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Its not often that we look at a city in this series but Nottingham and its surrounding area has got so much going for it that we decided to bend the rules.
We started at the Lace Hall, High Pavement in the city centre. The hall is in fact a former Unitarian Chapel situated at what was the Saxon entrance to the city and the site of the weekday market. The growth of Nottingham is due almost entirely to the lace industry. Four hundred years ago the town was a centre for hosiery production, done on hand operated knitting machines, but in the late 18th century and early 19th century a local man called John Leavers changed all that by inventing complex machines that did the job automatically. By 1865, 130 factories employed more than 22,000 people in the trade. The Lace Hall has working examples of the early machines and highlights the poverty and appalling conditions of that period. Open daily 10.00am to 5.00pm.
Nottingham has always had strong connections with the arts. It is still has more artists than any other city, and many of our favourite writers came from there. The D H Lawrence Birthplace Museum is in Eastwood on the A608 Mansfield to Derby road. David Herbert Lawrence was born at 8a Victoria Street in Eastwood on the 11th of September 1885 and the house has been carefully restored to reflect his early childhood. Open all year 10am to 4pm. Telephone: 01773 763 312.
By total contrast Newstead Abbey, just off the A60 in Ravenshead north of Nottingham, was the inherited home of 10 year old George Gordon (who later became the 6th Lord Byron). His hopes of actually living in the Abbey were shattered because his uncle 'The Wicked Lord' had left it derelict. Eventually our handsome poet had to sell the abbey thus ending the run of Byron's at Newstead.
It was time to take a look at Sherwood Forest. Once a huge mass of oak trees that covered most of central England, hence all of the coal mines in the area, there are only one or two patches left today. The best section has to be at the Sherwood Forest Visitor's Centre. Follow the signs from Edwinstowe on the A60 and here you will find the Major Oak. Thirty something feet around the trunk and over one thousand years old, this oak is the oldest in Sherwood and is said to be a meeting place for Robin and his men. Robin is also said to have married Marian at Edwinstowe Church. Open daily, free admission. Telephone: 01623 823 202.
To show the size of Sherwood we moved way north of Nottingham to Bolsover Castle near Chesterfield on the A632 which, according to some, is where the forest ended. I find that hard to believe because Little John came from Hathersage near Sheffield and local accounts there say that the forest came to the village's edge.
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