I ascend unto My Father and your Father

St. John of the Cross

Psalm 119: 105

I ascend unto My Father and your Father

THE GARDEN AT LINCOLN MEDIEVAL BISHOPS’ PALACE is a contemporary yet peaceful space elevated high above Lincoln city where you feel that you are soaring above the landscape along with the peregrine falcons who have nested nearby. Lincoln Medieval Bishop’s Palace is the only English Heritage property to have a vineyard, which is run with help from the local community.

You arrive in the garden through the labyrinth of the ruined Bishops’ Palace, emerging from the darkness of a cold stone room with a vaulted ceiling, down a flight of ancient steps, and then through a gap in the thick Medieval wall into the light. Because it’s on a south-facing slope you first see the garden from above.

At the back of the terrace is a buttressed Roman wall which, in summer, is self-seeded with red Valerian ( Centranthus ruber) – highly appropriate as this tough, opportunistic plant gets its name from an ancient Roman family, the Valerii.

From the viewing platform your eye immediately picks out nine tightly clipped hornbeam ( Carpinus betulus) piercing the air like the spires of the Cathedral. Narrow weathered brick paths at precise geometric angles running between the trees echo the intricacy of the ribs supporting the Cathedral’s ceiling. Each tree is sunk into a circlet of polished stainless steel, like the architectural bosses where the ribs intersect.

If this sounds overly complicated it’s not. You’re reminded of the elegant workmanship of medieval craftsmen, such as the silversmiths who made the chalices and communion plates and the stonemasons who sent ambitiously tall towers into the air.

On descending the viewing platform onto the grass below it feels as if you are in an outdoor church. Clipped yews with recesses for benches look like the stalls of the cathedral choir. Other echoes of medieval Christianity are carefully woven into the garden.

One of the shining steel disks encircling the hornbeam has a labyrinth etched into it, a reference to one of the earliest Christian symbols of man’s search for God. Another disk has curling vine leaves upon it pointing both backwards to the earliest inhabitants of Lincoln, the Romans who brought vines from Italy, and also forwards to the vineyard planted on the lower terrace. The vines were a gift from the city’s twin town in Germany, Neustadt-an-der-Weinstrasse in 1972.

Although this garden is mainly an elegant ‘green thought in a green shade’ the restrained planting around the edge alludes to the fact that it was once a working garden. Purple lavender with its medicinal qualities, tall spires of Acanthus – a plant that recurs again and again in medieval sculpture and wood carving – and the striking blood red climbing Rosa ‘Guinee’ enliven this subtle, restful space without overpowering it.

Lincoln Medieval Bishop’s Palace has the only official Vineyard within all English Heritage properties and Lincoln city. The vines were donated by Naustradt in Germany and the three varieties – Ortega, Muller Thurgau and Madelaine Sullvaina – are all white grape from the north side of the Rhine. When it was first planted in 1972 it was the most northerly vineyard in Britain, and it is now one of three.

‘The Vineyard Community Project’, put together early 2013 to help with the care of the vineyard, now involves a volunteer group from the local community, alongside a partnership with a local vineyard to help with the harvesting and the production of wine at the end of the season. The vineyard is an historical asset which has now been tamed into a functioning vineyard. This forgotten gem has become a flourishing natural environment that has not only encouraged the wildlife of the area to stop by, but also many new visitors.

• Source – English Heritage

The palace of Lincoln was one of the most impressive buildings of medieval England, reflecting the power and wealth of Lincoln’s bishops. It is situated on a spectacular hillside site, in the shadow of the cathedral, providing extensive views over the city.*

The palace lies outside the cathedral close, but was, and remains an enclosed space of 1.05 ha between the close and the east wall of the city. To the south are the Victorian Temple Gardens, and to the west is St Michael’s Church and churchyard. This position has given the site and aura of quiet and privacy, even though it lies in the heart of the city. Today it comprises the late nineteenth-century bishop’s palace and its gardens, which contain the ruins of the central buildings of the twelfth-to-seventeenth-century bishop’s palace.

Lincoln was a major Roman city, and by the early fourth century had its own bishop. St Paulinus had built a church there in 627, and in 675 the bishopric of Lindsey was established, possibly centred on the city.*

In 1607, Remi of Fecamp, the first bishop created after the Norman conquest of 1066, moved the cathedral of  his diocese from Dorchester-on-Thames to Lincoln to compliment the castle that was being built within the ruins of the Roman town on top the limestone ridge. From the first, the castle and cathedral were designed as symbols of Norman power, to express authority of the crown and church on a conquered nation.

Subsequent bishops seemed to have lived outside the city, or within the royal castle, as land for a palace of their own was not granted until 1135. Even then, it was not until the mid-twelfth century that Bishop Robert de Chesney started to build a residence for himself and his household on the present site.*

*From the English Heritage guidebook to Medieval Bishops’ Palace, Lincoln

There has been a palace on this site for not much short of 1,000 years. From here the medieval bishops ran the huge Diocese of Lincoln, which at that time stretched from the Humber to the Thames and from Cambridgeshire to the edge of the West Midlands. Medieval buildings and romantic ruins are still in evidence and surround one side of our front courtyard and the eastern boundary of our garden. The ruins of the Medieval Bishop Palace are managed by English Heritage.

The building that you see today was built on medieval foundations in three phases. The earliest visible part is a roughly square area built in 1720 forming the South West corner of the palace, at the centre of which is a classical Georgian panelled staircase. Ten years later a low range of panelled rooms was added, running north towards the Cathedral and the building then remained unchanged for a centenary and a half until 1885.

In that year Edward King was appointed Bishop of Lincoln and decided to move the Episcopal seat back into the centre of Lincoln. He chose the site of the Medieval Palace and set about expanding and remodelling the Georgian building into his new residence. The exterior of much of the building, including the entrance and most of the garden elevations, date from that time.

In 1948 the Bishop of Lincoln moved to a smaller house on the north side of the Cathedral and the palace went through a number of different phases over successive decades.

In 2007 a major refurbishment was undertaken, the aim of which was to restore the building in sympathy with its various period interiors, whilst creating a comfortable and elegant environment. Finally, in July 2009, The Old Palace opened its doors once again, offering sophisticated conference, dining and reception facilities with luxurious accommodation.

In 2011 it was decided to extend the services offered and open The Old Palace as a hotel. The adjacent redundant church St. Michael on the Mount was bought to create 16 additional bedrooms for The Old Palace Hotel. The hotel opened in March 2012 with 16 bedrooms in the main house. Only four months later, the new bedrooms in the former church, now called The Old Palace Lodge, were finished, increasing the number of bedrooms at The Old Palace to 32 comfortable classic rooms, master rooms and suites.

• The Old Palace Heritage

John 5:24