Lincoln; Sunday, 21 July, 2002

New day and no showers means that there is more time to look around more of the museums and sites of the city.

In addition to that I discovered the bus service that drives you up the side of the hill rather than having to walk up!!.

At the top of the hill behind the castle is the lawns visitors centre, the former mental hospital of the city, is now a collection of museums, a glasshouse to the memory of one of the cities most famous sons Sir Joseph Banks. He sailed with Captain Cook to Australia as a botanist and discovered and named many of the plants he found there.

When he came back to the UK he help in the founding of Kew Gardens and Kew themselves donated many of the species for the glasshouse.

After the Lawns visitor centre onto the museum of Lincolnshire life. Set in an old army barracks this museum looks at life in Lincolnshire in the 19th century and then has a museum dedicated to the army regiment who were based there before they were merged with another regiment and left. The final part of the museum is dedicated to transport of all types including a small display to one of Lincoln's most important transport inventions the Tank. On certain Sundays (including the day I visited) many of the steam machines are put through their paces.

After the museum of Lincolnshire life I moved onto the Usher gallery a very odd museum that is mostly made up of the items bequested to the city by James Usher on his death. An ecliptic collection of china, coins, watches and grandfather clocks but still interesting.