Underneath 8 Castle Gate

A number of people who took part in our Walk Through the Underworld wanted to know more about the small cave underneath 8 Castle Gate. Jo has continued doing some work here and has written on her blog about it, click here to read the post.

A Walk Through the Underworld

We are working on our new interactive art event, ‘A Walk Through the Underworld’, to take place in the autumn. We aim to lead a series of curated walks around Nottingham’s caves in September, which explore the mysterious and fantastical qualities of the unique environment.

Deep beneath the streets of Nottingham lies a hidden world that has been forgotten. The subterranean labyrinth has been developing for hundreds of years and there are currently over 450 known caves with a rich history. The caves have served as dungeons, houses, beer/wine cellars, tanneries, secret tunnels, air-raid shelters, and many more intriguing things. We are creating an interactive art walk that explores some of these mysterious spaces and re-imagines what may have occurred in these secret chambers.

Mythology is particularly important to Nottingham, a city known for its hero Robin Hood. The event will encourage participants to imagine the activities that may have occurred in these secret chambers through storytelling and through installation artworks posing as relics. Unlike other existing cave tours, ‘A Walk Through the Underworld’ is an imaginative experience, weaving tales and dreaming of otherworlds. We ask our participants to contribute their own ideas in response to our own, making each event unique. A publication will record our experiences.

 In ‘A Walk Through the Underworld’, participants will gain special access to Nottingham’s hidden caves that are usually closed to the public. We are still confirming the exact caves we will visit, though we think we have 2 out of 3 sorted, so we are close! As soon as we have all the details we will post again, so keep following for details.

We are also looking for additional funding and sponsors to realise all aspects of the project. There will be rewards for anybody who donates, which will be listed on a page on this blog in the next few weeks. Rewards will include guaranteed entry to one of our cave walks, exclusive artworks and publications relating to the event.

If you would like to know more, make a donation or want to be kept up to date on our progress, please email us or join our mailing list.

We hope you can join us for an imaginative subterranean adventure!

Dream Walking - the dove and the bluebottle

Our first walk, Dream Walking, took place last Friday with over 160 people taking part!  We had a lot of fun - thanks to everybody who came along!

Over the next few weeks I will be writing about each of the eleven images that we made for the Dream Walk and put in locations around the streets.


Clue:  A bottle that flies!

The first image our walkers came across was the fly in Waterstone's window.  We made the fly by putting together the overall theme for the walk (flying) with the location, Bottle Lane - giving us the idea of the Bluebottle fly!

In conversation with one of our participants, who spoke English as a second language, this image gave him the most trouble as he had no idea that there was such a thing as a bluebottle fly, and so he was looking for an actual bottle with wings!

I am always interested in the naming of things and what they can tell us about history, and the Nottinghamshire History website has some clues as to why this small street was called Bottle Lane, as well as some other information on street names around this area.  Click here and read the last paragraph about Bottle Lane.

Clue:  Flying for peace!

This image was an easy one to come up with.  We wanted to make something appropriate for St Mary's Church, and to link in with our overall theme of flying.  So the image of a dove suggested itself and you could find this image on the back of the sign for St Mary's Church on the entrance by Stoney Street and Kaye's Walk.

The dove has become a symbol of peace for many people, but the original idea for this seems to come from early Christian symbolism.  Originally the dove represented the peace of the soul of the individual, but later on came to be a symbol of peace between peoples such as in wars or conflict.  The dove is mentioned in the New Testament as appearing at the baptism of Jesus like a holy spirit, and is also mentioned in the Hebrew text the Talmud, when "the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters like a dove".

We have now included a photo album of our works at Light Night on our Facebook page.  They looked great glowing in the dark!

Designs to dream

In one of our interventions for our Dream Walking event for Light Night, we are incorporating an adaption from this beautiful original draftsman's drawing of Nottingham lace.  Our walk takes place in part of the historic Lace Market area of Nottingham, so we thought it important to make this link.

This drawing was created by Fewkes, formerly Charles Farmer Lace, established around 1910 in Mapperley, Nottingham.  The lace drawing is part of a collection of original lace drawings available from Debbie Bryan Studio & Shop, 18 St Mary's Gate, The Lace Market, Nottingham, and still inspiring lace designs today.  Click here for Debbie Bryan's website and visit her heritage pages to find out more about lace in Nottingham, then and now!

We will be posting on this blog the story behind some of our other clues following the event.

Come along on Friday 10th February between 6pm and 9.30pm to pick up your map and torch from us and follow our clues to find all eleven of our interventions....  You will find us in the High Street by Barclays Bank.

See you there!