One of the sights in Nottingham which was top of the list was Wollaton Hall and Park. I admittedly didn't know much about the place, except that it played Wayne Manor in the Dark Knight film, it was free and it was next door to the university, thus requiring minimal effort to visit. So rewind two weeks to the end of my first week in Nottingham. The day before our visit someone innocently mentioned on the International Students page that we were thinking of visiting Wollaton Park if anyone wanted to come along, only to have about 40 people eagerly turn up. It must have been a strange sight indeed to have such a large group of people all traipsing through the entrance to Wollaton Park at once. Luckily the park itself was huge, including its very own golf course and a deer park, and people took their time with photo opportunities, so we managed to disperse a little by the time we got inside the Hall itself.
As I mentioned, I didn't really know much about Wollaton Hall, or what touring the inside would involve. Much of it was more or less what one would expect from an old estate, with some fancy architecture on the inside, some old paintings and a few rooms set up to fit the era of the building. I was more suprised by the rest of the Hall which contained a "Wildlife Museum", mostly containing a huge collection of various taxidermy animals. I was a little icked out by this, but there was information confirming that all of the animals were acquired legally and by natural causes. Plus it also said that the purpose of the museum was to introduce children to real wildlife up close without keeping animals in captivity, which is not a bad point. Unfortunately even more icky was the fact that not everything in the museum was deceased, as I discovered for myself in the insect room when I went to look at some giant cockroaches and they looked back. Once we'd finished exploring the house we took a short wander around the grounds, where we encountered this strange creation.
Visiting an old estate and deer park seems like quite an English thing to do, so it only made sense to follow it up with the world's most multicultural evening out. It was the weekend of Chinese New Year, and to celebrate there was a "festival" and fireworks display down by the lake (yeah that's right, my university has it's own lake!). I say "festival" because when we turned up it was basically just 3 food carts, only one of which actually served anything vaguely Asian. But it was worth braving the cold for the fireworks display, which was very impressive, and especially picturesque above the lake. Following this we headed out to dinner at GBK, a kiwi franchise I've already mentioned in an earlier blog. Needless to say I was very excited to introduce the Internationals to some New Zealand cuisine, namely L&P. Everyone was suitably impressed. This was all in preparation for the biggest day of the year for Americans, Superbowl Sunday. Naturally we chose an Australian bar for our viewing. Unfortunately it turns out American Football is the most tedious sport invented, and since we were in the UK we don't even get the Superbowl commercials which is apparently the best part. Most of those not from the USA barely made it to half-time before heading home (to be fair it was already 1am for us, thanks to the time difference). Still, at least I can say I've had the Superbowl experience, or something.
Since Nottingham apparently has a ready supply of fancy old buildings the next weekend I took a trip to Newstead Abbey with a couple of Australian friends. We took a bus which conveniently dropped us at the gates of Newstead Abbey Park, only to discover that the Abbey itself was a less convenient 20 minutes walk away. This did give us a chance to take a stroll through some English countryside, complete with "woodland path". Sadly there were no squirrels in sight which, let's be real, is the highlight of any woodland wander. We arrived at a very beautiful looking lake, with two big fancy buildings nearby. One of them, which basically looked like a castle, turned out to be the lowly stables. The even fancier of the two was Newstead Abbey, previous home to Lord Byron amongst many other well-to-do gentlemen. We enjoyed a lunch in the view of a multitude of peacocks (a sign of a fancy house if ever there was one). We then took a self-guided tour of the Abbey complete with informative brochure. Anyone who knows me can confirm that the brochure is probably the best part of the tour.
The house itself was amazing, and also very difficult to nagivate. The place was so huge with a variety of passages, so we took a couple of wrong turns, but luckily there were guides to help us out. There was a lot to take in, with many hallways, living rooms, side rooms and bedrooms. They were mostly decorated as they would have been around the time that Lord Byron was staying there. There were also a few rooms with exhibitions about Lord Byron, who came off as a very strange fellow. There was a particular entertaining set of sketches and an accompanying rhyme about Lord Byron and his dog. We also noted that people must be have been much shorter in the past. There was some clothing from the era, including his shoes, which were tiny, and the beds (while unbelievably decadent) did seem much shorter than would be comfortable nowadays. Following the main part of the house was the cloisters, which more clearly befitted the Abbey title. Walking around the cloisters we found an opening down to a very dank and dingy cellar, which apparently used to be a "plunge bath". I wasn't really sold on the whole plunge bath idea though. After exploring the house we took a wander through the grounds. This included a lot of hedges and a large pond, and also offered a great view of the Abbey.
Having exhausted my adventures in Nottingham for a while, I shall be taking a few day trips out to other towns, which I'm sure I'll write about soon.
Byeeeee!
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