Description: The Trip to Jerusalem, Brewhouse Yard, is a remarkably interesting building. The date on its sign is 1190 and this no doubt refers to the original foundation of some ale house which has now disappeared, for the present house is merely a front to some very interesting and ancient rock chambers in the rear. It is a Tudor structure and there appears to be no authentic record of it before 1760, when it is spoken of as 'The Pilgrim'. The origin of its name is obscure. In 1677 Thoroton speaks of Brewhouse Yard as a 'Receptacle for Fanatics'. Amongst these 'Fanatics' was a sect calling themselves the 'Philadelphians' or 'Family of Love', and referring to each other as 'Pilgrims'. It is possible that this body may have met in this house and so it got its name 'The Pilgrim', and it is easy to see how 'The Pilgrim to Jerusalem', which is a natural extension of 'The Pilgrim', became colloquialised into 'The Trip to Jerusalem'. Anciently there was a curious court held at Cotgrave under the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem and styled 'The Master and Lieutenant's Court of Shelford'. It had jurisdiction over a large number of widely scattered places including 'The extra parochial liberty of Brewhouse Yard'. It would be interesting to connect the Prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem with this inn. Be that as it may, there is no doubt whatever that the cellar and the brew house, cut out of the solid rock, and the upstairs music room with its shaft driven through the rock up to the level of the platform of the Castle grounds, are extremely interesting and very ancient features.
Descriptive text taken from 'Nottingham Past and Present', published in 1926.
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'.