Crowning its hilltop above the city, Lincoln Cathedral was, for more than two centuries, reputedly the tallest building in the world. Its west front and Angel Choir are among the glories of English Gothic.
The cathedral was founded in 1072 by Bishop Remigius and consecrated in 1092. After an earthquake in 1185 it was rebuilt in the new Gothic style from 1192, largely under the direction of St Hugh of Lincoln.
A central spire added in 1311 raised the cathedral to some 160 metres, believed to have surpassed the Great Pyramid as the tallest structure on earth — until the spire fell in a storm in 1548.
The richly carved Angel Choir, with its ranks of sculpted angels, and one of the surviving 1215 copies of Magna Carta held here, make Lincoln a treasury of the medieval world.