I recently decided to take a long walk around Wollaton Hall and Deer Park as I hadn’t been for a while and was in need of some fresh air. It was also deer rutting season and though I didn’t see any stags I did see a lot more female deer than usual, plus a load of squirrels.
Recently needing to de-stress after a particularly busy week at work I ventured out to Colwick Country Park with my dad, prompted to do so by a recent council email about improvements to the footpaths at the park. A huge park with lakes and a marina that was opened in 1978 we were impressed with the new pathways – much more comfortable to walk on and far better for pushchairs and wheelchair uses.
After exploring the castle we set off to walk around the grounds and gardens, using the free map we’d been given at the entrance to navigate. Since it was a very hot day and we were travelling with my elderly father we’d already decided that we wouldn’t do the whole three mile walk but concentrate on the nearest of the gardens to the castle and part of the woods.
Back in May we headed to Belvoir Castle in Grantham, Lincolnshire, for my birthday. Despite the fact that it’s only a half hour drive from Nottingham I hadn’t managed to visit until now.
Nottingham Castle (re)reopened on 26th June after a controversial opening after COVID lockdowns with accusations of racism and bullying amongst the staff, unjustifiably high prices for entry and generally shambolic management. (I’ve written about this elsewhere so I won’t rehash that or the history of the castle – you can read some of that here when I visited after the first re-opening). Adult tickets now cost £12 for an annual pass which is far more reasonable for what you get. There is also now no charge for under-15s.
Sunday 11 June was the 25th year that the Park Estate in Nottingham (a private housing estate which in a previous life was the deer park for Nottingham Castle) have put on their Park Garden Trail. Residents in the estate open up some of their gardens to visitors with the fee of £7.50 going towards local charities. The event is held every two years (COVID notwithstanding) and it’s one of those things that I was vaguely aware happened but had never attended before, so I decided on a whim to do it this year, buying my ticket online the night before.
It had been a while since I’d been to the farm so I decided to pop by just after one of May’s many bank holidays so that I could see the lambs, and also I hadn’t yet been to see the meerkats which they now, somewhat randomly, have in their barn.
I visited St. John’s Church in Carrington back when we had some snow in March. The doors were locked so I couldn’t go inside but the graveyard proved to be quite interesting on its own. Building of the church began in 1841 thanks to an endowment from Ichabod Wright, a local banker who lived in Mapperley Hall not far from the church and which has since been turned into flats.
After visiting the Sophie Ryder exhibition I decided to walk up through the University of Nottingham campus and enter Wollaton Park by the Derby Road gate of Beeston Lodge which I’ve never actually entered through before, despite having visited Wollaton Park since childhood. The lodge is Grade II listed and dates from 1832 – it was built by the then owner of Wollaton Hall, Henry Willoughby, 6th Baron Middleton and, along with other gatehouses around the park, was built after the Nottingham Reform Riots in October 1831.
Marking the boundary of the City of London these dragons are from the London Coal Exchange which was demolished in the 1960s. The Corporation of London’s street committee selected the statues as the model for the boundary markers in 1964 and replicas were erected at main entrances to the City.
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