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With a population of over 270,000, Nottingham is one of England's big cities, a long-time manufacturing centre for bikes, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals and lace. It is, however, more famous for Nottingham Forest football team (or rather, for its mercurial ex-manager, Brian Clough), for the Trent Bridge cricket ground and for its association with Robin Hood , the legendary thirteenth-century outlaw. Unfortunately, the fortress-lair of Hood's bitter enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham, is long gone, and today the city is at its most diverting in the Lace Market, whose cramped streets are crowded with the mansion-like warehouses of the Victorian lacemakers. The county town is flanked to the south by the commuter villages of the Nottinghamshire Wolds and to the north by the gritty towns and villages of what was, until Thatcher and her cronies decimated it, the Nottinghamshire coalfield. Both are unremarkable, but encrusted within the old northern Nottinghamshire coalfield are the thin remains of Sherwood Forest , the bulk of which is contained within The Dukeries, named after the five dukes who owned most of this area and preserved at least part of the ancient broad-leaved forest. Three of the four remaining estates - Worksop, Welbeck and Thoresby - are still in private hands, though Thoresby Hall has recently been turned into a Warner resort hotel, whilst Clumber Park is now owned by the National Trust and offers charming woodland walks. Also within the confines of the former coalfield are two fascinating country houses, Newstead Abbey , one-time home of Byron, and, even better, the wonderful Elizabethan extravagance of Hardwick Hall . Moving on, eastern Nottinghamshire is agricultural and its most important town is Newark , an agreeable, low-key kind of place straddling the River Trent. Newark has a castle, but the main attraction hereabouts is the fine Norman church at nearby Southwell . Fast and frequent trains connect Nottingham with, among many destinations, London, Birmingham, Newark, Lincoln and Leicester. County-wide bus services radiate out from the city, too, making Nottingham the obvious base for a visit.
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