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The Style Councillors

A walk in the park: how the King George V Memorial Fund helped preserve our green spaces

We’re lucky to have lots of local parks in Nottingham – but they don’t just establish or maintain themselves. As the lungs, playgrounds, and life-givers of our city, they’ve seen a whole range of uses over time, from wartime food growing through to cricket grounds, football pitches, and skate parks. Celebrating the enduring legacy of King George V’s memorial fund, genealogist and local historian Russell Davies of Leaves of History digs deep into the origins of the parks it bestowed, and their shifting purposes and stewardship.

These Streets Are Ours: Beeston

In our latest edition of love letters to Nottingham neighbourhoods, local wordsmith Matt Turpin, editor of The Beestonian magazine, discusses the creative melting pot of Beeston.

Shaking the foundations: Nate Coltrane on the next stages of creative project Our Yard

If ‘Our Yard’ is a phrase as of yet unfamiliar to you, it’s definitely worth visiting the New Art Exchange this month. Currently, the Hyson Green-based gallery is hosting Our Yard: Foundations – a multimedia exhibition curated by Notts music promoter and community organiser Nate Coltrane, which bookends years of creative work he’s been doing to highlight immigration’s positive impact on the UK. In advance of the exhibition’s launch, Nate walked us through how Our Yard has evolved since its inception. 

From painting, to our Panthers and gigs in between: Here's what's on this week in Nottingham, 2 - 8 March

We're welcoming march in true Notts fashion: a week filled with live music, creative meet-ups, and a celebration of positive change...

Mending our ways: how two Notts locals founded a national repairs directory

Ally Booker and Gemma Broad are two repairs professionals in Nottingham, who in June 2025 founded We Are Repairs: an online directory of UK businesses which give products of all kinds a longer lifespan. Their aim was to shift the public mindset away from a careless ‘throwaway culture’ – they tell us about how the project’s gone since. 

Johnny and the Raindrops legendary Christmas gig!

These streets are ours: The Park Estate

In the latest in our series of love letters to Nottingham neighbourhoods, Andrew Spencer explores The Park Estate, Nottingham’s wealthiest and perhaps most secret set of streets…

Night Creatures Podcast #4: Nate Coltrane from Mimm on 14 years of parties, Nottingham Street Food Club and Our Yard

Night Creatures is a LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him over twenty years of experience of putting on great parties in the city.

Talk: What’s Living In Our Rivers

This land is ours: a ramble through our relationship with the north Notts countryside

In a twist on our regular love letter to local areas ‘These Streets Are Ours’, this month we turn to the forests and country estates of the north. Caradoc Gayer looks at how our common land has been lost, the modern regulations that confine our rambling, how Ducal estates and boundaries have transformed the landscape, and how we can remind ourselves of our lasting, and strong connection to the natural world.

Instagram's The Nottingham Pint Guide on championing our city's independent boozers

Nottingham’s pub scene is up there with the best in the country, and nobody knows it better than Tom Head – or, as you probably know him, Nottingham Pint Guide. Chances are you’ve stumbled across his Instagram while scrolling your feed, so we met up with the Pintman himself to talk all things beer. Tom is Nottingham’s lager-loving, ale-guzzling champion of the city’s independent boozers. He also happens to be married to our Food Co-Editor…

These streets are ours: Sneinton Market Avenues

For this instalment of These Streets are Ours we celebrate the creative hub of Sneinton Market Avenues…

Flying colours: a look inside legendary local paint shop Montana

A cornerstone of Nottingham’s creative scene, Montana has made a name for itself as not just a paints shop, but a hub for local artists of all kinds – thanks to partners Sylvia and Dilk behind the business. Whilst Dilk is a well-known local artist Sylvia’s recently been taking the lead on some exciting collaborative projects. We sat down with her to chat about the importance of the local creative community, and the shop’s international reach…

We catch-up with legendary local commentator Colin Fray as Nottingham Forest returns to European football

Across three turbulent decades at Nottingham Forest, one voice has remained constant: BBC commentator Colin Fray. For Forest fans, he’s been a companion through the chaos - narrating from the end of the Clough years to the lows of League One, then back again; to the highs of the Premier League and now Forest’s long-awaited return to European football. We spoke to him about his journey behind the mic…

Our August cover artist Paul Turner-Groves talks about collage, creativity and his love of Notts

Collage artist Paul Turner-Groves talks us through his art process and the inspiration behind this month’s LeftLion cover…

Our July cover artist Beth Gillespie on her Major Oak inspired cover

This month’s cover artist Beth Gillespie talks about art, folklore and finding fantasy in reality.

Our house: inside the communities who are bringing co-operative living to Nottingham

Established in 2001, Neds is a housing co-operative in Nottingham, where members live in a large Victorian house and former pikelet factory. There’s a good chance that sentence raised a few questions for you… What is a housing co-operative? Is it a commune? Who’s Ned? … and what’s a pikelet? We’ll get to most of these questions shortly. But to answer the last one: it is a thin crumpet. Matteo D’Alesio finds out more…

Our June cover artist Lily Keogh talks festivals and perfectionism

This month’s cover artist Lily Keogh talks about festivals, neurodivergence and perfectionism.

Hope for Our Rivers + Q&a

These streets are ours: Sherwood's Haydn Road

Boasting independent bars and restaurants, plus a great selection of charity shops for the thrift-lovers among us, the Nottingham suburb of Sherwood has been a popular destination for a leisurely afternoon for many years now. But just off the high street, Haydn Road offers a surprising selection of local staples. In this new regular feature - celebrating lesser-known but much-loved areas of Nottinghamshire, Sophie Gargett meets the traders of Haydn Road and muses on the merits of local shopping.

Our May cover artist Becky Appleyard talks comic books, table-top games and advice

This month’s cover artist Becky Appleyard talks comic book art, inspirations, and advice for artists…

Art exhibitions, community events and legendary gigs: here's what's on events this week in Nottingham 12 - 19 May 2025

This week in Notts, explore our material world, take One Step At A Time for community, or listen to some big tunes shaking the Arena... 

Musicals, exhibits, legendary bass players and groovy deep sea gigs: Here's what's on this week in Nottingham 21 - 27 April

From a musical adaptation of British TV classics to giant replicas of Earth, take a look at what's happening in Nottingham this week...

Our picks from the 2025 event calendar of the Malt Cross: Nottingham's preserved Victorian music hall

There are few locales near Old Market Square quite like the Malt Cross. As a nearly perfectly preserved Victorian music hall, the building toes the line between its status as a treasure trove of architectural history, and an epicentre of some of the city's most enjoyably 'out-there' occasions. Below, we've provided a rundown of what they have coming up this year...