A short time in a favourite city

On Wednesday we drove over to Nottingham to visit friends for lunch and to spend time together catching up on what we'd all being doing since we last met earlier this year.  We managed for once to get up early so we had time to have a walk around the city centre looking at some of my favourite places.  Places we used to visit when I was a child and also places I used to go when I lived and worked in the city.

 

We wandered up Exchange Walk to the Old Market Square or Slab Square  where there was a continental style Christmas market. The clock on the Council House was chiming the hour of ten - it was a sound that brought back so many memories because I used to work not far away on Wheeler Gate and could hear it every hour of the working day. I had to take a photo of one of the lions as these are one of my earliest memories of being in Nottingham with my Mum, Aunt and cousins.  I still remember a dream I had as a child where one of the lions got up and chased me!  The trams weren't there then but I do remember being on a trolley bus with my cousins on our way to lunch at Woolworth - those were the days!

We walked up Smithy Row and into the Exchange which is now a rather high class shopping arcade it is always beautifully decorated at Christmas time

and into one of my favourite shopping streets Bridlesmith Gate.  There are some lovely shops along here but my favourite is The Tokenhouse and I can't ever pass by I just have to have a good look around.

 Just around the corner on Low Pavement is a new Jamie Oliver restaurant 

 and next door to that is the lovely Georgian building, known as Willougby House, formerly a solicitor's office but now the shop of local designer Paul Smith.

We then walked back down to Wheelergate  I noticed that the building I used to work in is now a Sainsbury's Local.  We turned into Friar Lane passing by a building that I'm convinced used to be a small department store called Toby's - I'm sure I remember going inside and seeing a huge selection of toby jugs.    We crossed Maid Marion Way and walked up to the castle entrance.

No time to go inside or into the Brewhouse Yard Museum which is just around the corner.  We wandered along the old walls of the castle.

The mid 14th century Severns building below used to house a shop and display about the history of Nottingham Lace.  It is closed now.  I wonder what will happen to the building?  It has been dismantled and moved once before in 1970 during the building of the Broad Marsh Shopping Centre.

 'Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem' below is a well known landmark and said to be one of the oldest inns in the country as the building dates from the late 12th century.  It is said to have been built in 1189 during the first year of the reign of Richard I, the Lionheart. 

Behind the 'trip' is the Museum of Nottinghamshire Life in Brewhouse Yard

It is years since I visited this Museum and would like to visit again soon.

You can just see the castle on its mound behind the museum building.

It was time to return to the car which we did by walking along Castle Boulevard passing the old Labour Exchange, now a christian life church, on the way.

I loved the reflection of the buildings on Castle Boulevard in the glass of the Evening Post building below.