My Hometown: Nottingham, New Hampshire
What’s your town like? I probably know of your online home. Hell, I’ve probably even viewed your source, but what I don’t know is what it’s like where you physically live. So, tell me.
First, though, fair is fair, I’ll go first. I live and work in Nottingham, New Hampshire (NH). For those who don’t know where New Hampshire is, it’s in “New England” — in the northeastern part of the United States. If you still don’t know where I’m talking about, here’s a site all about New England and another one all about New Hampshire. Okay, now that you know, let’s get back to the Town of Nottingham (map).
Geographic
Nottingham NH is a rural town in Rockingham county and is located in the southeastern part of the state, about twenty miles from New Hampshire’s short coastline. We’re also located about an hour from the White Mountains and an hour from Boston, Massachusetts. This locale offers us urban and rural access and its inherent diversity.
Nottingham was established in 1722 and is the second largest town in Rockingham county with 120.4 square kilometers. The population is about 3800 people and growing, ranking us the 25th least populated out of the 37 towns over all. In other words Nottingham is a rural town whose residents have lots of room to stretch their legs. But we’re not out of the mainstream loop so to speak. Our water is delivered by well, sewage is handled by individual septic systems, utilities are all overhead (and subject to the elements), but we do have cable television and cable broadband for internet. Cellular service is spotty at best.
The People
Nottingham is zoned agriculturally for the most part. Thus, we have a lot of people in our town that are farmers. Not big farms, but small plot farming and large gardens. More to the point is the farming spirit of the people here — as it is in many NH towns: We are a fiercely independent type. Self-sufficient, a bit stubborn, and resistant to change.
The people of Nottingham aren’t unfriendly, but residents do tend to keep to themselves (it’s that independence at work). We do have social events such as a farmer’s market, library group, quilting club, the historic society, and a handful of churches, but most gatherings involve a few people hanging out at a general store (here’s one). All very quaint.
Business
As noted, we’re a farming community, but we do have some smaller businesses. We have two general stores, both with gas pumps, two post office branches, a lumber mill, a few scattered gift and craft shops (all home-based), a couple of automotive garages, and few trades contractors, and of course there is my mail order bug company which is actually one of the larger businesses in town. My web development business I run out of my home. Most major businesses such as grocery stores and retailers are located in surrounding towns.
Flora and Fauna
Living in the woods has its perks if you like wildlife. We have had lots of animals in our back yard: Black bear, moose, white-tailed deer, fox, coyote, porcupine, raccoon, skunk, rabbit, squirrel, chipmunk, and more. We also have birds, probably 100 species or more including owls, hawks, mourning doves, bats, song-birds, and game birds like turkey, pheasant, and ruffed grouse. Any walk through the woods will scare up any of these creatures.
For trees we have a mix of deciduous — maple, oak, aspen, birch, and beech as well as many others — and conifers, predominantly white pine and hemlock. My favorites are beech and hemlock trees. Especially the hemlocks of which I own about twenty over 80 feet tall.
In the water we have several fish species. In warm water we have small and large mouth bass, blue gill sunfish, shiners, pickerel, yellow perch, crappie, and horned pout (a catfish). In colder waters we have brown, brook, and rainbow trout.
In Summary
The winters are a little too long and cold for many people, myself included. Otherwise it’s great here. It is our climate that allows such wildlife diversity. The summers are hot and humid, spring is clean yet buggy, and fall is a delight.
I’ve lived here since 1975. I did move around in my twenties, traveling all over the world, but I came back. Nottingham is my home. I own a small ranch-style home on three-and-a-half acres, of which a lot is seasonal swamp, but that’s okay. I love it here. If I look carefully, in the winter I can see one neighbor.
Want more? Wikipedia has some good pages providing New Hampshire facts, Rockingham county facts, and even facts about Nottingham if you’re still in need of information. I can also offer you this photo of Nottingham from atop tiny Mt. Pawtuckaway. Moreover, if you have a question, you can ask here and I’ll try to answer. There’s lots of information you may want that I neglected to provide.
