Description: Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth. Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today. Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'. Hollow Stone as a thoroughfare is not as ancient as some of our other roads. Before wheeled traffic was in general use, the road through Nottingham running from the south of England to the north, passed along Narrow Marsh and up Drury Hill, but in later times, when wheels were generally used, a fresh thoroughfare was made, which came up the steep hill to St. Mary's Church, passed along the Pavements and joined the old road at the top of Drury Hill. The ascent to St. Mary's Church was hollowed out of the rock and hence its name 'Hollow Stone'. It has been reconstructed and modified in comparatively modern times, but still retains some of its interesting associations and features. At its foot, just where it joins Plumptre Square, stood one of the gateways through the defences of the town, erected by Henry II about 1154, and there are still traces of some of the rock hewn chambers, which were used by the guards of this gateway. In the middle of this picture, where the road turns to the right, stands an uninteresting looking modern front to an old building. This is the public house with the strange title of 'Horne's Castle'. William Andrew Horne was an old reprobate, but a man of considerable wealth who pursued his evil courses until he reached the ripe age of seventy-four, when Nemesis overtook him and he was arraigned for a murder which he had committed some twenty years before. In 1759 he was convicted and sentenced to death. He was driven from his own house - this Horne's Castle - to the gallows, which stood near to the site of St. Andrew's Church, by his own coachman in his own carriage. He expressed no contrition for his many misdeeds, but was much chagrined because the authorities refused to allow him to eat a plum pudding; for he had been accustomed to have a plum pudding at twelve o'clock on his birthday for many years, and the authorities had fixed upon his birthday as the day of his execution and refused to allow him to live until after twelve o'clock. On the right of the picture, at the end of Short Hill, is a fine gabled Tudor house, which was used during the last century as a school house, but is now occupied for commercial purposes. Image and descriptive text taken from 'Nottingham Past and Present', published in 1926.