Horncastle is a quaint, traditional, little market town set within the Lincolnshire Wolds, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Unfortunately after living here for seven years, you soon discover that the Wolds are just a bunch of hills, “quaint” means “dull” and “traditional” means “Doesn’t like black people”.
The average age of the Horncastle populace is 82. Many of these old dears have never left Horncastle and regard anyone who is not “From ruund ‘ere” as a foreigner, and they don’t like foreigners here.
There are several pubs in Horncastle, which is good because if you spend more than five minutes there you WILL turn to alcohol. The Black Swan is ideal if underage girls and M-CAT is your thing, but if you’re more into microwave dinners and watered down spirits, The Ship is the place to be. If you’re incredibly fat, have a beard and going through a tragic midlife crisis, Old Nicks Tavern will interest you as they play Black Sabbath through aging speakers and sell paint thinner cleverly disguised as cider. Other local activities include glue sniffing, Ketamine, unemployment and teenage pregnancy. If none of this appeals to you then why not indulge yourself in casual racism? The people of Horncastle are a very old-fashioned bunch and will look in horror if anyone who is even slightly ethnic has the audacity to breathe their air and walk on their pavements.
Horncastle has two schools: Banovallum and Queen Elizabeth Grammar school. If Mummy and Daddy drive a Range Rover, then little Tarquin will attend Queen Elizabeth. If the harvest this year wasn’t great, then the farmer’s sprog will end up at Banovallum. In reality, it makes no difference what school your child goes to as they all end up working at the local Tesco or attending Lincoln University to study feminist poetry (To annoy their parents).
The local Tesco isn’t the only shop in Horncastle though. Being a market town, Horncastle has a variety of thriving charity shops selling **** clothes that one of Horncastle’s OAP population almost certainly died in. Peacocks recently set up shop in Horncastle. The result of this is that now all the over-forties are wearing cheap, poorly fitting, T-Shirts with place names written on them (Despite the fact that they have more than likely never set foot outside Lincolnshire, let alone been to New York). On East Street, there’s a book shop selling all manner of fine literature, though be careful: The books appear to be the only thing holding the roof up and the owner of the shop wears monk’s robes. Enter at your own risk.
After a while, you may become sick of Horncaslte and wish to leave. Good luck. Lincolnshires hatred of dual-carriageways and Bypasses means that it can take anything up to three hours to drive to Lincoln (Which is only 22 miles away). The reason for this is down to either caravanners, tractors or some old dear in a Suzuki Wagon R that seems to think the actual speed limit is no more than 20 mph, and even then that’s for when she’s late for bingo.
Horncastle should be avoided like the plague.