Your Turn, Your Town
So, now that I’ve told you about my town, what about your hometown? Please feel free to post some details in a comment below, or post it on your blog — in meme fashion though I’m not tagging anyone in particular. If you do post it on your blog, please ping this post so I know about it.
John Faulds responds:
Posted: December 4th, 2007 at 8:43 pm →
I live in The Gap, a suburb of Brisbane. Brisbane is Australia’s third largest city and it’s growing pretty fast with lots of new developments and infrastructure being built.
I live 10km from the CBD so can get into the city in about 15 minutes on a good day but also live within walking distance of state forest (next step down from a national park), so where I live is the as far as the city can go in this direction. Being so close to the bush means that the suburb is very green with a lot of native wildlife - in our yard we’ve had possums, Eastern water dragons (big lizards), carpet pythons, brown snakes (deadly), red back spiders, bush turkeys, tawny frogmouth owls, kookaburras, rainbow lorikeets, sulfur-crested cockatoos, pink and grey galahs, magpies, mynahs, loads of geckoes and a bunch of other birds, spiders, insects etc.
Brisbane’s got a lot to offer in terms of entertainment, arts, dining out, sporting events, clubs, live music etc. The only problem is that it’s shoreline is sheltered from the ocean by a really big island which means it has no beaches to speak of, just coastal swamp which means if you want to go to the beach you have to travel an hour either north or south.
Tommy Olsson responds:
Posted: December 5th, 2007 at 3:23 am →
I live in the tiny hamlet of Åsnorrbodarna, at N62°9′ E17°11′. There are about 20 houses spread out along a mile of road, but some of them are just summer homes for people who live elsewhere. It’s 40 km (25 miles) south-west of Sundsvall, the largest town in central Sweden with a population of 50,000 (twice that with the “suburbs”).
Åsnorrbodarna is surrounded by forests, mainly conifers, and a number of lakes and lakelets. There are other hamlets a few miles away to the north and east, but on the whole it’s a very quiet and peaceful place. We, too, have plenty of wildlife. I’ve had moose, roe deer, fox, hare, badgers, red squirrels, bats and weasels on my property, plus more than 40 species of birds. (BTW, Mike, bats are not birds!
) There are bears, lynx and – occasionally – wolves around, too. Very few snakes, though. I’ve only seen one young adder in the nine year’s I’ve lived here. My cats catch plenty of small newts in summer, and there are some slow-worms, frogs and toads as well. The woods are replete with black grouse and wood grouse, who do their best to give me a heart-attack when I’m out running.
Right now we have 40 cm (16 inches) of snow. There can be well over a metre (40 inches) in mid-winter. The coldest we’ve had since I moved here is -32°C (-26°F) and the warmest about +31°C (+88°F).
Georg responds:
Posted: December 5th, 2007 at 6:12 am →
I live on a small farm in Mandal, near the southern tip of Norway. A quiet place in a protected area that won’t be overpopulated, only minutes away from whatever a modern society may have to offer.
Plenty of rain and no snow at the moment, but we usually get around a meter of snow up here in our mountainous area before the winter is over. Have recorded temperatures down to around -30°C during the 12 years I’ve lived here, with summer temperatures up to around +28°C for short periods.
Local wildlife covers moose, deer, fox and lots of small animals. No larger carnivores or deadly snakes in the area, so our livestock is safe from predators all year round.
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: December 5th, 2007 at 1:48 pm →
@John: Sounds nice. Lots of unusual animals. You’d think that with all the animal shows on TV I’d know more, but I haven’t heard half of those. It’s a whole other world down under. Proof’s not only in the wildlife. You’re enjoying your spring while I look at snow on the ground here!
@Tommy: Your area seems a lot like mine, but perhaps with more of an arctic influence. Sounds very nice albeit cold. Regarding the bat/bird thing. I did know they are mammals (though some mistakenly call bats flying rodents which is a common misunderstanding). In my case, though, I have no excuse. I was knowingly taking liberties
@Georg: You have a lovely piece of property. I envy your location a bit. When you visited this past summer you gave me that CD with photos of your farm and I must note they’re quite stunning.
