In April 2008 we took the decision that
the time was right to approach HLF for
a major grant, the options being a Round
1 submission in either September 2008
or the same time the following year; as
we already had the 800th anniversary of
Magna Carta in our sights the earlier date
seemed to make sense. It was actually
madness and although we just got it in
on time, my memory is of it being a very
stressful five months: discovering we didn't
actually have detailed plans of the site,
not really being sure what HLF wanted
and in the last three weeks developing a
facial twitch whenever the words Heritage
Lottery were mentioned! It all came good
and although our plans were a bit clunky,
the vision we had was right and we were
all set to knuckle down to getting the
detail right at Round 2. To compound the
horror, we had decided to bid for European
and regional money to build the Heritage
Skills Centre, and that bid had to be in
late October and a few weeks after that a
bid to another regional funder for money
to repave Bailgate in York stone. More
twitching! The method in our madness was
that we might get one bid through, so we
were spreading the risk; as it turned out all
were approved.
We needed
a plan
It's easy to forget those milestone moments
along the way that helped make things
happen. Moments when decisions were
made, that long after you realised were a
very "good thing". Forming the Historic
Lincoln Partnership (HLP) in 2005
definitely comes into that category. I
had been delivering some £18m of regeneration through the Lincolnshire Waterways
Partnership (County Council, Environment Agency, British Waterways) and this had
been formed to provide the strategic background to everything we did. It was also a
close-knit way of working as we ironed out problems as soon as they arose, not only
more collaborative but the funders loved it too. The connection between waterways
and historic buildings may seem unlikely but we thought we'd got a winning formula,
so together with my long suffering team, I was moved from Waterways onto Historic
Lincoln. The Historic Lincoln Partnership was created to the exact same model,
bringing all the stakeholders together to plan the future for some complex ancient
buildings and the sometimes, even more complicated spaces in between. A number of
studies were done and in 2006 we began removing rampant ivy that was galloping across
the Castle walls and hiding goodness knows what damage and starting on the North
side taking out the self-set trees that had invaded the banks, almost hiding it from sight.
In 2007 we began the HLP Newsletter, I still have Issue Number 1 and it's very brief
and no colour, but it was correct when it said "We have big plans for Lincoln Castle". It
was the Partnership, chaired by the Dean, that agreed that of all the problems on our list
the Castle was the worst and that as it was `letting the side down' its restoration would
deliver for the whole of Historic Lincoln. The decision that the Castle should go first for
funding was a vital one and shows the HLP playing a long game. Ten years on, Lincoln
Cathedral has submitted a Round 1 application to HLF exactly according to schedule!
The very first Historic Lincoln Workshop was held in February 2008, keynote speaker
was archaeologist Dr Jonathan Clarke who talked about the 1217 Battle of Lincoln Fair
"as important as the Battle of Hastings in 1066 or the Battle of Britain in 1940, but
who remembers it now?" This made us realise that the years 1215-17 were our focus.
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