Another February, another Light Night. This is always a good event to go to every year and as ever the city centre was packed with people from all ages. For this year as well the event was spread over both the Friday and the Saturday night, though I only made it out on the Friday. There’s never enough time to see everything so we did a loop from Trinity Square to listen to some of the choirs, round through Market Square to the very impressive art works projected onto the Council House, over to St Mary’s Church in the Lace Market and then up to Nottingham Contemporary art gallery. A few of my favourite light displays are below.
Nottinghamshire
Sycamore Park, Nottingham
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).
Hine Lodge, Nottingham
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, Nottingham
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.
Throwback Thursday: Cock and Hoop Pub, Nottingham
The Cock and Hoop is a a Grade II listed pub in the Lace Market area of Nottingham. A house stood on the site in 1832 but from 1833 it was the County Tavern public house which conveniently had rooms set up so patrons could watch the public hangings taking place on the steps of what was then the County Gaol and is now the National Justice Museum. It became the Cock and Hoop in the early 2000s and is now part of the Lace Market Hotel.
Stonebridge City Farm – April 2019
A few weeks ago I paid a visit to Stonebridge City Farm which I’ve written about on many previous occasions. This time I was delighted to see that they had lambs and kids in the fields, so here are a few of my favourite photos.
Throwback Thursday: Nottingham Arts Theatre
The Nottingham Arts Theatre on George Street is a community theatre and registered charity. The building was originally the home of George Street Particular Baptist Church which was based there from 1815 to 1948. I’m afraid to say that I’ve never actually attended a performance there though it’s been duly added to my to do list.
Lace Market Theatre Tour
As part of Nottingham Light Night 2019 the Lace Market Theatre was offering behind the scenes tours and as this is a local theatre that I keep meaning to visit but haven’t got around to (I promise I’ll go see something there this year!) we thought it would be a nice change of pace to the normal Light Night activities.
Throwback Thursday: 27 St Mary’s Gate, Nottingham
27 St Mary’s Gate is a building in the Lace Market area of Nottingham. It was built in 1849 for Louis Augustin Baillon, the Vice Consul of France, as consulate offices. By 1868 it had been turned into a lace warehouse.
Nottingham Light Night 2019
As is tradition we visited Nottingham’s Light Night event last Friday and as is also tradition, there just isn’t time to see everything so I planned a route around the city that would work for the time we had available. The only thing we didn’t manage to visit was the Museum of the Moon at the Concert Hall – kudos to everyone who was prepared to stand in the exceptionally long lines to get in, we decided in the end that we were prepared to skip it for other things.