Nottingham is one of the three big East Midlands cities, located east of Derby and a bit more north of Leicester. It's world famous for an outlaw, or rather for a sheriff, and nationally famous for football and cricket. It owes its historic wealth to lace-making and its location to a rock and a river. Amusingly it got its name from a Saxon chief called Snot so by rights should be Snottingham, but the S got dropped early on. I spent the day there on Tuesday, finding much to do and see, and can confirm that you really don't want to go to Derby instead. [VisitNottingham][40 photos]
Don't come specially for Robin Hood. He hid in the forest, not the town, and the visitor centre in the remnants of Sherwood Forest is an hour away by bus. Instead all you'll find is a statue outside the castle walls, added in 1952 "to provide something tangible for visitors to see", and who better resembles a stocky medieval peasant than swashbuckling Errol Flynn. The bronze figure is however a magnet for tourists who queue up to get their photos taken beside it, ideally while doing their best archer impersonation, so I had to wait for several minutes to get my golden shot. Just round the corner at the foot of Castle Rock is Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem, one of several pubs which claim to be the oldest in England (along with Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans and Ye Olde Man & Scythe in Bolton). The date painted on the front is 1189 although that's historically dubious, indeed Historic England's citation dismissively states "early C17, with C18 and C19 additions", so only gullible tourists are likely to believe that Robin Hood once downed an ale here.
The castle also isn't the original, indeed it's not even a castle any more, the aftermath of the Civil War having seen the ruins replaced with a squared-off ducal mansion. In the 1870s it was opened to the public as a museum and art gallery, a role it still inhabits although only after considerable recent upheaval. In 2018 work started on a new visitor centre, an adventure playground and multiple interactive displays, only to be thwarted by the pandemic, increased energy bills and low visitor numbers, hence last November the trust running the castle collapsed into insolvency. The council only managed to reopen the site to visitors five weeks ago, restoring access to the interactivemuseumy bits and the terrace with the best views in Nottingham, although local residents are still peeved at having to pay £12 to get into the grounds.
I baulked, having scanned the list of motley attractions and decided against, plus by the time I arrived they'd closed for the day. I'd also decided against a trip to the National Justice Museum, Nottingham's most expensive tourist attraction by a 5p margin, where five floors of cells and courtrooms are inhabited by a selection of "amazing, costumed characters". Any of you who've been to either are welcome to tell me I made a ghastly mistake by omitting them, but there are only a limited number of hours in the day. I did however pre-book a ticket for attraction number three, City of Caves, where £8.75 grants admittance within the sandstone cliff on which the castle was built. Over 800 caves have been dug under Nottingham since the 13th century, mostly for storage purposes, and six of these were opened up to the public in 2004. Look for the bunkerlike entrance under the foundations of a derelict shopping mall.
A guide led us down two sets of steps into a ring of tunnels, pausing at regular intervals to point out key features like cellars and wells. On less busy days an self-guided audio narrative is employed instead. The most impressive feature was a two-cave medieval tannery - a pillared cave in which skins were hung and another larger chamber with rocky vats in which they were soaked. It may have been because it was the school holidays but the guide had an unerring ability to twist the narrative round to poo, no matter which era of history we were looking at, be that for treating leather or taking a dump into a bucket during an air raid. Nottingham's residents enjoyed maximum resilience during WW2 air raids by ducking into these caves, although ironically the lack of heavy industry meant the city was barely attacked. I don't think we walked far, and apparently we were never officially 'underground', but I'm glad I made the 50 minute circuit.
The heart of the city has always been Old Market Square, ever since Nottingham was merely a town and the market wasn't so old. It's not usually full of funfair rides, not since the annual Goose Fair moved out in 1928, but these three granite acres are spending summer 2023 pretending to be a beach. The lofty dome in the background belongs to Nottingham Council House, i.e. the city hall, which has been here for almost 100 years. The stone lions out front are nicknamed Leo and Oscar (Leo's on the left) while the massive bell up top - the UK's sixth heaviest - is of course called Little John. Around the back is the Exchange Arcade, a cruciform shopping mall incorporated into the civic centre to help fund its construction during a period of austerity. It's now where the high fashion brands hang out, plus the central dome is gorgeous... as I just managed to see before the security guy locked the doors for the night.
