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 …
Rambling around rock holes
November 26, 2024
William Parsons was a solicitor who lived between around 1809 and 1881, and who, between his legal work, his participation in the political and civic life of Nottingham and his often-rambunctious social life, was witness to major transformations to the fabric of the city due to increasing urbanisation and enclosure – a change to which …
Dear sisters: Have you seen this feminist zine?
October 28, 2024
Is it a collage? Is it poetry? Is it a meditation in pink rice bran-based ink? The zine Dear sisters is all of the above. Each page prints a response by a woman living in Notts to second wave feminism. In the 1970s-1990s hundreds of feminist magazines and newspapers circulated in the UK. They rallied …
Photographing artefacts for the dear sisters exhibition
August 27, 2024
This blog post, written by Digitisation Assistant Catherine Martin, highlights the digitisation team’s role in preparing for a new exhibition. Before an exhibition is installed in the Weston Gallery, the digitisation team at Manuscripts and Special Collections photograph every item which has been selected for display, to create images which can be used in publicity, …
How to do a Scoping Survey at Manuscripts and Special Collections
August 16, 2024
This is a guest post by Hannah Kane, a University of Nottingham student, who recently completed a Summer Research Placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. What is a Scoping Survey? A scoping survey involves identifying and checking material to establish its relevance to your research topic. In my case, another undergraduate student and I completed …
Feminist Footnotes
August 9, 2024
This is a guest post by Chiara Rebora, a University of Nottingham student, who recently completed a Summer Research Placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. Expectations of my role? When I began this placement, I felt under-qualified and completely out of my comfort zone. I had to remind myself I was selected for this placement …
Dead End? Tunnels under Nottingham in fact and fiction
June 28, 2024
Considering the number of manmade caves which lie beneath the streets of Nottingham, it is unsurprising that, over the years, a tangled web of stories has developed which imagines a secret network of tunnels beneath the city. The details vary, with passages variously linking the city centre, the castle, and Wollaton Hall or running instead …
The phoenix in early modern print woodcuts
June 4, 2024
This blog post was written by our Special Collections Librarian in the course of her work on an upcoming exhibition at the Old Rectory Museum, Loughborough, where facsimiles of books from the Loughborough Parish Library collection will be displayed. The early Christian writer St Isidore of Seville described the phoenix in his Etymologies: ‘The phoenix …