A ducal mansion on a caves-riddled rock where a royal castle once stood, burned in the 1831 riots and now the city museum
Open to visitorscheck opening times and admission before you go
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
Don’t come to Nottingham expecting battlements — almost nothing of the medieval castle survives. A Norman fortress once crowned Castle Rock, the sandstone bluff above the town, and it played a real part in the country’s story: this was a favourite royal stronghold, and in 1330 the young Edward III and a band of men crept up a passage through the rock, now known as Mortimer’s Hole, to seize Roger Mortimer, the man who had been ruling in his place. The old castle was largely pulled down after the Civil War, and a grand Italianate mansion for the Duke of Newcastle went up in its place. A mob burned that mansion out in the 1831 reform riots; it stood a gutted shell for years before being rebuilt as a museum and art gallery, among the first outside London. The rock beneath is honeycombed with caves you can tour, and a Robin Hood statue stands below the walls, a nod to the legend that ties the outlaw to the sheriff who held this castle. It sits above the River Trent with the Robin Hood Way passing close, the City of Caves nearby, and Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, an ancient inn built into the rock, tucked against the castle’s foot.
More at the National Heritage List entry
