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Nottingham Castle Gateway
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We are so used to looking upon Nottingham Castle as a Museum and as a Gallery of Fine Arts that we are apt to forget its really wonderful history.
The history of Nottingham Castle goes far further back than the Seventeenth Century. Founded in 1068 by William Peveril, Scott’s "Peveril of the Peak," it commenced as a comparatively humble structure on the acropolis where now stands the museum.
Its function was that of a frontier fortress, facing north, a fact usually overlooked by visitors admiring the view over the Trent Valley. Gradually it grew in size and importance ; it became a favourite palace of the Kings of England it was the meeting-place of innumerable Parliaments and councils until finally, at the time of the Wars of the Roses, it was probably the most powerful and elaborate fortress-palace in the whole realm.
Consequently, through this gateway must have passed an endless procession of wayfarers, including almost all the great men in English history, and towards the end of this procession was the sinister figure of Richard III., setting forth from his eyrie in Nottingham Castle to Bosworth Field and death.