John Faulds responds:
Posted: December 6th, 2007 at 6:38 am →
Oh yeah, forgot to mention we don’t get as wild extremes in weather as you guys seem to (we’re closer to the equator) - lowest is about 18°C up to around 42°C.
Robert Wellock responds:
Posted: December 6th, 2007 at 3:56 pm →
Hmmm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keighley usually that page is in a state of vandalism (it is at the moment)… Actually I live about 5-miles away from that where you can actually see people not wearing stripy-tops and there are more fields than houses.
It would have been a city by now if there was local coal was to be found and the mills had expanded. Basically it was one of the first places to have water powered-mills but coal took over so expansion stopped.
David Zemens responds:
Posted: December 7th, 2007 at 10:06 am →
Nice to hear a little bit more about where you are located, Mike. Isn’t it amazing that some of the most high-tech people in the world are located in some of the more distant, rural locations? The internet truly levels the playing field, doesn’t it?
I previously wrote a little bit about my hometown/location in Rochester, Michigan. I really do need to add a bit more info about the town itself, but that will have to wait for another day!
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: December 7th, 2007 at 10:39 am →
@Robert: Thanks for sharing.
@David:
That’s a truth!
Sarah Bourne responds:
Posted: December 7th, 2007 at 11:31 am →
Compared to the rest, I look like your next-door neighbor! I live in a small city north of Boston. Surprisingly enough, we have pretty much the same animals in our backyard as you do in yours: fox, raccoon, skunk, squirrel, chipmunk, and feral house cats. One or two of the resident gray squirrels are actually black, a genetic sport common to the Boston suburbs. I also have 18 acres and a house near Blue Hill, Maine on a tidal river with horseshoe crabs - only dial-up Internet there, alas.
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: December 7th, 2007 at 11:51 am →
Hi Sarah. I think something was stripped from your comment, but I can’t be sure. I’m familiar with Blue Hill Maine. I know the Haight family, of Haight Farm fame. Courtney and Woody (though Woody is no longer with us). 18 acres up there… NICE! I didn’t realize you were so local to me.
JackP responds:
Posted: December 8th, 2007 at 2:53 pm →
Thanks for this Mike. It’s inspired me to talk in a bit of detail about what I like about where I’m from (a manky old industrial town which fell on hard times and picked itself up again, dusted itself down, and is now rather nice and doing jolly well for itself, thank you very much). That’s due for publication tomorrow morning…
Oh, and it’s about 54.9° N, which means by Tommy’s standards I’m virtually in the tropics. Temperature range (approx, haven’t looked it up) from -12 °C (the very harshest winters - not normally below about -6) up to about +36°C.
Oh, and it’s been snowing today, which looked all pretty for the kiddies…
ThePickards » Blog Archive » My Hometown: A Gateshead To Be Proud Of responds:
Posted: December 8th, 2007 at 8:19 pm →
[…] I was recently reading a post on Mike Cherim’s site entitled My Hometown: Nottingham, New Hampshire where he pointed out that a lot of us bloggers will probably have visited each others online homes regularly, but have little or no idea what the place is like where we actually live. […]
Helena Boylen responds:
Posted: December 9th, 2007 at 7:10 am →
I live in Bedford, the county town of Bedfordshire which is about 55 miles north of London and has a population of around 150,000. Parts of the town are quite pretty (in particular around the river) and parts have definitely seen better days. To be honest we chose to live here because it was the first town north of London that offered decent sized homes for a reasonable price but was also a relatively easy commute into London where I then worked and easy for my husband to reach his work too.
Having spent the first 31 years of my life living in London it took a while to get used to a smaller town but I don’t think I could move back now.
Like most of the UK it never really gets either too hot or too cold (and when it occasionally does we sit around stunned for days) so we can’t really complain!
Sarah Bourne responds:
Posted: December 10th, 2007 at 9:36 am →
Hi, Mike. You’re right, something did get lost! The name of the small city is Woburn.
