Experience the best of Nottingham

Nottingham grew on a sandstone ridge above the River Trent, and Nottingham Castle, rebuilt in the seventeenth century as a ducal mansion, stands on the rocky crag where a Norman fortress once rose. More than eight hundred man-made caves are cut into the sandstone beneath the city, and some of them form part of Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, a pub built against the rock.

The Old Market Square is dominated by the domed Council House, and the Lace Market, an area of red-brick Victorian warehouses, recalls the trade that made the city rich. Wollaton Hall, an Elizabethan mansion on a hill, stands in a deer park. North of the city, Sherwood Forest is the legendary home of Robin Hood, with the Major Oak, a vast and ancient tree.

The writer D. H. Lawrence was born in nearby Eastwood, and Lord Byron's ancestral home, Newstead Abbey, lies to the north. The county's Colston Bassett dairy makes Stilton, and the Bramley apple was first grown from a pip in Southwell. Goose Fair, a large funfair held each autumn, is a Nottingham tradition.