Manuscripts and Special… Experiences!
March 25, 2025
This is a guest post by Hannah Gregg, second year Classics and Archaeology student at the University of Nottingham, who recently completed a placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. My expectations… Like going into any new environment, I was extremely apprehensive before starting, especially as I’d never had experience in the archives before. Moreover, my …
Through the Lens: A Victorian Travel Album
March 19, 2025
Following on from our previous blog, which unravelled the mystery surrounding a collection of 19th century slides depicting buildings and landscapes in India, this week we’re exploring another collection of Victorian photographs, following in the footsteps of Carrie S. North as she travels around France, Monaco, Algeria and Italy in 1891… Unfortunately, very little is …
Stunning slides saved from skip
March 13, 2025
Here at Manuscripts and Special Collections, we hold many visually striking items, but an intriguing set of over 300 glass slides showing views of India – which depict monuments, landscapes and people – stand out even against this tough competition. The photographs date to approximately the 1860s and 1870s, but unfortunately, we can’t be certain …
Nottingham old and new
February 21, 2025
Charles Deering’s ‘Nottinghamia vetus et nova’, which translates from the Latin to ‘Nottingham old and new’, is widely considered to be one of the earliest histories of the town. First published in 1751, the book is a key source for the early study of Nottingham’s caves. Deering was born in Germany and spent his adult …
New book shines light on seventeenth-century collections
February 20, 2025
Manuscripts and Special Collections was excited to host the launch of a new book, ‘Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-century Nottinghamshire’ by Dr Peter Seddon, last week. Attendees had the chance to hear Dr Seddon discuss his work and to purchase a copy, but in a unique twist, they also had the opportunity to view some …
Into the Labyrinth
February 6, 2025
The story of the rediscovery and exploration of Nottingham’s caves has often been driven not only by determined study, but also by simple curiosity and even happenstance. This was certainly the case in 1837, when, in the course of the construction of a row of houses along Mansfield Road, the entrance to a mysterious labyrinth …
The Lions’ Den: Entertainment in Nottingham’s caves
January 31, 2025
Visitors to Nottingham’s caves are often disappointed to learn that most of them were used to store goods such as ale, wine and hay; or else as wells or kilns. True, they have been a vital part of the fabric of the town for at least a millennium, but these quotidian purposes don’t exactly live …
Temples, tombs and troglodytes: the mythical origins of Nottingham’s caves
January 16, 2025
Upon encountering Nottingham’s caves, it was clear to many early antiquarians that these mysterious and little-understood structures must have deep roots, stretching back millennia into the distant past. An early proponent of this theory was the Elizabethan travel writer William Camden (1551-1623), who claimed in his landmark survey, ‘Britannia’, that the caves had been …
Einstein a Go-Go: When Albert Gave a Lecture at University College Nottingham
January 9, 2025
In a teaching room within the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham hangs a blackboard, protected by a perspex sheet. This blackboard contains theoretical equations written on it by legendary physicist Albert Einstein during a lecture he gave at the University (then University College Nottingham) on 6 June 1930. Using archives, articles …
Unearthing the Secrets of Vesuvius
December 17, 2024
It might nearly be Christmas, but today’s blog marks a holiday of a different kind as we continue to follow Dr Edward Wrench on his European tour in 1876. Last time we saw Dr Wrench, he had emerged from the Catacombs of the Capuchins at Rome, and, having satisfied his more superstitious impulses by drinking …
Find, follow, join us
