Mick & Lyn's overseas adventure 2013: Tuesday 18 June 2013 Nottingham. Wollaton Hall & Deer Park, Visit Roger and Sue.

Today we decided to visit Wollaton Hall and Deer Park on a day which started out very overcast but then the sun came out
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When we arrived at the park which is not far from the city centre of Nottingham, Lyn was thrilled to see dozens of Deer roaming the grounds. There were lots of groups of Fallow and Red Deer.

We pulled to the side of the entry road and wandered over to see a group of them but whilst we were taking pictures a parking inspector appeared on his scooter so we had to quickly get back to the car and go and park legally.

Of course there was a charge for this of £2 for 3 hours. Display your voucher!

We noticed lots of people trudging in from the road, which is quite a walk and when we got chatting to a fellow visitor he said they were parking out on the road to avoid paying for the parking.

We then wandered through the old stables at the side of the hall for our morning coffee in the restaurant.

After coffee we headed up to the beautiful ancient building which is Wollaton Hall, a magnificent Elizabethan Mansion built between 1580 and 1588 for Sir Francis Willoughby.
Entry to the building is free but Mick paid £3 (senior’s rate) each for us to go on a tour which included areas not seen by the non payers.

The hall has a fascinating history and due to a situation where there was a debt of double death duty, it came to be owned by the Nottingham City Council in 1925.
Wollaton Hall was also used extensively in one of the movies in Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, being transformed into Wayne Manor for the film.

Since Wollaton Hall opened to the public in 1926, it has been home to the city's natural history museum with The Nottingham Industrial Museum in the out-buildings. On display are some of the items from the three quarters of a million specimens that make up its zoology, geology and botany collections. These are housed in five galleries and what interesting galleries they are. Even Lyn, who hates museums, was impressed.

The hall stands on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton Park which has a total area of 500 acres. The surrounding park land is regularly used for large-scale outdoor events such as sporting events, rock concerts and festivals. Not a bad spot for a wedding either as the grounds are immaculately maintained.

As our 3 hour parking period was ending and the parking inspectors were very busy, we returned to the car and headed off to visit our friends Roger and Sue for a cuppa.

Mick knew Roger from his days living in Nottingham and we were made very welcome. Mick and Roger reminisced about Mick’s time there up until he was 18 years old and then what had happened to each of them in the following 50 years!

As it was a warm and sunny day we sat outside to have our coffee and Mick sat with his camera ready taking pictures of the various birds which visited the bird feeders. Despite his best efforts he didn’t manage to get a picture of the Jay which kept arriving and leaving too quickly to photograph.

After a lovely afternoon spent with such a lovely couple, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel stopping for a meal in a Chinese restaurant full of Chinese people. Lyn says if there are Chinese people in a Chinese restaurant, the food must be good, and it was.