Escape Crate » Blog Archive » My Hometown: Birkenhead, Wirral responds:
Posted: December 11th, 2007 at 1:28 pm →
[…] I don’t think this a meme really, but it is a nice idea. Jack alerted me to the idea with his piece about Gateshead, and he in turn got the idea from Mike Chermin… so I suppose it’s spreading like one. […]
My town - Tewkesbury - Sponge Project » website creators :: Blog :: responds:
Posted: December 12th, 2007 at 6:47 am →
[…] Tipping the wink to Mr Cherim and Mr Pickard, here’s an insight into my real-world home town: Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. […]
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: December 12th, 2007 at 10:20 am →
@Helena, and all: I get such a kick sometimes how my ancestors borrowed all our names from the old country. There’s not been a town mentioned that doesn’t exist here in NH or in Massachusetts
@Sarah: Thanks. The original comment showed me
<a>and that was it.Thanks for sharing, all. Though it’s not pinged back, Stephen Lang wrote one, too.
Gill responds:
Posted: December 14th, 2007 at 6:22 pm →
Ha ha!
Try this one.
I live in Thatcham in Berkshire which is believed to be the oldest settlement in Great Britain. My house is 500 years old and just about all that’s left of the old village. The pioneering 70s saw to that. Population currently 30,000 which is a massive increase in a few years due to Govt housing regs.
We have a river and a canal and we’re pretty close to rural, I can take a 5 minute walk and be out in the fields. The area is lovely, the locals are lovely, unfortunately we’re now the target for new comers who are less than lovely and are ruining the place. One tried to get the Courts to kill the Farmer’s Cockerel because it crowed in the morning and woke him up, others have moved in and brought their young thugs with them.
Weather here is slightly better than where Helena is in Bedford as we’re South of her and also in an old river valley so the hills keep the worst of it away form us. I’ve been here 14 years and rarely seen any snow although we did get flooded due the the same hills and torrents of water pouring off them in a flash flood.
What else? Oh yes, we’re 63 Kilometers from the sea and situated 83 metres above sea level.
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: December 14th, 2007 at 8:03 pm →
Yay, Gill, we have a winner. I cannot find any record of a Thatcham in New England. Apparently it’s a town that didn’t quite make it: Not at all over here, but over there at all I guess it survives
Thatcham sounds really nice. Though I understand, first hand, the intrusion of those wanting to capture that in their lives. Problem is they do so on their terms and typically at the expense of the rights and customs of those there before them — instead of blending in an adapting to a new way of life, they try to change thing and impose their values. Suddenly the area ends up like that which they left. Almost of they themselves are the common denominator. My area is growing at an astonishing rate and things are changing. Right away the traffic increase is noted, then other stuff comes into play slowly but surely.
Gill responds:
Posted: December 15th, 2007 at 8:39 am →
ROFLMAO! Your link to the town that didn’t quite make it…… That’s our house and our 4×4 parked outside! LOL! We’re now the symbol of the village and it’s partly why I bought the place. When I was house hunting I bought a book on the area and found pictures of the cottage in it, then I found some more, then I found postcards. It’s great, I don’t have to go on holiday, I can just send cards with “Glad you’re not here”.
The house is a Listed Building which means we can’t do any changes to it without permission from English Heritage, although they seem to have got away with it in the 70s as we have two of the cottages knocked into one. If you look closely at the picture you can see the fox and pheasant on the roof near the chimney. Those are Thatcher’s marks originally used so that people could tell who had done the work. Now they’re mainly for nostalgia.
A lot of our local place names are unique. Try finding Ufton Nervet anywhere else. The locals seem to stay local. My OH for example was born here. They all talk a bit funny, real country yokels, Ooo Arrr types.
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: December 15th, 2007 at 9:52 am →
No waaay? That is too funny. Nice place you got.
Gill responds:
Posted: December 15th, 2007 at 12:08 pm →
Yup! I’m currently sitting in the room upstairs, far right. Hang on. I’ll wave at you
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: December 15th, 2007 at 1:41 pm →
I see ya… lol.