The Heights of Abraham in Matlock Bath has been on my to do list for a long time and I finally decided to go while we were having some sunny weather. As I travelled by train I was able to use my train ticket to get a 20% discount on the entrance price and the cable car station (yes, you can travel by cable car up to the Heights) is only a short walk away from Matlock Bath Railway Station.
Lincoln Castle is directly opposite Lincoln Cathedral and I visited both with a joint ticket of £18. Built in 1068 by William the Conqueror the castle is also the site of a Victorian prison, one of only four original copies of the Magna Carta and Lincoln’s Crown Court, which is still in use today.
Currently a Next store this used to be the Bourne and Hollingsworth Department Store which moved to Oxford Street in 1902 though it was built in 1894. The art deco remodelling happened in 1928. It closed in 1985 during which time the building was also known as the The Plaza Oxford Street.
Lincoln is only an hour or so away from Nottingham so I decided to take a trip there recently and bought a joint ticket to both the Cathedral and Lincoln Castle which was well worth the price of £18. An easy-ish walk from the railway station (there is a steep hill involved though buses are also available) some of the Cathedral was under scaffolding when I visited but that didn’t detract from the impressiveness of the building.
Soho Square was built in the 1670s when it was called King Square after Charles II, and a statue of him can still be found there. It’s possibly the earliest square in London to be built around a purposely laid out enclosed garden. It used to be a very fashionable residential area.
The House of St Barnabas, previously the House of Charity, is a Grade I listed Georgian building off of Soho Square in London. It was built around 1744; it was a residential house until 1811 and was used by the Metropolitan Board of Works and then the office of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, famous for creating London’s sewer system.
On a recent trip to London I had some hours to kill and decided to take a look at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Soho Square.
Earlier this year I took a walk around Sycamore Park in Nottingham. There’s not a great deal to see there, but there were some people taking advantage of the basketball court. What we did enjoy was discovering these steps, leading up past St Ann’s Allotments on the right (not accessible from here).
Opposite Coppice Park is Hine Lodge. This used to the gardener’s lodge for the Old Coppice Hospital (formerly the Coppice Asylum) a psychiatric hospital that like the Lodge was designed by T. C. Hine and his son G. T. Hine. The Coppice Hospital was constructed between 1857 and 1859 for typically middle class private patients and has since been converted into residential flats. The Lodge is also now a private cottage and since these photos were taken I’ve noticed that some renovation works appear to have taken place.
Coppice Park is one of Nottingham’s oldest parks, next door to St Ann’s Allotments. The Coppice was a great wood which was given to the city as a mark of favour by King James I in 1615. The name comes from the practice of “coppicing”, a woodland management technique of repeatedly felling trees and allowing them to regrow in order to create a sustainable supply of timber – in this case for fuel and construction work around Nottingham. It was made a recreation ground in 1904.
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