Visiting Nottingham, United Kingdom: Top Sights on Foot

Nottingham is an English city shaped by medieval churches, sandstone caves, industrial history, contemporary art, and the enduring legend of Robin Hood. The city centre is particularly rewarding to explore on foot, with the Lace Market, Castle Rock, historic pubs, museums, and impressive Gothic Revival buildings close together. Neywo has a free audio guide for Nottingham with 178 narrated places.

What to See in Nottingham

Nottingham Cathedral

Nottingham Cathedral is a striking Gothic Revival church dedicated to Saint Barnabas and the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nottingham. Designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, it was built between 1841 and 1844, shortly after the Catholic Relief Act of 1829 eased restrictions on Catholic worship in the United Kingdom.

The cathedral became a cathedral in 1852, when Pope Pius the Ninth re-established the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales. Inside, the Blessed Sacrament Chapel preserves elements of Pugin’s richly decorated original design.

St Peter’s Church

St Peter’s Church, formally the Church of St Peter with St James, is one of Nottingham’s three medieval parish churches. It stands on a site first occupied around 1100, while the present building began to take shape around 1180.

The Grade I listed church is considered the oldest building in Nottingham still in continuous public use. Its interior brings together details from different periods, including a carved medieval rood screen, a modern reredos, and the Workers’ Memorial Window.

St Mary’s Church in the Lace Market

St Mary’s Church, also known as St Mary the Virgin, is the oldest parish church in Nottingham and one of only five Grade I listed buildings in the city. It was mentioned in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book, although the site is thought to have Saxon origins.

The current church was built between 1377 and 1509, with its nave completed by 1475 in the Perpendicular Gothic style. Look for the wooden Chantry door from the 1370s, described as one of the oldest surviving medieval doors. Its location on High Pavement makes St Mary’s a natural highlight of a walk through the Lace Market.

National Justice Museum

The National Justice Museum occupies a remarkable historic complex on High Pavement. The former Shire Hall and County Gaol once combined a courtroom, prison, and police station—one of the few places where a person could be arrested, tried, sentenced, and executed within the same complex.

The courtrooms date back to the fourteenth century, while the gaol existed by at least 1449. Inside, visitors can move from the holding cells to the prisoners’ dock and look up towards the galleries and the judge’s position. The museum’s collection includes 40,000 artefacts exploring the history of justice, injustice, and law enforcement.

Nottingham Contemporary

Nottingham Contemporary is a major contemporary art centre in the Lace Market. Opened in 2009, its building was designed by Caruso Saint John and features scalloped verdigris panels embossed with a Nottingham lace pattern.

The gallery is partly built into the sandstone cliff of Garners Hill, a site associated with Saxon forts, medieval town halls, and Victorian railway lines. Its four galleries host major exhibitions by contemporary artists from around the world.

Nottingham Castle and Castle Rock

Nottingham Castle occupies Castle Rock, a natural rocky promontory rising about 40 metres above the city. The site began as a Norman motte-and-bailey fort built in 1068 on the orders of William the Conqueror. It later became a stone castle, royal fortress, and occasional royal residence.

The castle is closely linked to the Robin Hood legend, in which the outlaw’s final confrontation with the Sheriff of Nottingham takes place there. The medieval castle was largely demolished after the English Civil War, but the gatehouse and parts of the ramparts remain. The building now associated with the site is the former ducal mansion, begun in the 1670s by William Cavendish, the first Duke of Newcastle.

After being burned by rioters in 1831, the mansion was renovated as an art gallery and museum. It opened to the public in 1878 as the first provincial art museum in England.

Brewhouse Yard and its Caves

At the foot of Castle Rock, Brewhouse Yard Museum explores around 300 years of Nottingham’s social history. The site occupies a row of seventeenth-century cottages surrounded by sandstone caves.

The cottages began as medieval cave dwellings before the area became associated with maltings, tanneries, lacework, and dyeing. Reconstructed rooms include a Victorian parlour, a child’s bedroom from the 1880s, and 1920s shops such as a grocer, barber, ironmonger, and music shop. The associated caves were used at different times as dwellings, workshops, and air-raid shelters.

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem

Built against Castle Rock, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is one of Nottingham’s most distinctive historic pubs. It claims to be the oldest in England, with an opening date of 1189, although no documentary evidence confirms that date.

Its caves are believed to have served as a brewhouse for the castle, perhaps as early as the castle’s foundation in 1067. The oldest parts of the building standing today are generally dated to between 1650 and 1660. The combination of whitewashed brick, cliffs, and underground spaces makes this a memorable stop near Nottingham Castle.

Albert Hall

Nottingham’s Albert Hall is a long-established venue for concerts, conferences, and public gatherings. Designed by Watson Fothergill, it opened as a Temperance Hall in 1876 and was already the city’s largest concert space when its first event took place.

After a devastating fire in 1906, the building was reconstructed by Albert Edward Lambert and reopened in 1910 as an ornate Edwardian music hall. Its Great Hall remains the centrepiece, with seating for 700 people.

Green’s Windmill and Science Centre

In Sneinton, Green’s Windmill is a restored and working tower windmill built around 1807 to mill wheat into flour. It continued operating until the 1860s, when steam-powered mills made it obsolete.

The Grade II listed mill later became a boot polish factory, suffered a fire, and fell into decay before Nottingham City Council rescued it in 1979. It reopened to the public in 1986. Visitors can see restored machinery and watch the sails turn. Next door, the Green’s Windmill Science Centre explores electricity, light, and magnetism through hands-on exhibits.

Wollaton Dovecote and Nottingham Industrial Museum

Wollaton Dovecote is one of the stops in Wollaton Park. Nearby, the Nottingham Industrial Museum occupies the seventeenth-century stables of Wollaton Hall and examines Nottinghamshire’s industrial past through machinery, vehicles, inventions, and working engines.

Its five themes are textiles, transport, communications, mining, and steam. Exhibits include lace-making machinery, vintage cycles, motorcycles, motor cars, telecommunications equipment, clocks, printing technology, and engineering displays. The Basford Beam Engine, a working Robey engine, and a stationary mill engine provide some of the museum’s most distinctive sights and sounds.

Explore Nottingham with a Self-Guided Audio Guide

A Nottingham self-guided walking tour is an easy way to connect the city’s main historic areas. Neywo offers six walking tours, one bus route, and one bike route in Nottingham, covering 178 narrated places in total:

• Lace, Law and Caves in the Lace Market: 1.19 km, 72 minutes, 11 stops.
• Castle Rock: Robin Hood, Mortimer’s Hole and England’s Oldest Inn: 1.35 km, 81 minutes, 12 stops.
• Market Square, Music Hall and Medieval Churches: 1.22 km, 57 minutes, 8 stops.
• Stage Lights and Gothic Spires: 0.95 km, 56 minutes, 8 stops.
• Sneinton: George Green’s Windmill and a City Farm: 1.78 km, 55 minutes, 6 stops.
• Wollaton: Deer Park, Camellia House and a Dovecote: 1.63 km, 50 minutes, 5 stops.
• Cathedral, Castle Rock and the Lace Market by bus: 2.5 km, 11 minutes, 6 stops.
• Wollaton Park: Lodge, Hall and Dovecote by bike: 2.7 km, 14 minutes, 3 stops.

Download Neywo and Explore Nottingham at Your Own Pace

Download Neywo to explore Nottingham with a free audio guide and choose the route that suits your day. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

Nottingham is part of England, within the United Kingdom, and offers a compact introduction to the country’s architectural, industrial, and cultural heritage.