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Hokey Cokey Characters

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Back in 2024 I removed a character from my medieval fiction novel, now called Benedict’s Song (previously The Wait’s Son). Giselle at that time wasn’t needed, or so I thought, even though she was how I’d introduced the idea of going to France to Benedict; she told him he needed to go there if he wanted to become skilled, the troubadours were the ones to watch.

But the plot in the first third of the novel got a bit tangled so I got rid of her. Then she came back…and she’s back… – Janet Stock. But, after a development edit of the book, I’ve now realised that I need her, she just wasn’t in the right place in the book.

The first third of the novel, where we see Benedict growing into a young man in Lincoln, was very word heavy compared the the middle; his life and learning in France, and the final third; his return to living and performing in Lincoln. So… she is staying – but she will be moved. She will be one of the first people Benedict meets and learns from when he gets to France, and she’ll have a pivotal role certainly in the early part of this section of the story.

She just won’t go away, she’s insisting that she stays – have you ever had characters like that! :-)

Heritage Writing

The Mechanics’ Institute: Lincoln’s School for Working Men

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In a space vacated by a spinning school in 1831, and tucked into the undercroft of Greyfriars, once ran an institution built on a genuinely radical idea for its time: that working men deserved access to education, science, and books. A school not just for the wealthy.

The Lincoln Mechanics’ Institute was founded in 1833, at a meeting called by the Mayor after a petition from eight aldermen and 176 residents. The Earl of Yarborough chaired the first gathering and became its first major backer, pledging £50 toward getting it off the ground. He promised a further £100 if a merger with the Lincoln Literary Society succeeded. It did, and within a year the Institute had fitted out three teaching rooms, a library, and a small museum, with John Boole, father of mathematician George Boole as curator.

Its opening lecture, in April 1834, couldn’t have gone better. Dr Dionysius Lardner demonstrated working steam engine models, just years before Lincoln became one of the country’s leading centres for steam engine manufacture. The following night, a Grand Ball was held at the City Assembly Rooms to raise funds and this would become an annual tradition. Reporters described Yarborough, local MPs, and Lincoln’s leading citizens dancing “with great spirit until a late hour.”

The Institute’s list of supporters reads like a who’s who of the period. With George Boole, Charles Seely, psychiatric reformer Edward Parker Charlesworth, and Chartist leader Thomas Cooper among them. But in 1845, the Rector of South Hykeham accused it in the local press of “degenerating into a Radical club-house,” largely because it had dared to stock a book written by Cooper. He was a former committee member turned political agitator, and wrote the book whilst in prison. Reading the Rector’s complaint now, what stands out isn’t the book (a fairly gentle account of Lincolnshire life) but who he was really objecting to, principally a Whig earl, and a mathematician who was “not Conservative.”

By the 1840s, the Institute had embraced its era fully, organising cut-price railway excursions to Nottingham and Derby on the newly opened line, and appointing a teacher of mechanical drawing for local apprentices. This tied education directly to trades, reshaping the city.

But it didn’t last. A move to larger premises above the Buttermarket in 1863 gave it more room, but by 1892 the City Council wanted the space for a public library, and the Institute was dissolved in 1896 with 600 members still on its books. Its desks went to Lincoln Grammar School; its library was sold. Only its small museum collection eventually found its way home. It merged into what became the City and County Museum, returning, in a quiet way, to somewhere near where it began.

This piece draws on research gathered as part of my volunteering with Re-Imagining Greyfriars. You can find out more about the project here

Greyfriars | Lincoln’s Historic Friary from Heritage Lincolnshire

Heritage Writing

Great Medieval Grimsby

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The remnants of medieval Grimsby were discovered this February by a team from York Archaeology at Grimsby’s Freshney Place redevelopment, near the historical Flottergate area. I used to visit this area frequently in the past but haven’t been for quite a while, so I love it when these medieval headlines crop up, it reminds me of what is always below our feet. The treasures that we never get to see, the hidden stories.

The first written recording of Great Grimsby appears in 866 AD, and by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 the settlement had grown into a modest but established community, with around 33 families living along the banks of the River Haven. Its position on the estuary made it a natural point of exchange, a place where land, river, and sea met. The name Haven is no longer in use, but the waterway itself is at the heart of Grimsby’s dock.

