The Oldest Inn in England

Why have I chosen this as my entry for this event?

Well, it represents a number of "Panorama Firsts" for me.

It is the first panorama where I shot a zenith image, it is also the first panorama I stitched with PTGui for Macintosh and this is the first time I have published this particular image.

It is one of a series of panoramas I am working on of places linked to the stories and legend of Nottingham's famous outlaw, Robin Hood. I hope to complete photography in the Spring of 2007 and will start posting completed images on my site shortly.

Standing at the foot of Castle Rock in the heart of the City of Nottingham, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem purports to be The Oldest Inn in England. The original Castle of Nottingham was established on the rock in the year 1068 by William Perverill for William the Conqueror.

After the building of the Castle, one of the first additions would have been the Brewhouse. Since water for drinking was notoriously bad in the Middle Ages, ale was brewed and drunk, because as well as providing alcohol, the brewing process served to sterilise the drink. The brewing of ale requires a steady temperature and the caves at the foot of the Castle Rock were ideal because they provided not only a very effective ‘air-conditioning’ system, but also necessary storage space.

Much of the history of the Inn is very poorly recorded, although an archaeological dig in 1974 proved conclusively that the location of the original Brewhouse could only be that of the caves of Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem. This established that the Castle Brewhouse existed prior to 1189AD but the first dated reference is to be found is in the records of the City Council for the year 1618. The black and white half-timbered section of the outer buildings of the Inn most certainly dates to around 1650 to 1660.

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Europe / UK-England

Lat: 52° 56' 56.4" N
Long: 2° 10' 10.44" W

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Medium. Nearby, but not to the last decimal.

Shot in RAW format with a Canon EOS 20D and Sigma 8mm Fisheye, mounted on a Nodal Ninja NN3 Pano Head and Manfrotto 190 tripod. 4 portrait shots taken at 90 degrees plus zenith and a handheld nadir image. Stitched in PTGui on a PowerMac G5 and output to layered PSD. Cube faces created in CubicConverter, nadir patched in Photoshop and final movie output from CC.