Nottingham

 Dear Gentle Readers

Today we sallied forth from London and our less than salubrious AirBNB and set our course for Nottingham, of Robin Hood fame. We went straight to Nottingham Castle (pictured here) and paid for the Robin Hood tour.

This was the entrance to the Robin Hood Medieval Adventure.

And what's a medieval castle without stocks? Behind it was a catapult.

Unfortunately for you gentle readers, it was mainly in video form so I could not put those up here because of their enormous size. However it was quite entertaining and they had multiple screens with multiple actors appearing in different ones having conversations with each other.

Most entertaining was when they were debating amongst themselves who Robin Hood was in real life. They must have mentioned at least 20 different persons who could be the basis for the Robin Hood legend.

Nottingham Castle is quite old, dating back until just after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Tap or click on this picture to enlarge it to see its history.

This tapestry dates from the Middle Ages showing Nottingham Shire as it was then.

Nottingham was the centre of the lace industry, firstly hand made in medieval times, then machine made after the Industrial Revolution. This gorgeous piece was made to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

This was one of the early lace-making machines. Luddites (named after Ned Ludd who led them) started destroying these machines because they were taking jobs away from traditional lace-makers. The moniker Luddite now refers to people who shun technology.

From thence we journeyed to Sherwood Forest, quite a distance away from Nottingham. It is much smaller than it used to be, it once reached the walls of Nottingham Castle but much felling of it has reduced its size to around 1000 acres. This is the path leading into Sherwood Forest.

Here's Victoria with an unusually mottled tree she noticed.

We passed a few signs like this, this one declaring this was Little John's Glen. Others stated this was Will Scarlet's Livery and Alan A'dale's Dale. Very inventive.

At last we arrived at Major Oak, thought to be at least 1000 years old. However it has appeared to finally have died as it has not produced any leaves this summer. Many tourists in the past have trampled the ground beneath it so much that the roots became strangled and this has led to its demise.

All is not lost as there are plenty of other stately oak trees throughout the forest that may live to be as old as Major Oak.

Here is a statue commemorating Robin Hood's first meeting with Little John and their famous staff fight over who should cross the bridge. Robin lost.

Tomorrow we will visit Haworth, home of the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.