Holme Pierrepont

Lake, Ropes and a River Name

The Sky Trail at Holme Pierrepont Country Park has two levels, 12 and 24 feet above the ground, with rope walkways, cargo nets and narrow beams. A lower Sky Tykes course sits beneath it. Beyond the ropes, the 270-acre park's regatta lake and white-water course dominate the landscape, while the lagoon offers kayaking and paddleboarding.

Historic England traces “Holme” to a Saxon term for an island. The Pierrepont family's connection to the estate began in the late 13th century, when Henry de Pierrepont married Annora de Manvers.

The country park café and Hall refreshments

The on-site café serves food, snacks and hot and cold drinks.

At Holme Pierrepont Hall, the visitor period includes coffee or tea and cakes from a catering van on Sundays; public access to the house and gardens is limited.

Hall, Garden and Church

The Tudor house dates to around 1500 and has some of Nottinghamshire's earliest brickwork; Pierrepont descendants still live there. Its Courtyard Garden follows an 1875 design, with a box parterre of lavender and golden oregano and roses and wisteria along the walls.

St Edmund's Church next door is Grade I listed and crowded with the family's monuments. Sir Henry Pierrepont's alabaster effigy of 1499 rests its head on a helm carved with a fox passant crest; his will asked to be buried "among his worshipful ancestors." The poet John Oldham died of smallpox at the manor in 1683, aged 30, a guest of the Earl of Kingston — John Dryden wrote his eulogy. A brass to an unknown lady, dating to circa 1390, turned up during floor repairs in 1960.

From Domesday to the Trent Valley Way

Domesday recorded 16 households, a mill and a value of £6 at Holme. A power station was proposed at Holme Pierrepont in 1960, but the minister refused consent after a public inquiry. The National Water Sports Centre later grew out of former gravel workings beside the Trent.

This area falls between the West Bridgford–Holme Pierrepont and Holme Pierrepont–Shelford stages of the Trent Valley Way. At the country park, mini golf, archery combat, kayaking and paddleboarding offer other ways to spend a visit. The car park uses automatic number-plate recognition, with location 4455 applying to the day rate.

The Lake at First Light

On a still morning before the ropes course opens, the regatta lake belongs to the rowers, going up and down in lines, past a village that has been watching the Trent for about a thousand years longer than the boats have.