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Nottingham Leasing

Did You Know?

What is Nottingham famous for? The Little John.
Within the dome of the Nottingham Council House is placed a 10.5-tonne bell designed by world-famous bell designers John Taylor Co of Loughborough in 1927. This bell is the fifth largest bell in the U.K. and sounds every 15 minutes. 

Here's one of the most interesting facts about Nottingham. John Peake was a British railway manager who specialised in designing of signalling systems for the railway network. After continually reading about road accidents, Peake decided to apply his knowledge of railway signaling systems on the road. In 1866, he created a basic system to control the traffic. This first traffic light was installed at Bridge Street in Westminster, London. Had it not been for Peake and Nottingham, we would have been living a very chaotic world

What started as a family-run herbal medicine shop in Nottingham is now one of the UK’s leading pharmacy retailers. Boots expanded into drug research and manufacturing in the 60s and subsequently invented ibuprofen. Boots Head Office remains just ‘down the road’ in Beeston to this day.

When the mighty Christopher Nolan used Wollaton Hall as the setting for Wayne Manor in 2011’s The Dark Knight Rises, visitor numbers increased by more than 100,000 people. The Elizabethan house stands proudly in Wollaton Park and is now Nottingham’s Natural History Museum.

During your time in Nottingham, you’re likely to become accustomed to using the old Market Square in the city centre as your meeting point. Lined with seating, and laid in front of the impressive council building, it’s quite an architectural haven in the city. But did you know that, with an 800-year history, it’s one of the UK’s oldest public squares.

Now, many inns across the country clamber for this title so we can’t be 100% sure it’s definitely the oldest, however Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem claims to have been established in 1189. It sits beneath the cliff just under Nottingham’s historic castle.

Nottingham Castle is a popular tourist attraction, but it’s also somewhat of a literary landmark. The city’s castle is referenced in Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel ‘Thunderball’ when Bond girl Domino Vitalli describes her ideal man whom she finds on a packet of cigarettes that were made in Nottingham Baskervilles.

The annual Nottingham Goose Fair is one of the UK’s largest travelling funfairs and attracts near 500,00 visitors every year. It was once a livestock and trade event, and earned its unusual name from the thousands of geese from Lincoln that would be driven over for sale.

The University of Nottingham student’s union was the location for the first ever gig by Paul McCartney and Wings – on February 9, 1972. It was the first time McCartney had played in five years, and tickets cost 40p.

The first number plate in Nottingham was AU1, registered by William Dowson in 1903. (Later, the same number plate featured in the James Bond film ‘Goldfinger’, on Auric Goldfinger’s Rolls-Royce.).