The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East CoastVarious
History
The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East Coast
Various
Great Britain -- Description and travel; Rivers -- Great Britain
The stately tower of St. Mary's Church is still conspicuous in the
views of the town from the neighbourhood of the Trent, and the whole
structure is well worth a visit, for there are few finer churches in
the county. It is a noble specimen of Perpendicular architecture,
especially remarkable for the number and size of its windows--which, as
Leland says, are so many "that no artificer can imagine to set more."
The market-place also--a triangular area some four and a half acres in
extent--is an interesting spectacle on Saturdays, when it is covered
with booths for the sale not only of fish, flesh, and fowl, but of
all sorts of wares; for Nottingham market still maintains its ancient
repute in the town; and there, on its stony pastures, the Nottingham
lambs were formerly wont to disport themselves at election times, and
probably will do it again, whenever political feeling is running high.
Of this spectacle one might say that distance would certainly lend
enchantment to the view.
[Illustration: CARLTON.]
On University College--a fine new structure, and a lasting monument
to the public spirit of the municipality--on the modern churches and
public buildings, the arboretum and the town gardens, want of space
forbids us to dwell. But the sandstone cliffs so prominent in every
view from the river call for the mention of one peculiarity, which is
exhibited not only by Nottingham but also by some of the neighbouring
villages. In these may be seen dwellings hewn in the rocks, for
which some persons claim a remote antiquity, and see in them indeed
a survival, if not an actual remnant, of the days when, as the Greek
tragedian relates--
Houses of wood or brick they could not frame,
But underneath the ground, like swarming ants,
In sunless caves they found a hidden home.
Be this as it may, houses partly excavated in the rock are still not
very uncommon, and there are some singular caves in the cemetery which
are now being utilised for vaults, so that "at the present day in the
town of Nottingham, we find a return not only to primitive dwellings as
at Petra, but to primitive sepulchres as at Jerusalem."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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