You may remember that my last visit to Bath was cut short due to Storm Darragh. My friend and I had to reschedule our Roman Baths tickets and chose the last weekend in March figuring, quite rightly as it happened, that we would have some nice weather for our return. Driving in Bath is very much not recommended so we parked as usual at the Lansdown Park and Ride and took the bus into Bath – the Roman Baths are only about a 10 minute walk from where the bus drops you off.
For my last full day in Arundel I knew that I wanted to spend my time exploring the Arundel Wetland Centre. It’s an easy walk from the town centre – simply walk by the entrance to the castle and continue all the way down the street, over a bridge then continue until you see the entrance on the right – it takes maybe 15 to 20 minutes. Do note that part of the route has no pavement but it’s a wide track and easy to navigate safely. There is of course a car park if you’re driving.
Nottingham Central Library opened in its brand new purpose built building last week and I went on one of their free guided tours to get a feel for the place since I’m hoping to do a lot of family tree research next year in the local studies section. I will say the building looks great, very modern, very spacious, very well thought out. It has been a long time coming though with its location at Angel Row closing in 2020 and the opening date of the new building being pushed back again, and again, and again. So the fact that it actually opened this year was something of a pleasant surprise!
If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know that I recently returned from a week away in Scotland. It’ll be a little while before I start on those posts in depth but in honour of the spooky season I’m bringing forward a couple of them. On one of my evenings in Edinburgh I decided to do a ghost/history tour, and this one was the one that came most highly recommended. I didn’t take a huge amount of photos since much of the tour took place in the dark. The tour was lead by John Napier who was dressed in period costume (I can’t remember who he said he was representing now – a scientist of some sort) and he was a very engaging guide. The group was quite large, around 20 or so of us I think and we met here at the tour’s ticket booth.
Glasgow’s City Chambers, the headquarters of Glasgow City Council, is an imposing building that was completed from 1888. There are (pre-COVID) free public tours twice a day Monday to Friday with tickets handed out on a first come first served basis. I got there about half an hour before the start time and was first in a group of about eight people.
I went on a tour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as part of Open House London. This was one of my I’m in the area so let’s see what it’s about picks and it turned out to be very interesting. The School was founded in 1899 and based elsewhere but their present home dates from 1926, officially opened in 1929.
Guildhall is one of the buildings that I visited during Open House London; it wasn’t originally on my itinerary but when I found myself in the area I decided to have a look around and was very glad I did because it was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend. It’s a Grade I listed building that was built between 1411 and 1440 and is the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City of London and its corporation.
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.
Highgate Cemetery had been on my list of places to visit for a long time and I finally managed to do so on a surprisingly warm and sunny weekend in January. The cemetery is split into two sites across the road from each other – Highgate Cemetery East will feature in my next post. The West Cemetery is accessed by guided tour only and costs £12 (which includes access to the East Cemetery which is self-guided). You can’t book in advance on a weekend but you must do so during the week – I had no problem getting on to a tour on the Sunday at 11am (tours start at 10.30).
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.
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