Nottingham visit

Caught the train to Nottingham from St Pancras last week, happy to see my photograph of railwayman Roland Hoggard in the station. From Nottingham station en route to find the bus to a friend’s house, heading up to the Castle I passed this plaque by the canal.  The river Leen joins the canal here.  Some years ago there was a canal museum in one of the converted warehouses, where you could view water running underneath the building.

Walking up towards the Castle, presently closed for a refurb, I called in at the Trip to Jerusalem pub built into the sandstone of the castle rock.  I was told as child that this was where soldiers called in for their last pint before setting out to the Crusades.I stayed a couple of nights with my friend J.  In the morning I found one of her childhood toys outside my bedroom door.

We travelled to Leicestershire to see an Arts and Crafts cottage at Stonewall.  A very helpful guide called Tony Curtis showed us round the gardens.

We went on to explore a bit of Charnwood Forest, mysterious and very Grimm like.

 My niece and her family live in Nottingham. I spent a happy time with the children watching butterflies being born – Painted Ladies, delivered by post in caterpillar form. I sat with the children, watching the butterflies’ trembling emergence and gentle fluttering as they tried out their new wings before being released into the wild the following day.  The butterflies that is. What delight!

Have you been to Nottingham? What are your favourite things there?

This entry was posted in Sketchbooks, Travels and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *