Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery

Set atop a sandstone outcrop worm-holed with caves and tunnels, the original Nottingham castle was founded by William the Conqueror and held by a succession of English kings before falling in the English Civil War. Its 17th-century replacement contains a diverting museum of local history, with an extensive collection of costumes, jewellery, Wedgwood jasperware and paintings, including works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Your ticket also gains you entry to the Museum of Nottinghamshire Life at Brewhouse Yard.

At the foot of the cliffs, housed in five 17th-century cottages and accessed on the same ticket as Nottingham Castle, this charming little museum will take you back through 300 years of Nottingham life using reconstructions of traditional shops and living quarters.

Burrowing through the bedrock beneath the castle, this atmospheric under­ground passageway emerges at Brewhouse Yard. In 1330, supporters of Edward III used this tunnel to breach the castle security and capture Roger Mortimer, the machiavellian Earl of March, who briefly appointed himself ruler of England after deposing Edward II.