New Magna Carta vault to be unveiled next year

In 2015 Lincoln Castle will be the only place in the world where you’ll be able to see Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest side-by-side.

East-Gate-Lincoln-Castle
East Gate of Lincoln Castle

A new £22m heritage visitor attraction will open in Lincoln next year with Magna Carta taking pride of place in a state-of-the-art, audio visual underground vault, from 1 April 2015.

Lincoln Castle Revealed, the result of a four-year restoration project, will offer a complete castle wall walk and improved access to the male and female Victorian prisons, with the male prison fully open for the first time, among other new experiences.

Marking the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta, the new vault will be home to the ‘Power, Justice and Accountability’ exhibition, displaying Lincoln Cathedral’s Magna Carta, the 1217 Charter of the Forest and a related loan document on rotation.

This comes after a chance to see Lincoln Cathedral’s Magna Carta displayed alongside the other three surviving 1215 documents for the first time in history attracted almost 45,000 entries in a special ballot. Just 1,215 members of the public will be able to attend the one-off unification event at the British Library in February next year, with winners being contacted by 12 December 2014.

For those unable to get tickets for the British Library‘s grand event, the new attraction at Lincoln Castle is the next best thing. Featuring a double-height ‘wall of words’, displaying the full translated text of Magna Carta with key phrases picked out in gold, it will also screen a series of films on an ‘in the round’ cinema to bring the document’s history to life. All these new developments will make the vault the only new-build Magna Carta visitor attraction opening in the 800th anniversary year and the only place in the world where both Magna Carta and Charter of the Forest can be seen side-by-side.

From April 2015, a special joint attraction ticket will be available combining entry to both the city’s spectacular Gothic Cathedral and the new-look castle, two of England’s finest heritage attractions.

See here for more details about Lincoln Castle Revealed

 

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