Nottingham

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Nottinghamshire - the location of a number of interesting stories, most famous of which being Robin Hood and his merry men. Nottinghamshire was also the home of the writer DH Lawrence and the poet Lord Byron!!

The city of Nottingham is a hub of business, shopping and clubbing with the surrounding countryside containing the odd stately home. Nottingham is forever linked to Robin Hood and his band of Merry men in Lincoln Green.

The city is a mixture of medieval and modern, amid a plethora of large multistoried car parking buildings, and architectural eye-sores you find a number of really ancient landmarks, some of which may have been known to Robin Hood and his merry men.

The city was transformed during the success of the 19th century lace industry and developed into a successful industrial city, also containing 2 universities.

I was in Nottingham for 2 days. It was awfully cold - my first experience of ice on footpaths so it was a somewhat perilous excursion!!
One of the first places I visited was Nottingham Castle! The castle standing in Nottingham now has been there since the 1670’s, with the previous castle being destroyed by fire (among other things) during the Civil War.
The castle also contains and museum and art gallery - with some interesting exhibits about the history of Nottingham, outside the views were pretty good - even though it was horribly cold!!

Included in the fee to the Castle was entrance to the Brewhouse Yard Museum - this museum is made up of several 17th century houses - which were partly carved into the rock below the castle. This museum also covered Notthingham’s history but with a modern focus…

I visited “Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem” (some of you will remember my fixation with “Ye Olde”) - this brewhouse is below the castle and makes the claim to be Englands oldest pub!!

All in all - not the best I’ve seen but possibly not quite the worst. A couple of days is more than enough to check the city out - though it would be good to hire a car and explore the surrounding countryside. I was happy to be going back to London though - Nottingham is the only place I’ve been too over here where I haven’t felt safe (and this was even before being woken up at 3am with a fight outside)…

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