How to Confuse the Visitor to Lincoln

 The wise Elders of earlier centuries of the City of Lincoln chose a unique way to name the streets of the city.

Castle Hill

Take, for instance, Castle Hill: Castle Hill is between Lincoln's castle and cathedral but try as I might I am unable to find much of an incline between those two buildings.  It's true that it stands at the top of the well-named Steep Hill and there is a slight slope from south to north, but a hill it is not.  It is often named by locals as Castle Square.

Staying on the subject of hills, what about Lindum Road, now that is a hill, unusually for Lincolnshire, quite a steep hill, 1 in 9 (or in modern terminology 11%), I believe.  Lindum Road perpetuates the lie that started when it was named New Road.

Yarborough Road is of a similar incline to Lindum Road, it would be a hill in many other cities.  Leading off Yarborough is Carline Road which is probably the second steepest hill in Lincoln.

A busy Cornhill

I nearly forgot the Cornhill, standing east of the High Street.  There may have been a hill of corn there (pre-EU) but a more accurate name would be Corn Square.

Moving to the south of the city Canwick Road heads south from Pelham Bridge (yes it is a bridge) and out into the country.  But as it leaves the city it climbs a steep hill but it is still called Canwick Road.

If we head south west from Canwick Road we come to Cross O' Cliff Hill - and it is a hill, obviously misnamed in a moment of forgetfulness.

Imagine someone on a cycling holiday, Lincolnshire is considered (wrongly) as being flat, and they would think they could get south to north through Lincoln without climbing a hill!

There are more examples of the special naming of roads in Lincoln and maybe in other parts of the country.

I think it's true to say the residents of Lincoln are more honest and call roads that give the impression of hills, hill: e.g. Lindum Hill, Yarborough Hill, etc.

Cold Harbours

 I have discovered 17 places in Lincolnshire named "Cold Harbour", many of them are names of farms, houses or just a patch of land. I have seen many suggestions for the name, the most common is 'a place where a Roman building once stood'.

Unfortunately it is not as exciting as that; if we remove the 'H' from the second word we get Arbour, which some keen gardeners build to make a pleasant shelter to sit beneath on a warm sunny day.

Historically a Cold Arbour is a clump of trees, a ruined building or a depression in the land where travellers could get some shelter from the weather.

The image below is a map showing the location (blue tag) of a cold arbour at the junction of the High Dyke and A52 near Grantham. It's interesting that the public house was called the Blue Harbour, possibly owned by the same Lord of the Manor who owned the "Blue" inns in Grantham.  See https://itsaboutlincoln.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-blue-inns-and-sign.html