Weird, spooky, gruesome, humorous, and strange but true stories come alive in The A-Z of Curious Nottinghamshire. ‘Curious’ is perhaps not the first word you would use to label Nottinghamshire. But ‘curiouser and curiouser’ itbecomes when you dig below the surface. Here the reader will meet highwaymen and hangmen, saints and martyrs, flying cars and bedsteads. To sum up, eccentrics, legends, folklore, murders, scandals, ghosts, incredible characters and oodles of wow factor, all may be found within the pages of this book.

Full of memorable and surprising buildings, Nottingham is a county that rewards close investigation. Great medieval churches are represented by Worksop, Newark and by Southwell, with its exquisite carved 'leaves'. Of its country houses, Wollaton Hall shows Elizabethan architecture at its most fantastic, Bunny Hall the English Baroque at its most bizarre, while Lord Byron's Newstead Abbey incorporates one of the strangest of all monastic ruins. The city of Nottingham, marvellously set between hills, is crowded with sturdy Victorian and Edwardian commercial buildings, and enlivened by a strong local tradition of first-rate Modernist architecture.