Nottingham; Sunday, 07 January, 2018

After checking out of the hotel I caught the tram round to the station and the train out of town and along the Trent to the market town of Newark.

Newark was a key Royalist town during the Civil War, though it’s history goes back much further than that with it playing a key part in English history for a long while. King John (he of the Robin Hood legends, and more factually of Magna Carta) attended a great feast in the castle from which he contracted dysentery and promptly died in a room above the gatehouse.

The castle was the main point of my visit, and despite only a small fragment of it remaining, it is still very impressive – not least of all for the way it rises from the banks of the River Trent. Almost as impressive is the large Town Lock on the river from which there are particularly good views of the castle and river.

I crossed the river at the lock and headed back to the castle to have a look around the site. Other than a couple of towers, parts of the Gatehouse and the wall facing the river nothing else of the castle remains, so it wasn’t a very long visit to take in the whole of the site.

I had a quick wander around the town before heading back to the station and picking up the train back into Nottingham. I caught the tram round into the city centre and stopped for a late lunch before wandering back to the Old Town Square and taking some photos of the area – now most of the Christmas market had been cleared away, and it was actually possible to see the buildings.

Then it was time to head back to the hotel, pick up my luggage and start my journey back to London.