County in England
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire gave the world the Lincoln Imp, the Pilgrim Fathers' first brush with the law, and the tank, all under skies so big they feel like a different county.
Key information
- County
- Lincolnshire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 1.10 million (2021 Census, including North and North East Lincolnshire)
- Known for
- Lincoln Cathedral, Lincolnshire sausages, the Wolds, the Fens, RAF bomber bases, Boston Stump
- What locals are called
- Lincolnshire folk; a person from the city is a Lincolnian
- Famous people
- Isaac Newton, Alfred Tennyson, Margaret Thatcher, Joseph Banks
- Football clubs
- Lincoln City, Grimsby Town, Scunthorpe United, Boston United
About Lincolnshire
Why everyone here is a Yellowbelly
Ask a Lincolnshire person what they're called and you may hear 'Yellowbelly'. Nobody agrees on exactly why. One popular story points to the bright yellow waistcoats of the Lincolnshire Regiment; another to the yellow-bellied local frogs and eels of the Fens. Either way, the name is worn with pride, and it turns up on everything from sports teams to pub signs. The county is England's second largest in the traditional sense, and it has a real sense of being a place apart. Long, straight roads, huge fields and an enormous sky give it a character quite unlike anywhere else in the country.
A cathedral that was once the tallest building on Earth
Lincoln Cathedral sits on a hill above the city and, with its central spire completed in the early 1300s, is believed to have been the tallest building in the world for about 238 years, until the spire collapsed in 1548. It overtook the Great Pyramid of Giza, which had held the title for nearly four thousand years. Inside, look high among the carvings for the Lincoln Imp, a little grinning devil said to have been turned to stone by an angel after causing mischief. He has since become the city's emblem and the badge of Lincoln City's famous Imps. Lincoln Cathedral also owns one of only four surviving original copies of Magna Carta from 1215, which is displayed at Lincoln Castle just up the hill.
The Stump, the Fens and the flattest horizons in England
In the south, Boston's church tower, known as the Boston Stump, rises about 83 metres above the flat Fenland and can be seen from miles around, and from out at sea. Boston gave its name to its American namesake, thanks to the Puritans who set out from the town in the 1600s. Some of them were jailed here after an early attempt to leave England, and the cells survive in the Guildhall. The Fens were drained over centuries, leaving some of the richest soil in Britain. Lincolnshire grows a huge share of the country's vegetables, and in spring the bulb fields around Spalding once drew crowds to the Spalding Flower Parade, a tradition that began in 1959. Then the land lifts into the Lincolnshire Wolds, a gentle chalk range of rolling hills, and the Lincolnshire coast offers the seaside of Skegness, whose jolly fisherman poster from 1908 declared 'Skegness is SO bracing'.
The county that built the tank and flew the bombers
In Lincoln in 1915, the engineering firm William Foster & Co. built 'Little Willie', the first prototype tank. The first tanks were then developed in the city, and Lincoln is still celebrated as the birthplace of armoured warfare. The flat land and open skies also made Lincolnshire perfect for airfields. During the Second World War so many bomber squadrons were based here that it became known as 'Bomber County'. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, flying a Lancaster bomber and Spitfires, is still based at RAF Coningsby, and the International Bomber Command Centre on the hill above Lincoln honours the more than 55,000 airmen of Bomber Command who died. The Dambusters of 617 Squadron trained and flew from RAF Scampton, a name that has become part of British legend.
Sausages, plum bread and stuffed chine
Lincolnshire sausage is the county's most famous dish: coarse pork, heavily seasoned with sage and herbs. It has a distinctive loose texture, and it's best served with mash or in a bun. Then there's Lincolnshire plum bread, which contains no plums at all but plenty of dried fruit, and is traditionally eaten buttered with a slice of cheese. Even more unusual is stuffed chine, salted pork neck packed with parsley, a local delicacy rarely found elsewhere. Grimsby, on the Humber, was once the world's greatest fishing port, and its smokehouses still produce smoked haddock and other fish that have been loved for generations.