Understand
Nottingham is a major city in the East Midlands of England, its prosperity historically derived mostly from the lace making and coal-mining industries - little of which now remain. Nottingham has moved towards a more service-based economy.
The centre of Nottingham lies on the River Leen and its southern boundary follows the course of the River Trent, which flows from Stoke to the Humber. According to the 2001 census, Nottingham has an estimated city population of 275,100. The Nottingham Urban Area conurbation (which includes surrounding suburbs outside the city boundary, and neighbouring towns) has a population of 666,358 (2001 Census). Nottingham is a member of the English Core Cities Group.
The heart of the city is the Old Market Square, which underwent a major redevelopment in 2006. Most of the main shopping streets are around the square. The Council House, whose disproportionately tall dome can be seen for miles around, is at the top of the square. The inside of the Council House is the Exchange Arcade, a shopping centre. A bohemian quarter of the city known as Hockley has arisen in recent years, situated close to the Lace Market area. Nottingham receives a lot of tourism, mostly because of the legend of Robin Hood, visiting Sherwood forest and Nottingham Castle.
Get in
By plane
By train
Nottingham is on the main line out of London St Pancras. The cheapest tickets between London and Nottingham are available from Midland Mainline but must be bought well in advance. There are also regular connections to Birmingham, Derby, Leicester, Crewe, Sheffield, and Leeds. Note that trains from London to Sheffield do not stop at Nottingham.
Turn right out of the station for an easy 5 minute walk to the city centre.
The Nottingham Tram (NET) runs from Nottingham main line station through the city centre and out to Hucknall park and ride and Phoenix Park park and ride to the north of the city.
By car
From the south, travel on the M1 and exit at junction 24. From the North take the M1 junction 25 or 26.
By bus
Nottingham has two sizeable bus stations, Broadmarsh and Victoria.
Bus operators offer services to most other UK destinations.
National Express and Megabus both provide cheap advance tickets on a Nottingham-London route, often for as little as a pound each way if booked early enough online. National Express also offers cheap tickets (called funfares) to many other major cities from Nottingham.
Get around
By Bus
The city has extensive bus services provided by two companies, trentbarton and Nottingham City Transport, running from the Broadmarsh Bus Station, Victoria Bus station as well as key routes in the city centre such as Old Market Square, Parliament Street and Carrington Street.
By Tram
NET (Nottingham Express Transit) is the city's modern tram system. It runs from Nottingham Train Station (Station Street) to the South to Hucknall in the North and Phoenix Park (M1 Junction 26 Park and Ride site) to the North East. The system has a number of Park and Ride sites along it, which make travel into the city centre easy. An all day ticket on the tram costs £2.40, single tickets are £1.40 or £2.30 during morning peak hours. Tickets should be bought from tram conductors on board the trams.
An all day ticket for all buses, trams and trains within the city is £2.70 and called a 'Kangaroo', as the ticket allows you to 'hop on' and 'hop off' any method of transport as you wish.
By Foot
The city centre is best explored on foot since many of the historic streets are pedestrianised or good pedestrian access.
See
Museums and Galleries
Historic sites out of town
Theatre and Cinema
Do
Sporting Venues
Parks and Activities
Events
Learn
Nottingham has two major universities:
Buy
Nottingham has two large excellent shopping centres at either end of the City Centre "The Victoria Centre" and "Broadmarsh". The Victoria Centre is the more modern of the two, and has more shops & facilities, although Broadmarsh is on the eve of a huge redevelopment which will more than double its size. Between the two are the main shopping streets: Lister Gate and Clumber Street are home to High Street names, while designer labels can be found on Bridlesmith Gate, Victoria Street and in the Exchange Arcade, within the Council House on Market Square. The alternative shopper will find Hockley Village a haven, focused around Goose Gate, the cities Bohemian district. To buy a Nottingham momento, go to the Lace Centre on the corner of Castle Gate, opposite the Robin Hood statue, to buy traditional Nottingham lace.
Eat
Budget
Nottingham also has the usual range of chain restaurants and bars that you can find in many cities across the UK - for a budget meal (and drink) JD Wetherspoons is always worth trying - there are also a number of budget restaurants along Mansfield Road not far from the Victoria Shopping Centre
There is a pedestrianised street full of eateries of varying quality next to the Cornerhouse. These restaurants range from a Pizza Hut and a Subway, to a brasserie (Punchinellos) with an excellent pre-theatre menu.
