There is something wrong with The Park.
This enclave of 19th-century architect-designed houses stands behind Nottingham Castle. Indeed it occupies what was once its deer park.
The houses are lovely but the atmosphere is strange.
You will find the estate office in a building that looks like the sort of place where you would buy a ticket for the putting course at Church Stretton or Woodhall Spa.
The streets are still lit by gas and little vehicles owned by the estate putter about them. The drivers will wave to you.
But something is wrong with The Park.
It feels like the sort of place Soviet spies would be sent to live after capture to wait until an exchange to be arranged. Their lives would be pleasant, but if they tried to escape they would be shot.
It feels like Patrick McGoohan’s Village transferred to central Nottingham.
The real giveaway is this pillar box.
And I don’t just mean because it is so small.
Look closely and you will see there is no monogram for the reigning monarch.
It is clear that The Park is held by a foreign power.
I would inform the authorities, but who knows how deep the plot runs?
Splendid. That post box is clearly a disguised lift that descends into a sinister subterranean complex.
ReplyDeleteYou are obviously right - and there are caves beneath Nottingham.
ReplyDeleteSome sort of secret subversives hiding out in Nottinghamshire? Clearly these must be the successors of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, who have outlasted their rival the Sheriff of Nottingham, but somehow adapted from greenwood to Victorian suburbia. It couldn’t be clearer.
ReplyDeleteThat the site is a former deer park is a clear allusion to Robin Hood’s taste for illicit hunting of deer, forbidden to common people.
ReplyDeleteYes, it all fits together.
ReplyDelete