I decided to spend my May Spring Bank Holiday visiting friends in Nottingham, and we decided to visit the Handmade Crafts market at Wollaton Hall
 

This Bank Holiday I decided to take a trip to Nottingham, to visit a not so old university friend.

Our time together always involves food, drink and doing something,...

My friend knows that I am heavily into handmade and supporting handmade and independent businesses, and so she had planned a trip to Wollaton Hall, on the Bank Holiday Monday, as she had seen a Handmade market event advertised there.

So we woke up earlyish, had a quick breakfast and made our way to Wollaton Hall, to check out all the lovely handmade delights, along with the quirky, and the head scratching things, that are usually on offer at a handmade arts and crafts market.

When we arrived we found a parking space relatively easy, and after discussing how energetic we were feeling, even though the venue was pretty busy, but there was suspiciously very little to no advertising or signage this handmade market...

So we just worked on the assumption, that it would appear nearer to the main hall.  We walk up the hill to Wollaton Hall, one of the things I have found with Nottingham, is that it is very hilly, through the stables, which holds two cafes and little shops, and the amenties, but still no signage, and at this point my friendis wondering if she got her dates mixed up.

Wollaton Hall is quite an impressive Grade I listed Elizabethan mansion, built on a hill between 1580 and 1588:
 

This is my second time I have actually been to this venue, but the first time I was distracted by the music festival going on in the grounds at the time, and so I did not fully appreciate how impressive this Grade I listed building is:
 

My friend, by know is begining to question er sanity, on where she had seen this advert for the Handmade Craft event, thinking she had maybe got her dates wrong, so we found a member of staff, who told us that it had been cancelled, but did not know why, which was a shame, as I am sure that the credit card would have got a serious bashing.

Slightly disappointed we decided to check out what Wollaton Hall had to offer, as I found out it is the location for the Batman films, and is currently being used as a natural history museum, which my friend remembers visiting on a school trip.

The Natural History museum of rare and curiosities, was catalogued in an unconventional way, and has various exhibitions of flora, fauna and gemstones, some with labels, confusing and missing labels, I guess to keep things interesting, but I was more interested in the archetecture of the building:
 
Wollaton Hall boasts the oldest cast iron glasshouse in Europe, Carnellia House:

 
Unfortunately there were not many flowers in bloom, in the greenhouse, but plenty of fabulous specimens around to capture my eye:
 

A quick stop to the cafe in the Stables, which this clock really caught my eye:
 
And then it's a walk around the lake, my friend does not like to take things easy....
 
So even though it was not the day we planned, we still had a bit of fun, reverted back to our childhood, had hot chocolate and cake, and got a bit of exercise....

Joolz xxx

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June 04, 2019

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