Nottingham+Southwell

Robin Hood, Castles, an exceptional Deli, and Green Men Galore!

Hello, lovelies!

We got home last night after a week in Nottinghamshire. We had a lovely (and productive!) time, but I managed to catch a cold, so I’m nursing myself back to health with naps, tea, water, orange juice and (later) in the sunshine. Many thanks to everyone who interacted with my post about why I like Sally Rooney. Speaking of literature, one of the loveliest parts of this week was getting to spend some time in Southwell with Alison Milbank. Until last year she was professor of theology and literature at Nottingham, and I love her writing on this topic. If you’ve hung around this page for a while, you may recognize her name because I’ve interviewed her twice on my podcast(s) (here and here)! She graciously gave me a personal tour of Southwell Minster (of which she is the canon theologian) which was very special. I’ll share more about that at the end of this post, but before we get to that: eats, sights, and sips in Nottingham!

One of the topics I receive the most emails about is traveling and touristing tips for visits to the UK. And as a kind of response to that, I’ve been trying to keep a little travel log of UK towns and cities. I’ve done one for Manchester and Durham, and some day, when I get myself together, I’ll do different regions of London, Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge. But today I’ll write about the city of Robin Hood: Nottingham! We also made a trip to Southwell which is a small village just outside Nottingham. I’ve included recommendations for both!

Oh, and before I dive in: I wanted to include so many more pictures, but Substack is weak and can only take so many. So, if you’d like more. keep an eye out on my instagram where I will post a few more, at least on my story if not also on my page

Nottingham!

Vibes, sights, eats, and sips, in no particular order.