The main shopping is split between two clearly different zones. The High Street and the new Cornhill Quarter carry the national chains and the recently-restored Cornhill arcade. Around the Stonebow, the small lanes (Sincil Street, the market hall, Mint Lane) hold a slowly recovering set of independents.
The far more interesting shopping is along Steep Hill and Bailgate, where most of the city's independents have gathered into a single 800-metre run of small specialist shops — bookshops, the Lincoln Imp gift shops, jewellers, the long-running Imp & Angel sweet shop, antique stores, and the Cheese Society's Lincolnshire dairy shop. The Bailgate itself, at the top, has the Maud Hibbert tea shop and a couple of remaining specialist butchers.