other thoughts: Off I go again - Lincolnshire but not by the sea

Monday, 31 May 2021

Off I go again - Lincolnshire but not by the sea

I'm determined at the moment to make the most of this time between the lifting of Covid restrictions and any future Third Wave of the virus, so almost immediately after my return from the Yorkshire Dales I set about planning my next trip. Again, I was looking for somewhere not too far, and preferably somewhere new.

Doddington Hall

Now Lincolnshire as such isn't a new place for me. I lost count long ago of the innumerable times I visited the coast there as a child. Growing up in the East Midlands in the 1960s it was the place for holidays. My parents owned a caravan on one of the many sites near Skegness, and from Easter to October we'd be there any sunny weekend (or so it seemed).

Gunby Hall

The rest of Lincolnshire though was just somewhere to be driven through. Tattershall Castle was an iconic marker on the route, and Gunby a place I remembered for its huge traffic roundabout, but we stopped at neither.

Bolingbroke Castle

Since then I've been back and mixed amusement arcades with stopovers at Tattershall Castle or Belton Hall This time I wanted to go back and see what else I'd missed - so no slot machines or ice cream, and only a distant glimpse of the sea, but countryside, walking, and a spot or two of history in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

We found a place to stay through AirBnB again - a perfect cottage for two in a village north of Louth - and laid our plans, with booked entry to gardens at Doddington Hall, Gunby Hall and Belton, and tickets to the castle at Tattershall. We were lucky with the weather - going away in the few days between torrential downpours and the Bank Holiday heatwave, and I've come home convinced there is more to be discovered - certainly more country paths to be walked - and resolved to re-visit