The Nottingham Eye has been a huge ferris wheel in the Market Square for a few months. Initially only supposed to be there for a few weeks, it proved popular and applied for planning permission to stay a bit longer. It took a week to construct, and it closes today, but they are thinking about bringing it back next year too.

It launched on “Light Night” in February, when the Council arranged an evening of lighting up buildings and putting in weird light sculptures as a way of reclaiming the streets for families. We didn’t show up to the event until very late in the evening, around 11pm, by which point most of the families had left and the streets were once again the preserve of the semi-naked drunk teenagers who come to Nottingham to dance every week.

The photos in this set are a mix of pictures from Light Night in Feb and from a gondola of the ferris wheel, which I finally got around to riding last Friday. That day, I only had my old compact with me, but it was better than nothing.

The giant ugly red building in the middle of that is barely visible from street level and is a surprising, really incongruous rear to a really nice old building on Queen Street.

Ferris wheel at night, reflected in the new Market Square water feature

Water feature, Council House and ferris wheel in day light

Victoria Centre flats from the air

Back of the new Ibis.

From the air, it almost looks like the Victoria Centre, the new Litmus Building and last year’s Marco Island renovation are one building

A new version of the famous “three spires view” you can get from the Castle, where St Mary’s, St Peters and the old unitarian chapel in the Lace Market, now the Pitcher and Piano, all line up.