Nottingham Pt 2: Old beer,the Cursed Galleon and Medieval Ring-toss

During the course of our 15 minute impromptu car-park chat with Christopher (we talked driving in England, visiting old buildings and life in America), we noted our fondness for old English graveyards -  the churchyards and the Victorian-era municipal cemeteries alike - and our eagerness to explore Church Rock, one of England's best muni's and one that had eluded us on our two prior trips to Nottingham.

We were worried about rain, but Christopher alerted us to another potential peril. Polish gangs, who evidently lurk the cemetery at dusk and at night, sparring over turf (some turf to fight over) and being generally menacing. Evidently part of their trade is illegal cigarettes - not necessarily a surprise, as legal ones are extortionately retailed throughout England.   

The term "Polish gangs" struck an odd note with us, a concept lacking resonance for a couple of American tourists, but it still gave us pause as we looked nervously down at the Nikons swinging at our chests. 

"Sometimes they're in there at night," Christopher noted, "and sometimes the Police chase them out. You'll probably be okay." 

My wallet, brimming with pound notes, was on the nightstand in our room, and I thought, eh, maybe I'll leave it there.

But the cemetery was closed anyway.  

We ambled down a few side streets toward City Centre. At the Market Square there seemed to be some sort of fair in progress - multi-colored lights, rides, vendor stalls - conspicuously sparkly against the grey of the evening and the grimly imposing Council House. 

What if they gave a fair and no one came? 

But...no people. Was the fair over? Or not yet begun? Had heavy rains earlier chased everyone anyway? A post-apocalypse scene, a Fellini-esque dream fugue? An hallucination?  

We climbed the hill toward the Castle. Normally a tourist magnet, the Castle was closed by this time, and probably little visited on a rainy Monday anyway. 

Nottingham Castle

Our friends at wikipedia tell us that the Castle was built originally by William the Conqueror in 1067, a stronghold to secure his occupation of Mercia, but the structure there now has little material relationship to William's castle. Rebuilt by Henry II, destroyed, re-built, and destroyed again, the original stone foundations dating to the 13th century are visible at ground level, but most of the rest was built in the 17th and 19th centuries, and the castle now stands as a museum and art gallery. 

In the adjacent courtyard,  Robin Hood (this is Nottingham, after all) is poised with bow and arrow at the ready, a few statues of Robin's homies stand nearby. 

'ello, Robin !!

The Trip

The Trip wasn't far from the Castle, just a quarter rotation around Castle Rock. The place was originally carved into the stone as the castle's brewery, the ale hoisted up through a hole in the stone ceiling. 

The ancient Trip - with the ale hoist at the top. 

The place itself is really two distinct dwellings - the timbered Inn, which dates to the mid 1600's, and the inner Inn, carved into the stone and dating to 1189. It is said that Richard the Lionhearted stayed at the Inn on his way to the Third Crusade.

Looking up at the ale hoist.

Our server guy seated us in the old section, a tiny stone-walled room up some steps from the timbered Inn section, a room with barely enough space to seat 10 diners. Various swords and other medievalia adorned the walls, 

Inside the Trip. 

and the legendary Cursed Galleon, draped in dusty cobwebs and enshrined in a glass case, stood on a shelf just over my shoulder. 

Dust me, face yer doom...

It is said that anyone who cleans the thing meets an untimely death - so no one cleans it anymore, and exactly how a ship model can gather dust inside a glass case remains a mystery.   

    

The food was beefy and generous - Glen our server recommended the Abbot's Brown ale, supposedly a recreation of the brown ale served here in medieval times, from the original recipe. It was bitey and a bit heavy, but otherwise nice; something told me it was probably crafted nearer to 21st century palettes than 12th century. I had a couple. Er...maybe three. 

