Distance: 4.2 miles

Difficulty of the Terrain: Easy

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. from Dropbox

Short urban walk from the heart of Nottingham to Wollaton Deer Park and Hall on the city’s outskirts. The route is mostly along the Nottingham Canal and across the University of Nottingham campus.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Nottingham’s Park and Palace for the People

Today Wollaton Hall sits at the centre of a popular 500 acre park on the western edge of Nottingham.

It houses Nottingham’s Natural History Museum, as well as being a venue for temporary exhibitions and functions. The property’s exterior largely dates to the 1580s when it was built by the Willoughby family, whilst the interior is from a range of eras. Key rooms have been restored and dressed to show how they may have looked during particular time periods if you are into that sort of thing.

The parkland surrounding Wollaton Hall was created in the early 19th Century by Henry Willougby, the Sixth Baron Middleton. He enclosed the land around the house cutting off the public from accessing and using the land. This process entailed the destruction of the village of Sutton Passeys.

Wollaton Hall remained in the ownership of the aristocratic Willoughby family for centuries. However, by the early 1880s the family purportedly considered it “too near the smoke and busy activity of a large manufacturing town” suggesting that they were thinking about moving on.

The house and surrounding parkland came into the possession of Nottingham City Council in 1925, who restored public access, with the natural history museum opening in 1926.

In addition to housing the natural history museum, temporary exhibitions, and partially being available to tour, the former stable block adjacent to the main house is home to various attractions. These include several restaurants and cafes, a couple of shops and Nottingham’s small Industrial Museum.

As well as human attractions the park is home to a herds of red and fallow deer, as well as numerous species of birds, fish and even fungi.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the gpx. from Dropbox

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This walk to Wollaton Hall begins at Nottingham Railway Station on the edge of the city centre.

Once on the central station footbridge turn right and descend down a flight of steps to street level.

Here turn left and pass under a viaduct which carries the tramline running into the city centre from the west.

Walk up the pedestrianised street on the far side with the station on your left and an array of bars, coffee shops and a few convenience stories on your right.

At the top of the road – level with the front of the station – it joins the busy Carrington Street which runs across the Nottingham and Beeston Canal into the middle of the city.

Turn right here and walk a very short way down Carrington Street.

Crossing over onto the left hand side of the road you come to a flight of steps which lead off to the left down onto the towpath of the Nottingham and Beeston Canal.

Once on the towpath turn left and begin walking along the towpath.

The route leads under a series of city centre bridges past some locks, alongside an array of modern office and public buildings, as well as a range of converted warehouses from the 19th and early 20th Centuries along the southern boundary of the city centre.

Presently after some way on your right you get a great view of Nottingham Castle on top of its crag.

The Nottingham and Beeston Canal along which you are walking is a surviving section of the Nottingham Canal which runs through the city, is a stub of a much longer route which once ran up to the eastern Derbyshire village of Langley Mill. Here it connected to the Cromford Canal which ran all of the way up to the Derwent Valley Mills located on the fringe of the Peak District. The canal ceased to be maintained from the 1930s onwards, and in the 1950s Nottingham City Council in response to sanitary and environmental health concerns, filled in a large chunk of it, above where it intersected with the River Trent. A stubby section lives on as a popular walking route in the Broxtowe Borough Council area where, existing as a semi-drained curio, it essentially forms a long linear park.

Passing Nottingham Castle you leave the city centre.

Following the canal you pass by a large canal marina.

Then through a stretch across a residential area.

Presently after over a mile of walking you come to a mighty concrete bridge carrying the A52 to the west of the city.

Here on the left there is a set of steps running up to the carriageway.

Once up by the road turn right and walk a short way downhill. Ahead of you perched on an opposite hill stand the towers and chimneys of the science faculties at Nottingham’s gargantuan university, one of the largest in the country.

Follow the path downhill alongside a grassy bank.

Near the bottom of this head through an underpass to your left.

Once through the underpass, having passed under both of the elevated roadways, turn right.

The path winds up on A6005 which runs through the studentified and slightly bohemian suburb of Dunkirk.

Once out of the underpass left and walk along the road.

After a short distance cross the road using the traffic lights on your right.

A little further on and you emerge beside a tram stop opposite the University of Nottingham’s Lakeside Arts Centre.

Here the University campus stretches before you running uphill towards a ridge. The late 1920s vintage Trent Building sits prominently on the hilltop in a manner which recalls the earlier Aston Webb Building at the University of Birmingham or the slightly later Parkinson Building at the University of Leeds.

At this point it is possible to cross the tram tracks and head through the gates and follow the paths to the left through the University campus as they wind through the grounds of Highfields Park past the lake.

To save time however, I decided to press on down the near dead straight A6005.

Right at the end of Highfields Park turn right through a set of gates and enter the park.

Then turn right and head a little way into the park to where the lake ends.

Here, turn left and head uphill.

At the top of the hill take a slight left and walk towards two limestone gate houses.

Once passed these turn slightly to the right, and cross over the road.

Keep walking along the road on the far side.

Follow this road for quite some distance walking past several of the university’s departments and faculties including History and Humanities, as well as several halls of residence, mostly of mid-20th Century vintage.

Presently you pass the University’s sports ground and fairly recently constructed sports centre.

Having passed the sports centre look out on your left for a concealed snicket way.

The snicket is not especially long and soon you are standing on the Derby Road.

This is actually a dog leg of the A52 you briefly walked along earlier just after leaving the canal.

On the far side of the road almost immediately opposite you stands a grand and imposing gateway to Wollaton Park.

Cross over the road, there are traffic lights located just to the right of the snicket.

Then head through the gateway. It is blocked off with a heavy grey door, apparently to stop deer escaping from the park.

Once inside the park take a slight right up a short slope.

Soon you join an avenue of trees and a very wide path heading off to your right.

Walk along this avenue. Soon a large lake appears in the distance.

Follow the path towards the lake.

Presently on your right a golf course appears, above which sits the impressive Wollaton Hall.

Just before you reach the lake take a path to your right running uphill.

Follow this for some way and it takes you almost right up to the Hall, and the stable and service block which now houses several food outlets, a few shops and Nottingham Industrial Museum.

This is where the walk concludes.

Getting Back

Once you have had your fill and are ready to head back, if you exit from the north of the park on to Wollaton Road, which runs through the outer Nottingham suburb of Wollaton then you can catch the frequent number 30 bus back to the city centre. From here it is a short 10 or so minute walk to the Railway Station.