Mid-range
Splurge
Drink
Apart from Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (allegedly built in 1189) which is below the castle and often on the tourist trail there are over 100 licensed premises in the square mile around the centre of Nottingham. A good place to start is the trendy Lace Market area east of Market Square where you will also find many good restaurants. Pubs around the Market Square tend to appeal to younger drinkers with a Wetherspoons and Yates's Wine Lodge, but the area on the canalside around the Canal House pub tends to be a little more discerning. The Hockley area also provides a range of pleasant bars to suit a range of budgets. The Cornerhouse complex (near the Royal Centre tram stop) contains some really nice bars, particualarly Revolution, and close to this is The Orange Tree on Shakespeare Street. Slightly further out of the centre in the multicultural and vibrant area known as Sneinton is a wonderful pub called the Lord Nelson with a great garden and real ales.
Sleep
Budget
http://www.midtownhostel.co.uk/, £16 a night
Midtown Hostel has lots of good things going for it. It's clean, in a great location (just 1 minute walk from the main square), hot water in the showers, free internet, decent kitchen (does have oven, does not have stove, has large fridge to store food in), PS2 and a few games, and free coffee and tea. The beds are reasonably comfortable (but some do squeak).
However, my stay was marred by poor management. The guys who were in charge of the hostel during my stay ran an all night drinking party in the common room. This included lots and lots of alcohol, loud music, and people yelling and shouting until 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning. This happened all three nights of my stay, and all of this happened in the common room, which was about 1 meter from my head, with only a thin wall separating my ears from the party. Additionally, several of the people in the drinking party weren't even staying at the hostel - some ended up leaving the hostel at 6 in the morning, once the party was over, and others ended up sleeping in the common room, then leaving the hostel a couple of hours later. That's rather annoying and insulting to those of us who paid money to stay at the hostel.
I understand that there will be some people who will cause noise and cause trouble. The management is supposed to deal with those problems. But when the manager of the hostel is the ringleader of the party, it results in a horrible experience.
I would NOT recommend staying at midtown hostel in Nottingham, England.
Mid-range
Splurge
Stay safe
Nottingham has been highlighted by the media for gun crime, although the actual incidence in 2004/5 was 19 offences per 100000 population (compared to 50 for both Greater Manchester and London) . The reality is that Nottingham is not a dangerous city and provided you act sensibly you will be safe. It is best to avoid walking late at night through St Ann's (council estate north-east of the Victoria shopping centre) and The Meadows (between the railway station and the river), although the Victoria Embankment along the river is quite safe.
Get Out
Nottingham is a city (and county town of Nottinghamshire) in the East Midlands of England. The centre of Nottingham lies on the River Leen and its southern boundary follows the course of the River Trent, which flows from Stoke to the Humber. According to the 2001 census, Nottingham has an estimated city population of 275,100 which increased to an estimated 278,700 in 2005. The Nottingham Urban Area conurbation (which includes surrounding suburbs outside the city boundary such as Arnold, Carlton, West Bridgford and neighbouring towns) has a population of 666,358 (2001 figures). Nottingham is a member of the English Core Cities Group.
The heart of Nottingham City Centre is the Old Market Square, where a major redevelopment was completed in March 2007. Most of the main shopping streets surround the square. The Council House, whose disproportionately tall dome can be seen for miles around, is at the top of the square. Inside the Council House is the Exchange Arcade, a shopping centre. A bohemian quarter of the city known as Hockley is situated close to the Lace Market area.
History
Nottingham is relatively unusual among big manufacturing cities in Britain in having a mediæval and pre-industrial past of equal importance to its more recent one. The first evidence of settlement dates from pre-Roman times, and it is possible that the Romans also lived in the area.
In Anglo-Saxon times, around 600 AD, the site formed part of the Kingdom of Mercia, where it was known as "Tigguo Cobauc" meaning "a place of cave dwellings", until falling under the rule of a Saxon chieftain named Snot, whereby it was dubbed "Snotingaham" literally, "the homestead of Snot's people" (Inga = the people of; Ham = homestead). As with most English place names, the word has since shifted to "Nottingham", in this case due the influence of the French language of later times; future inhabitants were unable to pronounce the "sn" digraph at the start of the name. Snot brought together his people in an area where the historic Lace Market in the City can now be found.
Nottingham was captured in 867 by Danish Vikings and later became one of the Five Burghs - or fortified towns - of The Danelaw.
