page_title: Lincoln Cathedral
section_title: 21st century
hierarchical_section_title: Lincoln Cathedral / Modern history / 21st century
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of Lincoln Cathedral.
context_page_description: Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Construction commenced in 1072 and continued in several phases throughout the High Middle Ages. Like many of the medieval cathedrals of England it was built in the Early Gothic style.
  Although considered doubtful by some, many historians claim it was the tallest building in the world for 238 years, if so the first building to hold that title after the Great Pyramid of Giza. The central spire collapsed in 1548 and was not rebuilt. Had the central spire remained intact, Lincoln Cathedral would have remained the world's tallest structure until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. For hundreds of years the cathedral held one of the four remaining copies of the original Magna Carta, now securely displayed in Lincoln Castle. The cathedral is the fourth largest in the UK at around 5,000 square metres, after Liverpool, St Paul's and York Minster.
context_section_description: Maintaining the cathedral costs £1.6 million a year. A major renovation of the West Front was done in 2000. It was discovered that the flying buttresses on the east end were no longer connected to the adjoining stonework, and repairs were made to prevent collapse. The most recent problem was the discovery that the stonework of the Dean's Eye window in the transept was crumbling, meaning that a complete reconstruction of the window has had to be carried out according to the conservation criteria set out by the International Council on Monuments and Sites.
  There was a period of great anxiety when it emerged that the stonework needed to shift only 5 mm (0.20 in) for the entire window to collapse. Specialist engineers removed the window's tracery before installing a strengthened, more stable replacement. In addition to this the original stained glass was cleaned and set behind a new clear isothermal glass which offers better protection from the elements. By April 2006 the renovation project was completed at a cost of £2 million.
  Recently, concerns have been growing once more about the state of the West Front, as there has been some stonework falling, which has raised questions as to the effectiveness of the repairs carried out in 2000.
  Between 2006 and 2009, 200,000 to 208,000 people visited Lincoln Cathedral annually. In 2010 the figure dropped to 150,000, making it the 16th-most visited attraction in the East Midlands. The fall in visitor numbers was attributed to the cancellation of the Lincoln Christmas Market that year. The admission fee is £8.00, with concessions. The Cathedral website states; "Everyone is free to enter and gaze at the glory of the nave; you can sit in the peace of the Morning Chapel or visit the shop. If you want to explore further, we do ask you to pay." The cathedral offers tours of the cathedral, the tower and the roof. The peak of its season is the Lincoln Christmas Market, accompanied by a massive annual production of Handel's Messiah.
  An announcement in January 2020 stated that since 2016, archaeologists had found over 50 burials during the renovations, including a priest buried with a chalice and paten. Among the artifacts recovered, a coin depicts Edward the Confessor who was king from 1042 to 1066. During the dig, sections of some extensively decorated Roman buildings and related artifacts were also discovered. Some of the Roman, medieval and Saxon objects will be displayed at the visitor centre which was expected to open later in 2020.
  The cathedral was used for the filming of The Da Vinci Code (based on the book of the same name). Filming took place mainly within the cloisters, and chapter house, of the cathedral, and remained a closed set. The Cathedral took on the role of Westminster Abbey, as the Abbey had refused to permit filming. Although there was protest at the filming, the filming was completed by the end of August 2005. To make the Lincoln chapter house appear similar to the Westminster Chapter House, murals were painted on a special layer over the existing wall, and elsewhere polystyrene replicas of Isaac Newton's tomb and other Abbey monuments were set up. For a time these murals and replicas remained in the Chapter House, as part of a Da Vinci Code exhibit for visitors, but in January 2008 they were all sold off in an auction to raise money for the Cathedral.
  The cathedral also doubled as Westminster Abbey for the film Young Victoria, filmed in September 2007, and did again in June 2018 for the Netflix Shakespeare film The King.  In 2019 the cathedral was featured in the Amazon motoring television series The Grand Tour, during which the presenters hosted a funeral for the mid-size Ford saloon as part of the third season's final episode.
caption: A gilded crown recently installed on one of the towers.
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