Just east of the city centre is the Lace Market, a former textile quarter blessed with high brick warehouses. The most famous shop hereabouts is at 16-22 Goose Gate because that's where Jesse Boot opened his very first chemist in 1849. It had large iron and glass windows so passers-by could see what was going on inside, indeed still does, but today they're filled with used clothes and charity goods because it's an Oxfam hangout. The city's chief Boots can now be found in the Victoria Centre, a monolithic mall bookended by John Lewis and House of Fraser, which is also where the market hides these days. But the Broadmarsh Centre is an economic disaster area, having been mid-regeneration when its parent company intu went bust, hence a vast demolition zone now scars the void between the city centre and the station. Multiple attempts to gain public funding have failed, the caves beneath the concrete foundations are an additional issue and few councils have so large a strategic headache as this.
Sunk into the sandstone edge on the rim of the old town, by the Weekday Cross, is a startling gold box with a lace trim. This is Nottingham Contemporary, an art hub opened in 2009 with a leaky roof up top, four galleries below and a cafe hidden one level further down the cliff. The current exhibitions didn't keep me long, being mostly interstitial space. The next civicopening will be the Central Library, a much needed replacement for a pandemic-related closure, which looks near completion but still has barriers up outside. The remainder of the building is already open, being part multi-storey car park and part bus station, where waiting for a coach has all the ambience of hanging around a laboratory corridor, and basically you don't come to Nottingham for the architecture.
The chief watercourse in the city centre is the Nottingham Canal, a late 18th century cut, this end of which survived the closure of the Derbyshire end in 1976. The towpath passes retail parks and a university campus, the castle on its crag, two palaces of modern justice, a fine six storey brick warehouse, the odd pub and a lot of office buildings, before eventually feeding into the river for which Nottingham is best known. The Trent is broad and stately by this stage but not yet wantonly meandering, and the city centre keeps a comfortable distance to avoid unpleasant flooding. Turn up this weekend and you can enjoy the Riverside Festival, an outpouring of jollity, entertainment and fireworks along a mile-long sweep of the Victoria Embankment, so long as the ducks get out of the way. And of course the chief crossing of the river is called Trent Bridge, the latest incarnation of which is a three-arched iron span opened in 1871. When the cricket's on it gets quite busy.
Trent Bridge is a serious sporting hotspot because the city's two top football clubs also face off across the river just downstream of the bridge. Notts Forest's stadium backs directly onto the waterside, this the most recently constructed of the City Ground's four stands, an inoffensive geometric construction in red and white. Meanwhile Notts County play on the opposite bank of the river, a little further back but still no more than two pitches' length from their great rivals. County also claim to be England's oldest professional football club, though they're not exactly the most successful which is maybe why I didn't recognise the legendary player and coach immortalised in bronze on a bench out front. The Trent is an administrative boundary hereabouts so it would make a lot more nominative sense if the two teams swapped sides, then the City Ground would actually be in the city and County would still play in the county.
Likewise Trent Bridge cricket ground isn't actually in Nottingham, it's officially in West Bridgford, a slightly more upmarket satellite. You can easily walk down there and pick up an M&S hamper before the match, or else just pile into the Trent Bridge Inn at the apex of the grandstands which these days is a Wetherspoons. I arrived on the first day of The Hundred just as crowds were arriving to watch the men's game, many wearing yellow and orange tops the same colour as the maize-based snack whose logo was displayed prominently in the centre of their chests. I think the match was between Trent Skips and Southern Pom Bears, because that's over-sponsored cricket for you, but it certainly attracts supporters of all ages. I was still in Nottingham when the match started and I was home in time to watch its conclusion 199 balls later, a home win, because you can cram a heck of a lot into a day trip if you try.
