Wollaton Hall is a spectacular Elizabethan country house, standing on a natural hill three miles west of Nottingham City Centre. Wollaton Hall is set in five hundred acres of spectacular gardens and deer parkland. The house is now the home to the city's Natural History Museum and Wollaton's Courtyard Stables are home to the city's Industrial Museum. The surrounding parkland has a herd of deer, and is regularly used for large-scale outdoor events such as rock concerts, sporting events and festivals.
Wollaton Hall was built between 1580 and 1588 for Sir Francis Willoughby and is believed to be designed by the Elizabethan architect, Robert Smythson, who had by then completed Longleat, and was to go on to design Hardwick Hall. The style is an advanced Elizabethan with early Jacobean elements. The building is of Ancaster stone from Lincolnshire, and is said to have been paid for with coal from the Wollaton pits owned by Willoughby; the labourers were also paid this way. The building consists of a central block dominated by a hall three storeys high, with a stone screen at one end and galleries at either end, with the "Prospect Room" above that. From this there are extensive views of the park and surrounding country. There are towers at each corner, projecting out from this top floor. At each corner of the house is a square pavilion of three storeys, with decorative features rising above the roof line. Much of the basement storey is cut from the rock the house sits on.
The house was unused for about four decades before 1687, following a fire in 1642. In 1702 the Hall was updated. Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos recorded that the master masons, and some of the statuary, were brought from Italy including the decorative but ludicrous gondola mooring rings carved in stone on the exterior walls. In 1801 – 1830, the fire damages the original interior of the house and was remodelled by Jeffry Wyattville. Wyattville was a prominent garden and architectural designer who worked on Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. In 1881, the house was still owned by the head of the Willoughby family, Digby Willoughby, 9th Baron Middleton, but by then it was "too near the smoke and busy activity of a large manufacturing town...now only removed from the borough by a narrow slip of country".
The hall was bought by Nottingham Council, and opened as a museum in 1925. On display are some of the best items from the three quarters of a million specimens that make up its zoology, geology, and botany collections.
Natural Connections Gallery
One of the central themes in the gallery is extinction, and a number of extinct and near-extinct species are on display. These include a passenger pigeon and a flightless parrot from New Zealand – the kakapo. Recent additions to the gallery include the extraordinary duck-billed platypus, a giant anteater and a rare manned sloth. Other popular exhibits include an orangutan skeleton, a hippo skull and a Humboldt penguin, together with many other mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, and fossils.
Bird Gallery
Recreated in the style of a 1930s natural history museum display, this gallery contains taxidermied Victorian birds and game heads, alongside more contemporary specimens. Many of the birds were collected in Ethiopia and Sudan by the 19th century Nottinghamshire explorer Mansfield Parkyns. These include one of the first two specimens of the shoebill, or whale-billed stork, brought back to Europe in 1850. Other exhibits include a pelican, a bird-of-paradise, and a red kite.
Insect Gallery
Spectacular butterflies, moths, beetles and bugs from around the world are on display here. Focusing on the biology and life-cycle of insects, this gallery also includes a section on social insects including a Caribbean cloud forest diorama showing some of the birds and mammals that depend upon termite colonies for food and nest sites. Live insects are also featured – these include stick insects from Borneo and Papua New Guinea, and a colony of Madagascan hissing cockroaches.
Mineral Gallery
This gallery showcases some of the 5,000 specimens that make up the rock and mineral collection. It includes some the original Nottingham Naturalists’ Society collection and fine displays of classic minerals from the North of England (early 20th century) and Cornwall and Devon (19th century). You can also get up close to some giant ammonites – fossilized coiled shells of ancient squid-like sea creatures.
Africa Gallery
The Nottingham Natural History Museum’s famous gorilla and giraffe specimens can be seen here, together with a splendid cheetah – the fastest land mammal. The gallery also features a walk-through waterhole scene complete with zebras, leopards, hyenas, antelopes, warthogs, ostriches, a porcupine and even a fruit bat. An interactive panel enables visitors to hear the sounds made by some of the better-known African animals.
