Wollaton Hall

Whilst this place is called Wollaton Hall,  in the 2011 Batman movie,  The Dark Knight Rises, it became  Bruce Waynes home, Wayne Manor. It was used mainly for some outside scenes but there as also filming in the old kitchens and, according to the staff on site, some filming took place in what is now used as the gift shop for the City of Nottingham Natural History Museum, the current role of the house. For Batman fans it is a convenient addition to a visit to the nearby Nottinghamshire village of Gotham.

 The house was built between 1580 and 1588 and is one of England's finest Elizabethan mansions. There is little of the original furniture inside but the painted ceilings, the hammer beam roof in the main hall, the servant's call bell system (in the main entrance)  and several fantastic murals on the staircases point to how it once was.

Instead of period furniture it now houses a permanent collection of wildlife exhibits and, from time to time, special touring exhibitions. In 2017 it is hosting an exhibition about the Dinosaurs of China which it integrated very cleverly with its own material.

It is set within 500 acres of fantastic parkland and yet it is almost in the centre of the city of Nottingham. The park contains two species of deer (red and fallow) which wander freely amongst visitors and there is a large artificial lake. In the grounds is the Camellia Glasshouse, the largest cast iron glasshouse in Europe. This glasshouse can rightly be described as an orangery, lots of citrus trees are growing inside. Also in the park, in the house's old stable block, is Nottingham's Industrial History Museum (currently only open at weekends and public holidays) which is particularly concerned with Nottingham's history as a centre of lace making. There is also an impressive beam engine.

If all this were not enough we also have to remember Wollaton Park's role in WW2 as the base for the US 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment.  This regiment as based here just before D-Day where they  were due to have jumped close to the famous town of Sainte-Mère-Église.

The 508th were dropped in the wrong locations and had extraordinary difficulty linking up with each other. During the assault on June 6, First Lieutenant Robert Mathias of the 2nd Battalion, was the first American officer killed by German fire on D-Day.

Then the regiment returned to Wollaton's so called "Tent City" on 13th July  to recuperate and re-equip. Of the 2,056 paratroopers of the regiment who participated in the D-Day landings, only 995 returned to Wollaton. They stayed at Wollaton until taking part in Operation Market Garden (17th Sept 1944) and later in the Battle of the Bulge.

A memorial to the Regiment is in the grounds close to the house and every year the sacrifices made by those young men killed and injured in WW2 are remembered in a  ceremony supported by the Royal British Legion.