County in England
Nottinghamshire
Home to an outlaw who may never have existed, the world's oldest professional football club, and the apple tree behind every Bramley pie.
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Key information
- County
- Nottinghamshire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 1.15 million, 2021 Census
- Area
- about 2,160 square km
- Known for
- Robin Hood, Sherwood Forest, lace, Boots, Raleigh bicycles, D.H. Lawrence, Bramley apples
- What locals are called
- Nottinghamians (Nottingham folk say "ay up, me duck")
- Famous people
- Lord Byron, D.H. Lawrence, Jesse Boot, Torvill and Dean
- Football clubs
- Nottingham Forest, Notts County, Mansfield Town
About Nottinghamshire
The outlaw who put a county on the map
Nottinghamshire's most famous resident has never been proved to exist. Robin Hood, the hooded archer who robbed the rich and fought the Sheriff of Nottingham, is tied to the county so firmly that the shire is practically his brand. Sherwood Forest was once a vast royal hunting ground, and its best-known survivor is the Major Oak, a vast, propped-up tree thought to be 800 to 1,000 years old. Legend says Robin's band sheltered in its hollow trunk. Whether or not they did, visitors have been coming to see it for generations. Nottingham Castle, perched on its sandstone rock above the city, completes the story. It is the setting for the Sheriff's villainy, and the city has the statues, trails and tourist trade to prove it.
Lace, bikes and the chemist who built an empire
Nottingham grew rich on making things. Its Lace Market district was the centre of a global lace industry, and the tall Victorian warehouses still stand there. Two household names began here. In 1849 John Boot opened a herbalist's shop in Nottingham, and his son Jesse Boot turned it into the Boots chemist chain. In 1887 the Raleigh bicycle company was founded in the city, and it grew into one of the biggest bicycle makers in the world. Players cigarettes added a third giant to the local roll call. The county also made cheese. Colston Bassett in the Vale of Belvoir produces Stilton, and Nottinghamshire is one of only three counties allowed to make it. The village of Stilton, oddly, is not.
Football's oldest club and a pair of European Cups
Notts County, founded in 1862, are recognised as the oldest professional football club in the world. Their rivals Nottingham Forest, founded in 1865, sit just across the River Trent, so the two clubs' grounds face each other over the water. Forest's golden age came under Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. The club went from the second tier to winning the European Cup in 1979, and then won it again in 1980. Few clubs of their size have ever matched it. Mansfield Town, the Stags, carry the colours of the county's old mining heartland. Cricket fans know Trent Bridge, one of England's great Test grounds, and Holme Pierrepont near Nottingham hosts the National Water Sports Centre for rowing and canoeing.
Poets, rebels and a miner's son from Eastwood
Lord Byron lived at Newstead Abbey, a former priory that he inherited as a young man and sold in 1818. It is still shown off as a literary shrine. D.H. Lawrence was born in Eastwood in 1885, the son of a coal miner. His mining-town childhood fed into novels such as Sons and Lovers. Alan Sillitoe, author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, gave the city's factory floors and pubs their own classic. On the ice, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, both from Nottingham, danced to Ravel's Bolero at the 1984 Winter Olympics and won gold. Their routine earned perfect 6.0 scores for artistic impression from the judges. The county's coal industry shaped communities for generations, and the bitter miners' strike of 1984 to 1985 left a deep mark on Nottinghamshire's mining towns.
Pubs, fairs and one very famous apple
Nottingham's Goose Fair is one of Britain's oldest and best-loved fairs, with roots going back to the 13th century. Geese were once driven to the city to be sold. Today it is a giant funfair held each October. Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, built into the rock beneath the castle, claims a founding date of 1189 and is often described as England's oldest inn. Whatever the truth of that, its caves are a fine place for a pint. In Southwell, the Norman minster has medieval stone carvings of leaves so lifelike that they are known as the Leaves of Southwell. The town is also home to the original Bramley apple tree, grown from a pip planted by a girl called Mary Ann Brailsford in the early 1800s. Every Bramley in every British pie descends from that one tree. Newark has its own story. King John died at Newark Castle in 1216, and the town withstood three sieges in the Civil War. Wollaton Hall, an Elizabethan showpiece in Nottingham, appeared as Wayne Manor in The Dark Knight Rises.