Saturday 26 March 2011

Scenic Saturday - Nottinghamshire

Number 34 in the series.



Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood and the evil Sheriff of Nottingham. How many men thrilled to those stories as boys? Well, Sherwood Forest exists - at least, in part - even if the outlaw Robin Hood is probably no more than a legend and a large part of Sherwood Forest is in Nottinghamshire.

Although in my younger days I visited and stayed with family friends in the county, I was not then interested particularly in the local scenery. I was, for example, unaware that the largest sun dial in Europe can be found at Sutton-in-Ashfield. (Actually, it wasn't in those days, having been made only in 1998.) I never did happen to be there at the time of the Goose Fair, an annual event first held in Nottingham more than 700 years ago.

Googling Nottinghamshire for images produces a remarkably poor selection, but I did find that the church of St Peter in the tiny village of Clayworth has a fine set of murals painted right at the very beginning of the 20th century by the Irish-born artist Phoebe Traquair and this week I am posting a picture of the mural on the north wall of the chancel.

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