 Visit the Castle over Christmas and New Year
The Castle and grounds will be open during the Christmas period. Enjoy our exhibitions and walk round the beautiful grounds. Why not bring visiting relatives for a memorable trip?
From 27 December to 3 January; after the presents have been opened, there is a lovely opportunity for children to say thank you with the
chance to make a card for someone special. 2-4pm. £2 per child.
Christmas opening hours (10am - 4pm)
21-23 Dec
27-31 Dec
02-03 Jan
The site is closed on 24, 25, 26 December and 1 January 2016
This is also your last chance to see the wonderful V & A touring exhibition: A World to Win - Posters of Protest and Revolution. The exhibition is open until 17 January 2016. For more information please visit the exhibition website
|
 |
|
Talking about the transformation...
The Castle Project Team was on hand at the Castle throughout the free entry weekend on 12 and 13 December.
It was fantastic to see the Castle so busy and bustling, and great for us that so many people were interested to learn more about the project.
We were able to present interpretation visuals and answer questions about the proposed transformation. Visitors were also very generous with their time, filling in questionnaires and completing voting activities, the results of which will contribute directly to the shaping of our activity plan for the Castle. |
Object of the month - a framework machine
Did you know there is a link between stockings and rebellion?...
This is how your Christmas stockings would have been made in the past!
Knitting machines or stocking frames were the principal method of producing woollen stockings and the domestic system (where workers or stockingers were supplied with a loom and raw material to work from home) dominated production.
This
machine was one of the last to be operated in Dovey’s Cock Stockinger shop in
Calverton, Nottinghamshire. The framework knitting machine will be on display as an object representative of rebellion.
It was presented by Messrs Allen, Solly &
Company to commemorate the invention of machine knitting on a similar frame by
Reverend William Lee of Calverton in 1589.
Additions to the machine and new types
of machine were introduced throughout the eighteenth century and the English
trade came under competition from French developments. During the wars with
Revolutionary and Napoleonic France (1793-1815), John Heathcoat’s bobbin net
lace machine began to dominate production.
The Luddites pioneered bobbin net
production against inferior goods (‘cut-ups’) and foreign single press point
net. During the Luddite disturbances after March 1811, some 1000 stocking
frames and 80 lace machines were destroyed in protests against the production
of cheap, inferior and foreign manufactures.
Thank you to Richard Gaunt, Associate Professor in Modern History at the University of Nottingham for information on this month's object.
Richard is in a three-year residency with Nottingham Castle Museums and Galleries as Curator of Rebellion and Social Justice, working part-time with the Castle’s established curators to help develop the new ‘Rebellion Gallery’, which is at the heart of the Castle transformation. The post has been funded by Arts Council England.
 Associated image – picture of the framework knitting machine that will be on display, accession number NIM 1964-11.
Have a very Happy Christmas and New Year!
| 