Migrating wildfowl grace the lake in the winter. There is a good diversity of fungi present, especially in the winter months, mainly found near the wooded areas and the lake.
It’s a great park for families and has a wonderful play area, you can just wander around and enjoy any time of the year. The park has Courtyard cafes which are dog friendly as well. Many weddings and exhibitions are hosted here.
In 2011, Wallaton Hall was used as Wayne Manor for the filming of The Dark Knight Rises.The Hall is five miles north of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, through which Gotham City indirectly got its name.Annual visitors to an Elizabethan mansion have increased by more than 100,000 since the Batman movie was filmed there.
The house was unused for about four decades before 1687, following a fire in 1642. In 1702 the Hall was updated. Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos recorded that the master masons, and some of the statuary, were brought from Italy including the decorative but ludicrous gondola mooring rings carved in stone on the exterior walls. In 1801 – 1830, the fire damages the original interior of the house and was remodelled by Jeffry Wyattville. Wyattville was a prominent garden and architectural designer who worked on Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. In 1881, the house was still owned by the head of the Willoughby family, Digby Willoughby, 9th Baron Middleton, but by then it was "too near the smoke and busy activity of a large manufacturing town...now only removed from the borough by a narrow slip of country".
The hall was bought by Nottingham Council, and opened as a museum in 1925. On display are some of the best items from the three quarters of a million specimens that make up its zoology, geology, and botany collections.
Natural Connections Gallery
One of the central themes in the gallery is extinction, and a number of extinct and near-extinct species are on display. These include a passenger pigeon and a flightless parrot from New Zealand – the kakapo. Recent additions to the gallery include the extraordinary duck-billed platypus, a giant anteater and a rare manned sloth. Other popular exhibits include an orangutan skeleton, a hippo skull and a Humboldt penguin, together with many other mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, and fossils.
Bird Gallery
Recreated in the style of a 1930s natural history museum display, this gallery contains taxidermied Victorian birds and game heads, alongside more contemporary specimens. Many of the birds were collected in Ethiopia and Sudan by the 19th century Nottinghamshire explorer Mansfield Parkyns. These include one of the first two specimens of the shoebill, or whale-billed stork, brought back to Europe in 1850. Other exhibits include a pelican, a bird-of-paradise, and a red kite.
Insect Gallery
Spectacular butterflies, moths, beetles and bugs from around the world are on display here. Focusing on the biology and life-cycle of insects, this gallery also includes a section on social insects including a Caribbean cloud forest diorama showing some of the birds and mammals that depend upon termite colonies for food and nest sites. Live insects are also featured – these include stick insects from Borneo and Papua New Guinea, and a colony of Madagascan hissing cockroaches.
Mineral Gallery
This gallery showcases some of the 5,000 specimens that make up the rock and mineral collection. It includes some the original Nottingham Naturalists’ Society collection and fine displays of classic minerals from the North of England (early 20th century) and Cornwall and Devon (19th century). You can also get up close to some giant ammonites – fossilized coiled shells of ancient squid-like sea creatures.
Africa Gallery
The Nottingham Natural History Museum’s famous gorilla and giraffe specimens can be seen here, together with a splendid cheetah – the fastest land mammal. The gallery also features a walk-through waterhole scene complete with zebras, leopards, hyenas, antelopes, warthogs, ostriches, a porcupine and even a fruit bat. An interactive panel enables visitors to hear the sounds made by some of the better-known African animals.
The Wallaton Park is home to a herd of red deer and fallow deer.
The immaculately kept formal gardens provide the perfect spot to sit and relax.
Migrating wildfowl grace the lake in the winter. There is a good diversity of fungi present, especially in the winter months, mainly found near the wooded areas and the lake.
It’s a great park for families and has a wonderful play area, you can just wander around and enjoy any time of the year. The park has Courtyard cafes which are dog friendly as well. Many weddings and exhibitions are hosted here.
In 2011, Wallaton Hall was used as Wayne Manor for the filming of The Dark Knight Rises.The Hall is five miles north of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, through which Gotham City indirectly got its name.Annual visitors to an Elizabethan mansion have increased by more than 100,000 since the Batman movie was filmed there.
