Nottingham Castle: City hopes to shed 'workaday' image with £30m refurb

"It's not a traditional castle, it's not a Windsor or a Warwick, so we have to manage expectations."

Nottingham Castle is reopening after a three-year, £30m refurbishment project, with the city's tourism bosses hoping it will attract 300,000 visitors a year.

Not bad, seeing as the medieval castle was demolished more than 350 years ago and its most famous association - Robin Hood - is likely to have been a myth.

What is left is largely a Victorian rebuild of the 17th Century mansion subsequently built on the site.

So can it compete in the crowded tourism marketplace and overcome Nottingham's "workaday city" image?

Debbie Beardall from the Nottingham Castle Trust, which will run the site, said: "The castle is massively important to the city and the wider area.

"It's good for the wellbeing of people who live here and visitors can really boost the economy.

"Despite it not [being] a castle, there is a lot of amazing stuff instead."

So what do you get for £30m?

Outwardly not much has changed, the only new building being a visitor centre and cafe.

But several galleries have been added and refurbished to tell the story of the city's industry and its rebellious history.

A space for temporary exhibitions will kick off with a display by locally born fashion designer Paul Smith.

Nottingham Castle was once one of the great royal fortresses in Britain and is not short of fascinating legends.

But, sticking with historical fact, it was where the young Edward III seized power from his mother and her lover. From these walls Richard III rode out to meet Henry Tudor at Bosworth.

And on a piece of ground a stone's throw away, Charles I raised his standard and started the English Civil War.

Its history after that is still interesting - but less beneficial from a tourism point of view.

After the civil war the keep and walls, already semi-derelict, were demolished.

The main building now on the site - known as the Ducal Mansion - was built in the 1660s but was gutted by fire during political riots in 1831.

After standing empty for years, it was converted into a small museum.

An additional blow came when the warren of medieval streets between the castle and the city centre were largely demolished by a dual carriageway in the 1960s.

But what of Nottingham's trump card, star of dozens of big and small screen adaptations, its truly globally-recognised brand - Robin Hood?

Ms Beardall said: "We'd be mad not to talk about Robin Hood and many people would be disappointed if we didn't."

She said there was a gallery devoted to the Hood legends and a themed children's play area.

"But not everyone wants that, so we show lots of others parts of Nottingham's culture and history," she added.

She added that as it was not a "traditional castle", it was important to manage expectations.

Getting people back to the castle - particularly post-Covid - involves serious money.

Visit England said tourism spending in the East Midlands amounted to £5.2bn - the second lowest in England, with the South East making almost three times as much.

In 2019 the most visited paid-for heritage attraction in the UK outside London was Chester Zoo with more than two million visitors.

In the East Midlands, it was Chatsworth House, with 606,000.

Can the renovated castle compete?

Professor Scott McCabe, from the University of Nottingham's Business School, underlined how important it could be.

He said: "Heritage is a massive part of the UK's tourist offering, especially to high-spending visitors from abroad.

"And in Robin Hood the city has a global brand, which for whatever reason it has struggled to market.

"With the redevelopment the castle is offering Robin Hood, but also a wider story of history."

But the challenge of attracting those 300,000 visitors is laid bare by John Johnson, from Johnsons Coach Holidays.

His company operates around 50 coaches on more than 500 tours in the UK and abroad.

"Nottingham is not high on our list of priority cities," he said.

"It has an image of a workaday city - it's not a York or Lincoln.

"I hadn't heard of the castle's relaunch. It sounds interesting, we would definitely take a look, but they need to get the message out there."

One destination which might sympathise with Nottingham's endeavours is Segedunum, once a major fort on Hadrian's Wall, now sat among the post-industrial landscape of Wallsend, in the North East.

Museum manager, Geoff Woodward, said: "It's certainly a challenge.

"While it is the most excavated fort on Hadrian's Wall, there's not that much remaining and we don't have the greatest collection of objects.

"But the good thing about having a dearth of material is you make the most of what you do have."

Backed by an initial £9m of lottery funding, old shipyard buildings were converted into a museum and a 30m (98ft) observation tower was built. It opened in 2000.

"We have 45,000 visits a year and we really try to meet changing audience expectations," said Mr Woodward.

"There is a reconstructed bathhouse and a section of Hadrian's Wall and we are one end of the wall's coast-to-coast trail.

"We don't have the picturesque crags of somewhere like Housesteads but we have a dynamic landscape, one that was shipyards and coalmines and housing."

An even more ambitious attraction started as a lot of mud and damp wood.

Excavations in the Coppergate area of York between 1976 and 1981 uncovered 40,000 objects and preserved timbers from Viking buildings.

How did this become the premier tourist destination that is the Jorvik Viking Centre?

The answer was an automated ride through reconstructed Viking houses, complete with sounds, voices and - famously - smells.

Shrugging off criticism that it was dumbing down, the centre - pre-Covid - attracted about 400,000 visitors a year.

Its CEO David Jennings said: "We tried to revolutionise the way people engage with the past.

"We want to be accessible to all. We see ourselves as an attraction as opposed to a museum but one with very high standards of authenticity.

"People who come here are given a lot of information, they learn almost without realising they are learning."

Jorvik Centre opened in 1984 at cost £2.4m and has has two multi-million refurbishments in the past 20 years - all raised privately.

Mr Jennings said: "It obviously helps being in York, which is already a prime heritage destination.

"There is a lot of competition for people's attention, so you need to be distinctive and very clear in what you are offering.

"But it shows the heritage sector is still vibrant."

Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].