Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Buildings

Posted on by Louise Bunting

This is my entry into Cee’s Black and White Challenge. This week’s theme is buildings.  As I’m sure you can tell, I spent a little longer playing around with the editing of these this week. I thought a vintage effect would fit the subject matter quite nicely. I’d love to know what everyone else thinks.

I do actually have lots more pictures that I’ve edited (and I may still post them later in the week) but I decided that these five photos worked well as a set. They were all taken around Lincoln (UK) and perfectly illustrate the differences between the two areas of the city.

Lincoln is a city split by the aptly named Steep Hill. ‘Downhill’ has traditionally been the poorer area, the home of the lowers classes and the site of industry. The first three pictures in the gallery, taken beside the River Witham, show the mixture of modern and industrial era architecture that is common to the area. Whilst you can also find the occasional older structure they are not all that common. Uphill Lincoln, on the other hand, has always been the home of the wealthy and has lots more buildings of advanced age. That is where you find the Cathedral, the Castle and the Medieval Bishop’s Palace, as well as many other old structures, including those in the photographs above. This is the area that tourists tend to visit.

The stone-built buildings in the last two pictures are known as The Jew’s House and Jew’s Court and are situated on Steep Hill itself. Jew’s House is believed to be the oldest surviving townhouse in England, dating from the mid-twelfth century.  Jew’s Court is of a similar age. The story goes that they were seized from their Jewish owners in the anti-semitic fever of the late thirteenth century, exacerbated in Lincoln when a young boy named Hugh (Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln) was murdered and his death was blamed on a Jew.  This anti-semitism culminated with the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290.

I’d like to believe that all such divides between classes and cultures has gone from our modern society. Unfortunately I know that isn’t true.

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If you’d like to know any more about either Lincoln or the medieval treatment of Jews in England you could have a look here, here or here.

21 thoughts on “Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Buildings”

    1. I’m glad you liked the pictures, PJ. Unfortunately people will always look for scapegoats in any group of people who are different. For a great many centuries that was the Jews, though any minority can be the victim. Thanks for visiting.

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    1. Thanks, Cee! I’m glad you like them. I’m currently putting together a second post with the rest of the pictures I’d originally intended to include in this one. Hopefully it’ll but up a little later. 🙂

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    1. Thank you, Chioma. I spent rather more time playing around with these than I’ve done on most of the pictures I’ve shared recently! I’m glad you like them. 🙂 There should be a second gallery up in a little while with the rest of the pictures I’d originally intended to use in this one.

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    1. I’m glad you like them, Jessie. 🙂 Some pictures work well with a vintage look. Unfortunately I think you’re right about the social divides. Sadly it seems that as soon as one divide is closed another opens.

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