On 11 March 1201, Grimsby’s most historic document, the town’s Charter, decreed that “the good men of Grimsby should be governed by a mayor.” From that moment, Grimsby held the right to self‑govern: to have its own court and its own officials, and by 1218, its first mayor. This marked the beginning of Grimsby’s rise as a town of regional importance. It is often the case that the importance of towns such as Grimsby gets lost over time.

During the 12th century, Grimsby developed into a thriving fishing and trading port. Fishing was its lifeblood, but its reach extended far beyond the Humber. Ships arrived from Norway carrying timber; vessels from Spain and France brought wine; wool left Grimsby’s quays for continental markets; and coal travelled down the coast from Newcastle. At its height, the town ranked 12th in importance to the Crown in terms of tax revenue, a remarkable position for a settlement of its size. “A comparable picture emerges in Boston, where its medieval stature has largely slipped from national memory.

The recent excavation beside the historic street of Flottergate (roughly meaning a place where boats were beached or floated) sits around 2–3 metres below today’s ground level, revealing what is believed to be the medieval ground surface (c. 450–1600 AD). This depth alone tells a story: centuries of building, rebuilding, and urban change have raised the modern town far above its medieval footprint.

Flottergate itself was once a bustling artery in the heart of medieval Grimsby. The adjacent Bullring formed part of a lively livestock market, and the area lay close to the town’s religious and spiritual core, between the Grimsby Minster and the Augustinian Friary.

Anyone who reads my posts regularly will know that I’m particularly attached to the Greyfriars story in Lincoln. The Augustinian Friary in Grimsby was founded some 60-70 years after Greyfriars and there is no evidence of Greyfriars (Franciscans)  ever establishing themselves in Grimsby.

The finds at Flottergate uncovered leather offcuts, pottery fragments, fish bones and oyster shells, and paints a vivid picture of daily life. Archaeologists believe this area may have been home to a leather‑working workshop, echoing similar discoveries elsewhere in the town. The wet, oxygen‑poor soil has preserved organic materials that rarely survive, offering a rare glimpse into the working lives of medieval craftspeople.

Together, these layers, documentary history, medieval trade, and the newly uncovered archaeology, reveal a town shaped by water, work, and resilience.

Grimsby has always been a place where people made their living from the sea, adapted to change, and rebuilt when needed. The medieval past beneath our feet is not just a record of what once was, but a reminder of the town’s long tradition of reinvention.

Source information: Grimsby’s medieval past unearthed during archaeological dig | NELC

Heritage Writing

Ellis Mill – Lone Survivor

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Built in 1798, Ellis Mill still reminds us of the skill, hard work and community strength that shaped Lincoln’s History. In the 1800s the city had a busy milling skyline, nine windmills stood along the West Common ridge, all perfectly positioned to catch the strong steady westerly winds that blew along this limestone escarpment.

Now the lone survivor of that once‑iconic line is Ellis Mill.

But before the Mill was built, there was almost certainly a post mill on the site. These were common mills in the 17th century and had a timber structure where the whole body rotated to face the wind. They were lighter and easier to build on exposed ridges, but as technology advanced they were gradually replaced. So, it was goodbye to the wooden sails and hello to the three-storey brick tower mill, with its distinctive ogee cap (a timber, S-shaped dome), fantail, and four patent sails.

Although it was purchased in 1894 for £250 by local miller and businessman, John Ellis, windmills were already in decline. Then after storm damage in 1941 and a fire in 1974, the mill stood derelict until a major restoration by the Lincoln Civic Trust between 1977 and 1980.

The mill retains important evidence of traditional milling technology, including gearing, stones, and cap mechanisms. In its recent past the reconstructed machinery has demonstrated how the mill worked, displaying a rare insight into historic processes seldom seen today.

Ellis Mill is of high heritage value for its rarity, architectural integrity, community importance, and contribution to Lincoln’s historic landscape.

It stands as a living reminder of the city’s industrial past and if saved from its current neglected state, would be a model of successful heritage conservation.

The mill is currently supported by a dedicated team of volunteers* who want to form a registered charity. That would let them apply for funding from sources like the National Lottery and Historic England. It sits beside the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, and is within walking distance of Lincoln Cathedral, the Castle and the Bishop’s Palace, which places it at the heart of a wider heritage cluster. This location alone merits its inclusion, investment and protection as part of this collective historic landscape.

*Lincoln’s last windmill needs you: volunteers wanted to save Ellis Mill — The Lincolnian

The Heritage Writer 2026