by Robert Charles Alexander
Newport Arch is Lincoln’s iconic Roman gate leading north out of the city. As well as being a scheduled monument and a Grade I listed building, it is reputedly the oldest arch in the United Kingdom still used by traffic spanning the major Roman road Ermine Street, which leads almost in a straight line to the Humber
Originally made of wood in the 1st Century, it was enlarged and rebuilt in stone when the Roman town of Lindum Colonia became capital of the province of Flavia Caesariensis in the late 3rd Century.
Newport Arch is no stranger to attempts at both subtle and dramatic re-modelling, including several schemes to remove it altogether.
Throughout the decades, it has undergone accident and near disaster; yet nearly two thousand years after it was first built, it remains standing.
This book presents, for the first time, a history of the arch in images, words, and embedded video files, documenting those changes across the many centuries.
Using sources from all over the world, the story of one of Britain’s most unique structures is laid out with detailed explanation and year-by-year imagery.
"This arch may be considered as one of the greatest curiosities, having stood nearly two thousand years, amidst all the calamities which Lincoln has from time to time undergone from foreign and civil wars, and other casualties of time. As a monument of antiquity, and of the brave warlike people by whom it was erected, it is justly considered one of the greatest objects of interest; and not a stranger visits Lincoln who has a taste for antiquities, but bestows his admiration upon this ancient relic: it is supposed to be the only arch of its kind now standing in England."
A handbill raising funds to preserve Newport Arch, Lincoln, July 1825
I too looked at the arch and thought it was time its collective written and visual history was brought together; so, I wrote this for myself, and for anybody else who, like me, has marvelled in wonder, trying to imagine how something could have survived, slightly weathered maybe, but almost intact, for two thousand years.
Fashions come and go. But the understanding and interpretation of the past is as much subject to change in fashion as the clothes worn by the worthy citizens of Lincoln throughout the ages. It is a great blessing that there has always been a precious few people with the insight and foresight to value the past, record it accurately and use their influence to conserve structures still considered to be of the utmost historical importance. Without them, it is unlikely Newport Arch would still exist. It would be instead confined to genteel engravings and well out of living memory. To those who had that foresight, we owe a huge debt.
Robert Charles Alexander, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, January 2022
Publisher: DMP (February 5, 2022)
Pages: 200 pages
Illustrations: 240 (B&W and Colour)
Language: English
Type: History
ISBN-13: 978-1-7399493-0-3
Robert Charles Alexander is an author, lawyer, civil and commercial mediator, and a legal and political consultant.
Born in Hampstead, London England in June 1964, he was educated in the Rudolf Steiner education system where he trained in classical music reading, composition, and arrangement. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Law and a Master’s Degree in International Law from University of Lincoln, and is currently studying for his Ph.D. in Law at Brunel University London.
He most recently worked as a political correspondent for the BBC.
His first book, ‘The Inventor of Stereo – The Life & Works of Alan Dower Blumlein’, was published in August 1999, to worldwide acclaim. It has since been dramatised as a radio programme for BBC Radio 4 broadcast in August 2008, and more recently turned into a major new movie for Universal Pictures Films (due for release in 2026).
His second book, ‘The Misner Factor – The Official History of SAE Institute’, tells the rags to riches story of founder Tom Misner, and was published in July 2003.
His third book, ‘Why We Climb – The Harsh Reality of Modern Expedition Mountaineering’, was co-written with world-renowned American mountaineer Dan Mazur, and documents their attempt to climb Mount Everest in the spring of 2004; it was published in October 2006.
His fourth book, ‘Michael Gerzon – Beyond Psychoacoustics’, tells the complicated story of multi-channel audio reproduction, and follows on directly from his first book; it was published in November 2008.
His fifth book, ‘Newport Arch, Lincoln: a pictorial history, documents two thousand years of one of the City of Lincoln’s iconic Roman monuments; it was published in February 2022.
His sixth and seventh books, ‘The Misner Legacy’ Volume One and Volume Two, directly continue his long-time association with billionaire, Tom Misner.
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