Lincoln

An Iron Age settlement of Britons stood beside Brayford Pool, the natural lake on the River Witham whose name, lindon, "the pool", lies behind the city's own. The Romans conquered the area in 48 CE and built a legionary fortress on the hilltop at the northern end of the Fosse Way. When the army moved on it became a colony of veterans, Lindum Colonia, which spread down the hillside to the waterside. After the Viking raids the town revived as a trading place, and by the end of the 10th century its mint rivalled York's.

In 1068 William I ordered a castle on the old Roman site, and the cathedral rose facing it; its central spire, once complete, made it the tallest building in the world for over 200 years. In 1141 the Battle of Lincoln was fought here during the Anarchy. By 1150 the city was among the wealthiest in England, exporting cloth and wool to Flanders, and it had one of the country's five main Jewish communities, which suffered riots in 1190 and an infamous blood libel in 1255 before the expulsion of 1290. When the cathedral's great spire collapsed in 1549 and was not replaced, it marked a long decline.

The reopening of the Foss Dyke canal in 1745 and the railways of the 1840s brought a second boom, when engineering firms such as Ruston's, Clayton's and William Foster's made the city an industrial centre. Foster's designed and built the world's first tanks here during the First World War. Heavy industry shrank after the war, though turbine making continues under Siemens. The University of Lincoln's Brayford campus, opened in 1996, transformed the waterfront.

The cathedral dominates the city's skyline and its cultural life: it is a working church, and the university's graduations take place inside, and the small carved Lincoln Imp inside it has become the city's mascot. Lincoln Castle's walls, Victorian prison and copy of Magna Carta — with Hugh of Wells, Bishop of Lincoln, among its signatories in 1215 — make the hilltop a lesson in English history. Its bishops included St Hugh, the cathedral's builder, and the 13th-century scholar Robert Grosseteste.

Lincoln's oldest identity is divided between uphill and downhill. The split goes back to the Norman Conquest, when church and army took the hilltop, and uphill long remained the better-off part of town; Steep Hill is the street that joins them. Modern culture centres on the waterfront, where the Engine Shed hosts concerts, and on a calendar of themed events: a history festival, the August steampunk weekend in uphill Lincoln and two Christmas markets. The traditional Christmas market around the castle ran from 1982 to 2022.

Football means Lincoln City, the Imps, who won League One in 2025–26 with 103 points. The University of Lincoln and Lincoln Bishop University, which began as a church teacher-training college in 1862, have given the city a younger feel than its medieval streets suggest.

About 104,000 people lived in the City of Lincoln district at the 2021 census, and the wider urban area, including North Hykeham and Waddington, had about 128,000. The travel-to-work area reaches about 300,000, drawing in a large rural hinterland. Among residents born abroad, Poland, Romania and Lithuania are the most common countries of birth.

The economy rests on public services, the two universities, tourism and what remains of engineering. Siemens still makes industrial turbines at the old Ruston works, while empty factory buildings have become multi-use units, with gyms, university space and a radio station. In the 2021–22 academic year almost 19,000 university students studied in the city, and their presence has filled the Brayford area with flats, bars and restaurants.

The city's division between uphill and downhill still shapes daily life: the hilltop holds the historic quarter, while the High Street, the stations and most shops are below. A southern bypass, the North Hykeham relief road, was due to start construction in 2025 as the final section of a ring road around the city.

Lincolnshire's farming country gives the city its local food, above all pork. The Lincolnshire sausage is a pork sausage dominated by the herb sage, unlike the more peppery Cumberland. Haslet is a pork meatloaf made from minced pork, stale white bread, sage, salt and black pepper, sliced thin and eaten cold with pickles and salad or in sandwiches; it is sold mainly by butchers and on markets. Stuffed chine, salt pork filled with herbs, usually parsley, is another traditional county dish.

The county also produces Lincolnshire Poacher, a hard cheese made from unpasteurised cow's milk at a farm in Alford and matured for between 14 and 24 months; its rind looks like granite. Butchers and delis in the city sell local meats, sausage rolls and sandwiches, and some restaurants put Lincolnshire sausages on their menus.

Eating out divides along the hill. Bailgate and Steep Hill have pubs, tea rooms and small restaurants in old buildings; the Brayford waterfront has bars and restaurants busy with students; and the downhill High Street has fish and chip shops, cafés and restaurants serving food from Korea to the Mediterranean. Lincoln College runs a training restaurant where advanced catering and hospitality students cook.