WALKING TOUR
Date: Saturday 27 April
Time: 13:30 – 16:00
Start: Nottingham Contemporary, NG1 2GB
Finish: Jamcafé, NG1 3AA
Difficulty: easy
Distance: 1/2 miles
Highlights: abandoned buildings, Squirearchy, People's Hall, Lace Market.
Zig Zag Tours, with the kind permission of the owner, temporarily has the keys to one of Nottingham's most important Georgian Townhouses – the Grade II* listed People's Hall: for years empty and unused (although still maintained), it is now the subject of a very exciting restoration project led by the Nottingham Historic Building Trust. Join us to explore this neo-classical masterpiece with its sumptuous interiors.
The tour of the building will include a 'deep dive' into the viability issues surrounding historic building restoration, the conservation deficit, how to access grant funding and potential new uses for the building (we welcome your ideas).
To get us in the mood for the tour of the building, we will walk from the Lace Market to the People's Hall in Hockley, taking in Nottingham's finest Georgian townhouses along the way. Toby Ebbs will lead the tour, informed by the most comprehensive guide to Nottingham's Georgian townhouses ever written (Historic England 2005), as well as JD Chambers' fantastically titled Nottinghamshire in the 18th century, a study of life under the squirearchy.
The 'Squirearchy'. What a word! We cannot get enough of the Squirearchy.
Join us for an afternoon stroll and an exploration of a building you've probably seen many times before but never been inside!