Why Nottingham is a special place for Harry and Meghan

Helen Coffey, The Independent

Nottingham. It’s the city of Robin Hood, Lord Byron, DH Lawrence and Thomas Cranmer; the city of Bella Ramsey, Sleaford Mods and Paris Lees. A city of disruptors, mavericks and rebels with a cause, in other words; natural outliers who have, for generations, butted up against and challenged the status quo while standing up for what they believe in. Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have chosen to join their ranks, adopting this East Midlands hub as their surrogate spiritual home.

After all, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have famously broken the mould themselves in the eight years since they got married, defying the prevailing Royal mantra of “never complain, never explain” and taking aim at “The Firm” in a succession of explosive, tell-all documentaries alongside Harry’s ironically unsparing autobiography, Spare.

The pair have now cemented their Nottingham allegiance with the news that their first joint public outing since returning to the UK will take place there. It’s clearly a place of huge significance for the couple: back in 2017, they chose it as the location for their first public appearance together following the announcement of their engagement.

That decision was no accident, either. Harry’s ties to Nottingham are long-held and run deep, forged over years of visiting the city — both openly and on the down-low — and building authentic connections that he’s quietly maintained and nurtured outside of the spotlight. The connections don’t end there: in a neat coincidence, the pair’s first shared home together was Nottingham Cottage, a grace and favour property in the grounds of Kensington Palace, London, where Harry proposed to Meghan.

The Sussexes’ full schedule for their upcoming visit on Thursday (15 October) details engagements with Community Recording Studio, a youth music charity; Himmah, a food bank and charity that tackles poverty, food insecurity, racism and social exclusion; and Epic Partners, a charity supporting children, young people and families through youth work, sport mentoring and education.

These haven’t been plucked at random; they’re charities close to Harry and Meghan’s hearts, having been the recipients of several prior visits and sizable personal donations from the Duke and Duchess. The Community Recording Studio, in particular, seems to have struck a real chord — pardon the pun — with Harry. He encountered the charity during his first reported visit to Nottingham back in 2013, and has been an avid supporter ever since, most recently spending time there again last year.

Long after the photo ops were wrapped up and the paparazzi melted away, the Duke continued the relationship. Trevor Rose, the organisation’s CEO — known in Nottingham as “Big Trev” — has spoken previously about Harry’s loyalty to, and genuine emotional investment in, the project. “Honestly it feels like we have a big brother,” he told The Nottingham Post in 2025. “Whenever he comes, he does what a big brother should do, which is look after his youngest.” Rose added that the visits from Harry were definitely never a “one-off”: “It’s great to know it’s a continuation,” he said. And, in true big brother style, Harry “always comes back to make sure we’re alright.”

There’s a profound sense of loyalty there. The frequency of Harry’s subsequent trips to the city in the past 13 years shows he’s no fair-weather Nottingham fan. He returned in October 2014 while officially launching the Full Effect initiative, a project aimed at steering young people away from crime through education and sports, through his previous charity, The Royal Foundation; he stopped by several times over the following years, including in October 2016, when he played a mini game of rugby with a group of kids at the National Ice Centre, and in February 2017, when he visited Nottingham Academy and returned to the Community Recording Studio to watch young people perform. He and Meghan were back again in 2019 for World Mental Health Day. Speaking of Meghan, she’s also strengthened her links to Nottingham since meeting her husband. In 2017, the Duchess made a visit to Epic Partners, spending time with Epic’s girls’ nurture group as a mentor, while in 2021 she donated £10,000 to Himmah, with the money used to stock the food bank and provide funds for the Salaam Shalom Kitchen, the only joint Muslim and Jewish community kitchen in the UK.

The charity initially kept her donation a secret; director Sajid Mohammad revealed that they didn’t go public because the trustees “took a view that (Meghan) was like Marmite and there could be reputational issues — people not liking our charity because they don’t like her”.

But following the Duchess’s interview with Oprah, in which she spoke openly about her experiences of racism, they decided to show up for her in return. “After the interview, we realised we’re a poverty and race organisation (and) that we needed to show solidarity,” said Mohammad.