine calcareous mudstone with thin tabular or nodular beds of argillaceous limestone, especially in the lower part. Although my practical experience of the Lias is limited, the Blue Lias limestone at the base of the group in Dorset and its equivalent in the East Midlands – the Scunthorpe Mudstone Formation – have quite distinctive characteristics and have been used locally for building wherever they occur.

 

A detail of Lias walling stone

The colour and fine texture of the walling stone at Bailgate Methodist church is very similar to the side panels to the Daubeney tomb at St. Botolph’s church in nearby Saxilby and another tomb chest at St. Lawrence’s church in Hatfield, Doncaster, which I have always assumed to be made of stone from the Lias.

 

A detail of the tomb chest at St. Botolph's church

It also matches the limestone concretion, containing the fossil mould of an ammonite, which was a gift to me and I was told came from a quarry not too far from the steel making town of Scunthorpe, in north-west Lincolnshire.

 

An ammonite in a limestone concretion

Returning to the top of Bailgate, I then quickly headed down Chapel Lane to the Westgate water tower, dated 1911, by Sir Reginald Blomfield, This is unlike any other structure of its kind that I have seen, which in the UK are mostly built with very utilitarian reinforced concrete.

 

Westgate water tower

To complement the character of the surrounding historic buildings, it was built in rock faced Lincoln limestone walling, with dressed ashlar quoins and dressings. Although the Baroque Revival detailing provides it with architectural flourishes, its clasping pilasters, slit windows and fake machiolations give it it solid, castle keep like appearance.

 

A view up Westgate water tower