Nottingham has a great deal of green spaces many of which I’ve never actually visited, so this year I’ve decided to try and visit more of them. Arnot Hill Park was the first of these, which I picked solely because I happened to be roughly in the area on the day. It was easy to get to by bus – there’s a stop right outside the entrance on Nottingham Road.
The area that is now Regent’s Park once belonged to the monks of Barking Abbey until Henry VIII dissolved the monastery and turned it into a hunting park. In 1835 it became a public park on the instructions of the future King George IV who at the time was the Prince Regent (ruling in place of his mentally ill father George III until his death in 1820 when he became George IV). That’s why the park is The Regent’s Park, but hardly anyone ever calls it that.
On my most recent visit to Woodthorpe Grange Park I went to have a look around the Plant Shop and saw that the Tropical House was open. I haven’t been inside for probably at least a decade because it has had some very odd opening hours, but now I see they are keeping it open at the same time as the shop, so Monday-Sunday 10-4. There’s been a nursery (in the flower sense!) at Woodthorpe since the 1920s and the flower displays that adorn the city during the spring and summer and for the Britain in Bloom and other competitions in Nottingham are grown here; the shop sells off excess stock as well as locally produced gifts.
Not long ago I went for a walk around Woodthorpe Grange Park, which I’ve blogged about before. The park recently celebrated its centenary having been opened by the Lord Mayor of Nottingham on 1 June 1922. The weather was bright and sunny and did not at all feel like October, but some of the trees were wearing their autumn colours at least.
On my last trip to London there was such glorious sunny weather that I decided to head to Holland Park which I last visited in 2018. I wanted to see if the blossoms were in bloom yet on the trees – they weren’t quite but there were lots of lovely colourful flowers.
A few weeks ago I decided to head out to Gedling Country Park which I haven’t been to for a while. The weather was sunny though quite windy and since I had walked there and back I just spent a little time walking around some of the smaller routes and enjoying the views.
There was an unusual amount of fog last week that stayed around for several days. On Saturday I decided to head out for a walk and take some photos of the park in the fog. It was very quiet and while not quite as photogenic as when in the snow, still made for some atmospheric photos.
Just over a week ago I took a walk around Woodthorpe Grange Park as I wanted to photograph the changing of the leaves. A surprising number were still green but there were also some beautuifl reds and golds on display.
Last week we decided to go for a walk around the lake at Clumber Park. Run by the National Trust entry is free for members (which we are) or £5 for an adult. The park spans 3,800 acres and was quite busy; we had to park in the overflow car park which we’ve never had to do before, but as it’s so large it never felt crowded at any point, and at plenty of sections there was no one else around at all.
Last week I decided to head out to Gedling Country Park as the weather was bright and sunny and I’d realised that I could get a bus straight to the Spring Lane entrance. There are a few different walks around the site so I decided to do two of the ones I hadn’t done on my last visit, the Top Hard which has some steep inclines through a wooded area and the Low Hazels which is the longest route.
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