In the 11th century, Nottingham Castle was constructed on a sandstone outcrop by the River Trent. The Anglo-Saxon settlement developed into the English Borough of Nottingham and housed a Town Hall and Courts. A settlement also developed around the castle on the hill opposite and was the French borough supporting the Normans in the Castle. Eventually, the space between was built on as the town grew and the Old Market Square became the focus of Nottingham several centuries later.
The town became a county corporate in 1449, giving it effective self-government, in the words of the charter, "for eternity".
During the Industrial Revolution, much of Nottingham's prosperity was founded on the textile industry; in particular, Nottingham was an internationally important centre of lace manufacture. However, the rapid and poorly planned growth left Nottingham with the reputation of having the worst slums in the British Empire outside India. Residents of these slums rioted in 1831, in protest against the Duke of Newcastle's opposition to the Reform Act 1832, setting fire his residence, Nottingham Castle.
In common with the UK textile industry as a whole, Nottingham's textile sector fell into headlong decline in the decades following the World War II, as British manufacturers proved unable to compete on price or volume with output of factories in the Far East and South Asia. Very little textile manufacture now takes place in Nottingham, but the City's heyday in this sector endowed it with some fine industrial buildings in the Lace Market district. Many of these have been restored and put to new uses.
Nottingham was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and at that time consisted of the parishes of Nottingham St Mary, Nottingham St Nicholas and Nottingham St Peter. It was expanded in 1877 by adding the parishes of Basford, Brewhouse Yard, Bulwell, Radford, Sneinton, Standard Hill and parts of the parishes of West Bridgford, Carlton, Wilford (North Wilford). In 1889 Nottingham became a county borough under the Local Government Act 1888. Nottingham was extended in 1933 by adding Bilborough and Wollaton, parts of the parishes of Bestwood Park and Colwick, and a recently developed part of the Beeston urban district. A further boundary extension was granted in 1951 when Clifton and Wilford (south of the River Trent) were incorporated into the city.
Robin Hood
The legend of Robin Hood first arose in the Middle Ages. Robin Hood is said to have lived in Sherwood Forest, which extended from the north of Nottingham to the north side of Doncaster, Yorkshire. Although Robin Hood is generally associated with Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, some authors (eg Phillips & Keatman, 1995) argue that he came from Yorkshire. Hood's main adversary was the Sheriff of Nottingham. Today the office of Sheriff of Nottingham is a ceremonial position with no real jurisdiction. Whilst the accuracy of the legend is questionable, particularly the finer points, it has had a major impact on Nottingham, with Robin Hood imagery a popular choice for local businesses and many modern tourist attractions exploiting the legend. The Robin Hood Statue in Nottingham is within walking distance from the Old Market Square.
Caves of Nottingham
The Nottingham Caves have always formed an important part of the region, at first providing shelter and sanctuary, but growing to house thriving tanning works and in modern times becoming a tourist attraction. The caves are artificial, having been carved out of the soft sandstone rock by prospective dwellers, and have grown to become a complex network under the city. The city has more manmade caves than anywhere else in the country and this whole cave network has Scheduled Ancient Monument protection equal to that of Stonehenge, making Nottingham Caves a site of vast importance to the heritage of the United Kingdom. Part of the network can be viewed by the public at the City of Caves attraction which is accessed from the upper mall of the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre.
Before the industrial revolution, the cave network was substantially expanded and became home to a large proportion of the poorer populace, particularly those involved in the tanning industry. The majority of the caves were thought to have been used for storage by the 18th century and though abandoned by the end of the 19th century, they came into use again as air raid shelters during World War II. A section of the cave network under the Broadmarsh shopping centre is now open as a tourist attraction, and some parts are still used as pub cellars.
Another section of the caves, under the castle, is still in regular use as the indoor rifle range of the Nottingham Rifle Club. In addition, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Inn, a pub that claims to be the oldest in Britain, is partly built into the cave system below the castle. Although the pub's building only dates from the 16th or 17th century, the caves themselves may date to the 11th century and could have been the site of the brewhouse for the castle.
Nottingham Castle
Nottingham Castle, founded by William the Conqueror, famed through the Middle Ages as one of the country’s finest strongholds, and where Charles I raised the Royal Standard in 1642 no longer exists, and has been replaced by a classical ducal palace. Of the mediæval castle only the (restored) gatehouse, and the ruined remains of some walls/foundations, survive.
Within the City of Nottingham
Around the City of Nottingham
Twin Cities
Nottingham is twinned with the following cities:
Famous people from Nottingham
Famous people born in or near Nottingham include (sorted by DOB):
Novelists and poets
Musicians
Actors
TV and radio presenters
Sports people
Politicians
Other
External links
