In search of Robin Hood and his Merry Men

Two weekends ago, on a freezing cold saturday morning I left my warm bed and headed to the train station to catch a train to Nottingham to let medieval fantasies capture my imagination.

The trip to Nottingham was lovely. It just so happens that the trains going North are much newer, more comfortable, and cozier than trains going south to London and beyond. Within ten minutes of leaving Cambridge, the train was travelling through frost-covered fields - so thick it looked like snow. The anticipation of my day-trip adventure grew - with a start like this - how could it not deliver!?

After a two hour trip North, I arrived in Nottingham at just after 9am. Manouvering my way out of the train station, I followed the signs into the town centre. Unlike the medieval town walls that I would imagine used to keep transients out and the city folk in, there was a new barrier keeping visitors from the centre of town - a mall! It seemed to go on endlessly in either direction, and the only way to get to the city centre beyond was to go through... so that was what I did.

Being a female, a quick detour through the mall and out to the other side was never going to happen, and I took much longer than I had intended, browsing in the shop windows and even investigating several stores more thoroughly. To be honest, it all went to my head a bit, because England doesn't really do malls, and so to be inside a large building specifically devoted to shopping was a bit of a novelty.

Eventually, I did find my way out, and yet, was confronted by even more stores. In the end I discovered that Nottingham has not one but two malls, a maze of inner city streets devoted to retail therapy and several large department stores.

I did find some reference to Robin Hood eventually, but it took a bit of a hunt... down a couple of side streets, I found myself beside Nottingham Castle, which is perched up on a hill and looks out over the whole of Nottingham. Just outside the Castle gates there is a little park which has a Robin Hood statue... for a figure who's story has been retold all over the world, I was expecting a little more.

While I am not quite up with how the whole Robin Hood story ended, I have always believed that he succeeded in out-smarting his arch enemy, the Sheriff of Notthingham, and carried out his days robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. However, in an ironic twist, that only time can deliver, it seems that Robin may have one the battle, but perhaps the Sheriff did win the war... The Sheriffs legacy is the countless amount of high street chain stores which are now robbing the poor and giving back to the rich.