Setting the scene
For over two thousand years, the site on which St Katherine’s stands has been passed
by travellers. The site stands on the side of the A15, a major road into Lincoln
which follows the line of the Roman Fosse way, linking Lincoln with Exeter. In Roman
times, the site was outside the city and visitors to Roman Lincoln would have followed
the route of what is now known as the High St, northwards through an area of commercial
activity and then into the city itself.
The story of St Katherine’s begins with the hospital of the Holy Sepulchre, founded
around 1100AD by Bishop Robert Bloet for the care of the sick and the poor. Both
the hospital of the Holy Sepulchre and the extensive nearby hospital for lepers,
known as the Malandry, were located outside the city walls. In medieval times, most
hospitals were run by the church and nuns and lay sisters cared for the sick and
the poor.
St Katherine’s Priory was founded in 1148 and located outside the city walls close
to the two hospitals and Little Bargate and Great Bargate. These were tollgates
in the city wall where taxes were collected on goods brought into the medieval city.
After the foundation of the Priory, the Hospital of the Holy Sepulchre was endowed
to it and the lay sisters at the hospital were sometimes referred to as sisters
of St Katherine. The Priory was located on a busy route into the medieval city of
Lincoln and would have doubtless have welcomed many travellers rich and poor on
their journeys in and out of the city.
St Katherine’s was a Gilbertine Priory and belonged to the only purely English monastic
order which was founded by Gilbert of Sempringham, a Lincolnshire man who became
one of the county’s much loved saints.
Images left to right Medieval Farming curtosy of Wagscreen, Medieval Lincoln by David Vale.