Stayed the night in the Hilton Nottingham, a pleasant facade with a (presumably) Victorian/Edwardian hotel behind it. Comfortable enough, though the staff were fairly unhelpful. The oddest thing was that my room was too cold, while just outside the door the corridor was far too hot (it must have been 30 degrees at least). Somewhere, there is an air conditioning unit having a duel to the death with a boiler.
Then off to Mansfield on the Robin Hood Line, a (hurray!) reopened railway running between Nottingham and Worksop that reopened to passenger traffic in 2000. And very handy it is, too, though it won’t win any awards for scenery at the Nottingham end. The station building at Mansfield Town is particularly fine – opened by the Midland Railway in the late 19th century, but with the yellow local stone making it look a little bit Georgian.
Mansfield seems to be recovering a bit from the end of coal, with lots of redevelopment and many fast, boring roads. You can see the football ground, Field Mill from the railway station, which is rather lovely, although some of the terraced streets that presumably used to surround it have been replaced by pale-brick warehouses containing Burger King and Blockbuster.