Dinner finished and both of us aled-up, the bartender kindly called us a cab for the two miles back to the hotel. We were tired and it was raining. While we waited, I hung in the main pub area and watched as some locals were testing each other on the Trip's (evidently) renowned bar game: a ring hung from a ceiling chain is swung across the room to catch a hook at the far end of the pub. I don't know if this too had a tradition extending back centuries. Each of the three guys took a couple of turns at it, all to no success. Harder than it looked, I thought to myself. I just watched. One of them turned to me asked it I wanted to "give it a go." 

I shrugged and said ok. Lined up carefully facing the hook, which I could barely see. The image of dart-throwing I had seen in pubs in England - an elegant, gently-focused, simple-motion technique - flashed through my head. Don't fling it, just coax. I let the ring go and - bam - I hung it. First try. 

The three guys were flummoxed-impressed, as was I.  "You've never done this before," the guy said. 

"No, mate, I'm from out of town." 

We high-fived and they bought a round of shots. I got a little sticker-of-honor from the barkeep, who was also suitably impressed. 

After a day of pitiless rain, re-clutching cars, cheating bladder expulsion on the M1, getting lost in Nottingham, puzzling over deserted festivals and dodging scary Polish cigarette contrabandits...a moment of triumph at the Oldest Inn in England.  

Nottingham Pt 1

One of our 2012 trip's highlights, if you could call it that, was our determined effort to avoid  Swindon, a largely industrial city in the eastern reaches of Wiltshire. (Andy Partridge from the alt-quirk rock band XTC is a life-long Swindonian and something of an erstwhile cultural spokesman there.)

It was on the leg that would take us back to London from Wiltshire, after prowling the neolithic mysteries of Avebury and West Kennet Long Barrow, and the real reason we pasted a skull and crossbones on it was to avoid the Magic Roundabout, a truly malevolent intersection famously regarded as England's scariest place to drive.

Swindon's Magic Roundabout, from a safe distance.

 Avoid it we did.

What we didn't know when we left Watford, emptied of bladder and properly re-clutched with the Mercedes, was that the directions the EuropCar gave us thankfully guided us just past the SECOND scariest to drive in England, the six-circle roundabout at Hemel Hempstead.

At least they have some trees in the center. Hemel Hempstead roundabout.

Neither of us recall him even mentioning it, but had he sent us to the next exit north of Watford to gain access to the M1, this motorist-munching monstrosity awaited.

We didn't discover this bit of good fortune until weeks after we had returned to the States. Half tempted to go back and thank the dude all over again.

We were headed to Nottingham to meet up with our friends from Past Hauntings - Sean, his wife Sarah, his kids and associates - for a ghost hunt somewhere, but the weather was rainy and on the way north Sean texted us that Sarah was ill and they had to cancel for the evening. We had a room booked, so we were going anyway, but we now had the evening free.

The drive into Nottingham - through its inner-ring suburbs and winding, hilly streets - wasn't much fun, and we fumbled through a couple of bad turns before we found the Best Western Westminster (not sure why it was called that, since it was nowhere near Westminster,  a London borough) on Mansfield Road, one of the two or three main thoroughfares through Nottingham.

We had wanted to hit Church Rock Cemetery, the sprawling and vaguely foreboding graveyard right in the middle of town. 

But after dropping off the bags and spending some time chatting in the car park with Christopher, a friendly and slightly disheveled 30ish local who ambled up to us and expressed some interest in our Mercedes, we walked up the road to find that the cemetery was very, very closed, Locked tight. We'd leave that for morning.

Walking to the cemetery....something told me I didn't want to drive thru this.
But I did anyway, the next morning. 

Church Rock Cemetery - the next morning

Instead, a quick check on our GPS indicated that Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, the self-proclaimed "oldest inn in Britain" and one of Nottingham's most famous tourist attractions was a mere mile's walk from the hotel. Easy decision; the weather was holding, we were both hungry and in need of sudsy sustenance after a brutal day on England's roads, and we had wanted to see this ancient place for a long time.