This, of all the towns I have yet seen, except London, seemed to me
to be one of the best, and is undoubtedly the cleanest. Everything
here wore a modern appearance, and a large place in the centre,
scarcely yielded to a London square in point of beauty.
From the town a charming footpath leads you across the meadows to
the high-road, where there is a bridge over the Trent. Not far from
this bridge was an inn, where I dined, though I could get nothing
but bread-and-butter, of which I desired to have a toast made.
Nottingham lies high, and made a beautiful appearance at a distance,
with its neat high houses, red roofs, and its lofty steeples. I
have not seen so fine a prospect in any other town in England.
I now came through several villages, as Ruddington, Bradmore, and
Buny, to Castol, where I stayed all night.
This whole afternoon I heard the ringing of bells in many of the
villages. Probably it is some holiday which they thus celebrate.
It was cloudy weather, and I felt myself not at all well, and in
these circumstances this ringing discomposed me still more, and made
me at length quite low-spirited and melancholy.
At Castol there were three inns close to each other, in which, to
judge only from the outside of the houses, little but poverty was to
be expected.
