Lincoln Christmas Market
Why is it that every town thinks dump a few sheds selling tat and junk food in a town centre and call it a Christmas Market?
One of the worst if not the worst is Lincoln Christmas Market, 90% crap, and that is being generous. The travelling circus masquerading as a street food market that is held occasionally in the High Street is bad but this is far far worse.
I had wandered through Monday as was being set up, not impressed by what I saw.
Visiting Thursday afternoon, far worse than I expected, and locals had warned me it was not worth visiting.
Plastic identical shrink-wrapped flavoured fake cheddar cheese, stomach churning stench of junk food.
Not to say there were not quality stalls, for example local farm cheese from unpasteurised milk, quality meat from Redhill Farm, local craft beer, speciality coffee from Seven Districts, but very much the exception and could count on one hand.
Seven Districts I stopped by and had a chat.
Yes, well designed packaging, but if to be taken seriously the coffee has to have details of the coffee, not local history no matter how interesting that may be. Coffee is seasonal. It does it help, different single origin packaged under the same name.
Only possible to try a not very well poured V60. OK but not great. It would be interesting to see in the hands of a skilled barista.
Not having encountered before I picked up two bags of Seven Districts coffee, but the cheese can obtain every third Saturday from the Lincoln farmers market and from The Cheese Society, Redhill Farm has an excellent farm shop in Bailgate where later I picked up Lincolnshire sausages.
I also found Welbourne’s Bakery had a pop up stall in Bailgate at the back of not yet open Elite Fish and Chips. Excellent mince pies.
But did Bailgate Deli really have to have a stall outside their shop, the staff frozen, when customers could be served inside the deli?
A stall claiming its coffee was specialty coffee. Only it was not, it was over-roasted coffee beans sticky with flavourings. This was not specialty coffee.
No stall claiming specialty coffee would have coffee beans sitting in open hessian sacks on an open stall on a cold wet rainy day.
The stall must be kicked off the market, a prosecution by local Trading Standards.
Stallholder turned unpleasant when the scam was exposed.
Market patrolled by police bearing side arms and carrying semi-automatic weapons.
A bitterly cold afternoon, cold wind blowing, then it started to rain.
I popped in Stokes at The Lawn to get warm.
I feel sorry for those come from afar to this tacky market.
A claimed 250,000 visitors. How are they counted?
Lincoln is close to gridlock ever day. This is gridlock, roads closed, bus routes diverted, long queue to enter the railway station.
Look to Winchester for a quality Christmas market. Runs end of November until Christmas, does not overload the local infrastructure, includes a large ice rink, attracts quality.
Winchester Christmas Market attracts half a million visitors a year, is ranked as not only the top Christmas Market in UK, but one of the top ten in Europe.
In Lincoln, the car park by Lincoln Castle hosting a big wheel, could be a large ice rink.
The organisers of this appalling market need to think again.
For visitors, visit any time of the year and not be jostled, or if wish to come when an event do so over the August Bank Holiday Weekend for the Asylum Steampunk Festival when will enjoy a far more pleasant experience.
Walking up Steep Hill, never seen so many people, even worse on the way down. On the way up, I noticed Makushi aka Base Camp had opened as a pop up shop for the duration of the Christmas Market.
Makushi aka Base Camp was an excellent coffee shop and micro-roastery that had sadly closed early this year. I looked in out of curiosity, was all the equipment still there? Yes, it was. What was intriguing, a constant stream of people hoping that the coffee shop had re-opened, disappointment that it had not, and expressing how much it was missed. If nothing else, demonstrates Makushi still has the potential to re-open as a high quality coffee shop.
Update: Excellent news Lincoln Christmas Market 2020 has been cancelled.
