St Peter at Gowts, Lincoln
Here we go with another throwback to the summer of 2020, but instead of all the grim things happening then, let me tell you of a sunny day, and an ancient church. It is worth noting now that as this was an early climb, I hadn’t yet got fully confident handling my camera in the low light of hidden church spaces, so the images are slightly grainier than I’d like.
St Peter at Gowts is sited a little way out of Lincoln’s city centre and has a very typical, and much altered, but still very handsome, Norman tower
Aside from the tower, the only clearly Norman architectural detail left on the church is inside. The font is likely original to the church, a classic old tub font with basic but charming carvings.
Though raised up over time, the font is said to be, at least in part, made from the base of a Roman column.
The rest of the church isn’t very Norman however, with centuries of change and rebuilding adding gothic arches all over the place.
Much of the interior is dominated by art on a grand scale, the reredos, the painted ceilings, the huge hanging cross (or ‘rood’ if you’re using the fancy word), all added in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Later additions of modern light fittings add to this sense of the church as a strange and forgotten gallery.
Though clearly blessed by benefactors in the past, who filled this place with marble and gilding and paint, these days St Peter at Gowts is struggling, and when I visited she was languishing on the Heritage at Risk register. She remains there, deemed to be in a state of ‘slow decay’. The reasons for the designation began to become clear as I climbed that ancient tower.
As I crunched up the ladders and staircases, past the spiders and even skeletons of birds trapped forever in the tower, great cracks became clear in the walls.
An alarming fact is that bell ringing often shakes the towers in which it is performed. Often you can feel them sway as the tonnes of bells, and attendant G-forces, move around inside. This was likely the root cause of these great cracks, and, understandably, bell ringing is now banned here, leaving the great striped bell ropes hanging forlornly in the space, beside ladders I was also banned from climbing.
Though the tower bells no longer ring, the clock, hidden inside the wooden case above, still functions. Take a few seconds, turn up the volume, listen to her tick, and breathe…
Being banned from climbing higher due to structural issues, this is it for the climb, but before we descend we must check out the tiny door hidden in the eastern wall of the tower:
It opens just below the rafters, giving bell ringers up in the tower a view of what’s happening in the church itself, allowing them to ring at just the right moment - when a bride is leaving, perhaps.
And, of course, being below the rafters, that means there’s a gorgeous view of the rafters themselves:
Now let’s take one last look around up here in the tower, before making our way down the stairs.
Back outside the sun is still shining, showing up all the little details and ancient doorways to be found here.
But, there is one secret the church has not yet revealed to us. So it’s time to cross the road, enter the church hall, and then exit it, into a small hidden courtyard in this ancient city.
There, surrounded on all sides by much newer buildings, is a hidden Norman building, dating back almost a thousand years. Never in my life, before or since, have I found such a wonderful surprise hidden away in a city like this. Used for various purposes over the years, including as a stable, it’s just used to store an incredible amount of junk these days, but it’s an absolutely glorious little secret gem.
Here ends the little exploration, but don’t worry, the day of this exploration I also visited two other churches, one of which still holds the title of sketchiest tower climb I’ve ever done. So hold on tight, there’s more of Lincoln to come.