Maggie's Nottingham offers calm, comfort and practical support beside City Hospital

Inside the City Hospital campus, just off Valley Road, sits a building designed to lift the spirits. Maggie's Nottingham is a cancer support centre where people can simply walk in, with no appointment needed, Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.

The Maggie's story began with Maggie Keswick Jencks. In 1994 she wrote A View From the Frontline, an account of her diagnosis and treatment that shaped the idea of the centres. She died of cancer in 1995, and her husband Charles Jencks, an architectural writer and critic who shared her belief in the power of buildings to uplift people, founded Maggie's that year in her name.

Nottingham's centre was completed in 2011. It was designed by the architect Piers Gough of the practice CZWG, and its interior was created by fashion designer Paul Smith, who grew up in Nottingham. That combination of thoughtful architecture and a homegrown designer's eye gives the building a warmth that feels far removed from a typical clinical setting.

What happens inside matters just as much. The centre offers one-to-one conversations with cancer support specialists, sessions with a psychologist and help with money worries from benefits advisers. There are support groups, including groups for specific cancer types, for men and for carers, along with a six-week Managing Stress course and a Friends and Family course.

Wellbeing runs through the programme. Exercise sessions include yoga, Tai Chi and walking groups, while nutrition workshops, creative writing and expressive art groups offer other ways to cope and connect. Body image support includes Look Good Feel Better and Talking Heads workshops, and there is help with grief and bereavement too.

For people preparing for treatment, Getting Started workshops and prehab sessions help them feel ready, and support continues through treatment effects, living with ongoing cancer and the end of treatment.

Fundraising events give the wider community a chance to get involved too. Among those coming up is a Firewalk for Maggie's, Nottingham on 8 November 2026.

Opening hours, directions to Gate 3 on Hucknall Road and details of courses and fundraising events are on the Maggie's website.