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 Big Day Out - Sunday 17 April
Don't
miss this great opportunity to come and enjoy Nottingham Castle for free!
BBC Radio Nottingham's "Big Day Out" offers free entry to museums and
heritage attractions across Nottinghamshire.
The event is a celebration of Nottinghamshire history and the places taking
part are inviting you to come and see what they have to offer.
All the venues involved are offering free admission in some form.
The Castle will be open from 10am until 5pm and there will be free access to
the current exhibitions. Please visit Nottingham
City Council's website for more information.
Don't forget to come and see the Nottingham Castle transformation team while
you are visiting.
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 Piecing together the past - Launch of photo
archive project
This new project will
help map former uses of the Castle site, to archive and preserve images from
the public and to allow Nottingham’s people to reminisce and share their
memories from the site in past times.
We'd love to hear from anybody with pictures or stories from this launching of
a weather balloon for instance.
The team spends a lot of time looking at how Nottingham Castle might look to visitors
in the future. We think that using the public’s experience of the site in the
past may help us to do this.
We'd like people to scan and email any images they have of past events or
visits to the Castle, along with supporting information such as dates,
location, anecdotes or memories. It would also be wonderful to see old images
of the buildings around the Castle site.
The project will launch officially on 16 April. Please check the website for further details on the project and on how
to submit your images.
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 Survey prize draw winners
A big thank you to everybody that helped with the survey about our proposed activity plan. Congratulations to our 15 lucky winners who will receive Castle season tickets, and to Deborah Hales who wins a £50 Intu shopping voucher as first entry drawn from the list. We will be in touch to arrange collection/delivery.
Winners: Mr J I
Hardy, Mick Bowyer, Cheryl Allcock, Andrew Foulds, A Clarke, Linda Van Bergen, Paul Martinez, Ken Brand, Jennifer Taylor, Gaynor McManus, V van der Lande,Margaret Smith, Josie Comery, Deborah Hales, Hazel Garton, Michael Savage.
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 Scott's facts and findings
Welcome to Scott's third
column. In this edition, he explores one of the more colourful, but lesser known, episodes of the history of
Nottingham Castle - The siege
which took place between 25 and 28 March 1194, involving two of history’s
greatest known characters: Richard the Lionheart and his brother, the future
King John.
"John, who at this time was the Count of Mortain, was one of
the most powerful nobles in the land. This was not enough
to satisfy John. His brother King Richard the Lionheart was childless and
seemingly had little interest in England, spending most of his reign fighting
in the Holy Land in a succession of Crusades, and this only served to increase
John’s own ambitions of becoming the next King. In 1191, John decided to seize
control of Nottingham and Tickhill Castles while Richard was overseas fighting. Nottingham
Castle was considered to be almost impregnable, however, and it was an angry
king who led a ‘multitude of men’ to the castle walls on 25 March.
Over those few days the castle was the scene
of much death and injury. The castle gates were burned and the outer bailey was
stormed by the king and his troops, who were heavily armed and carried thick
and broad shields to defend themselves against the arrows which came so thick
and fast as if raining from the sky.
The sight of fierce machines and the corpses of traitors led
to fears within the castle. Men were sent out to find out if there was any
truth in the claims that Richard had returned from the Holy Land. It had been
thought those attacking the castle had been enemies of John and they were
defending the castle out of loyalty. If the king had been freed from captivity
and had returned to England, however, that was a different matter. Upon it
being verified that Richard the Lionheart was indeed back, the decision to
surrender quickly followed.
Accounts of money being granted for repairs in 1195 to a
postern and a chapel and houses on the motte could be indicative of some of the
damage suffered at the castle during the siege. Another interesting reference,
from 1194, refers to money for a postern leading to the motte and is often
taken to be the earliest reference to that cavernous passage known today as
Mortimer’s Hole."
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