Rory Walsh finds shelter in Sherwood Forest
Discovering Britain
View • Rural • East Midlands • Web Guide
Driving at Sherwood Forest car park it’s tempting to reimagine a classic TV theme tune; Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen / Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men / Feared by the bad, loved by the good / Please remember to Pay and Display at Sherwood. While Dracula stalks Whitby and King Arthur rules Tintagel, Sherwood Forest is Robin Hood’s realm. Folklore says that he and his Merry Men lived in the forest, playing games and practicing archery while evading the Sheriff of Nottingham. Stories suggest that they even slept in the hollow trunk of the largest tree, the Major Oak.
Robin Hood has drawn people to Sherwood Forest for generations. The RSPB manages the forest as a National Nature Reserve and estimates that 350,000 people visit every year. Ken Barnes, my brother-in-law (and local guide for the day), has walked in these woods since childhood. ‘For a dare I once came here with a group of friends late at night. It was summer and all the leaves made everything pitch black. Really atmospheric.’
Though associated with Nottingham, Sherwood Forest is much nearer to Mansfield: 8 miles compared to 25. The forest skirts the charming village of Edwinstowe. In Edwinstowe high street, life-sized statues depict Robin on bended knee, proposing to Maid Marion. Their wedding is said to have been in the village church, St Mary’s. Another statue of Robin Hood, aiming a bow and arrow, stands outside the striking Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre. Inside, interactive displays explore the forest’s mythology, history, and geography.
Besides Robin Hood, the forest is noted for its almost 1,000 ancient oak trees. Many are over 500 years old. The Major Oak, the largest recorded oak in England, is thought to have seen a thousand summers. Its canopy spans 28 metres while the trunk’s 11-metre girth is as wide as a bus is long. Polls regularly vote the Major Oak as Britain’s Favourite Tree. In June 2022 it was one of 70 ancient trees featured in the Queen’s Green Canopy for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
From the Visitor Centre we follow the Major Oak Trail to the tree itself. The route directs us diagonally across a large field. The forest waits on the horizon, a mass of dark green sentries below the blue sky. It’s a Sunday afternoon. Children run in circles. Dogs pull on leads. Outside rows of tents, people in medieval attire sip mugs of tea. Most are volunteers from the organisations that look after the forest; the RSPB, Woodland Trust, Sherwood Forest Trust, and the Thoresby Estate. A woman dressed in a smock and wimple stops for a chat. ‘I watch the news like this,’ she says, open mouthed and clasping her cheeks like the figure in Edvard Munch’s The Scream. ‘With all that’s going on in the world, places like this are more important than ever. I come here to escape.’
Escape is at the root of Sherwood Forest’s appeal. Forests provide shade from the sun and shelter from the rain. They offer other forms of respite too. ‘Forest bathing,’ promotes walking in woodland to become immersed and cleansed by nature. The concept’s nascent shoots appear in the Robin Hood stories. Like the Forest of Arden in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest offers escape from the everyday. It’s a place of revelry and reversal, outside the rules of law and conventions of society.
The image of outlaws living among the trees is also an ironic rewriting of Sherwood’s past. The forest was originally a royal hunting ground. Its name stems from ‘Sciryuda’ or ‘wood belonging to the Shire’ and was first recorded in the tenth century. Today’s National Nature Reserve spans 920 acres. The forest once covered 116,000. A famous name contains clues to its former reach. A mile north of Nottingham city centre is an area called Forest Fields. Nottingham Forest football club were founded nearby and chose their name from where they first played, the Forest Recreation Ground.
As we continue towards the Major Oak, the forest’s retreat becomes obvious. To the right of the path are dense rows of medium-sized trees. To the left are ploughed open fields. ‘It’s interesting we’re being brought this way,’ Barnes comments, ‘you can sense how much has been lost.’ The forest’s central location, plus the size of its oaks, made it a stockpile for navy shipbuilding, especially during the Tudor and Napoleonic Wars. Sherwood beams also line churches nationwide, including Lincoln Cathedral and the dome of St Paul’s.
Deforestation is often considered a modern issue in faraway places such as Brazil. Yet British woods have been chopped down for centuries. In Sherwood Forest the axe blows are still being felt. During our visit we spot trees trussed with metal bands. Others have zigzag cuts in their trunks, strips of bark removed or are gouged with holes. What looks like vandalism is instead veteranisation. Younger trees are being artificially aged to maintain the forest’s ecosystem.
When trees age, they decay. The results, like hollows and crumbling timber, house a variety of wildlife. Among the many rarities in Sherwood Forest are cardinal beetles, a ‘saproxylic’ species which live on dead and decaying wood. Periodic deforestation has created a generation gap. When the oldest trees decay completely, there wouldn’t be enough mature and veteran trees to supplant them. The artificial cuts and scars employed in veteranisation mimic natural features in older trees. The aim is to encourage the specialist habitats that will support future wildlife generations.
The Major Oak emerges ahead. In full leaf, it soars like a green cloud. In winter, the bare branches resemble a massive spider. Visitors of all ages pause before it. Sounds seem to fade and there’s a stillness in the air as we gaze at the tree’s physical and historical immensity. Vikings and Normans. The Reformation and Industrial Revolution. Civil Wars and World Wars. Cars and computers. The Major Oak has lived through them all. Today it’s every inch a seasoned veteran, with limbs propped up by posts and roots protected from the public by a wide ring fence. ‘When I was a kid you could walk right up and touch it,’ says Barnes. ‘I remember trying to look inside the trunk.’
Physically (and legally) protected, the Major Oak is a great survivor. Many of its contemporaries aren’t so fortunate. A recent study by Nottingham University suggests there could be up to ten times more ancient and veteran trees than the 115,000 recorded. Using data modelling and surveys by Woodland Trust volunteers, the study calculated that between 1.7 and 2.1 million historic trees are hidden in plain sight. ‘These astonishing trees are our inheritance from history, and we should be treating them like national treasures,’ says Adam Cormack, head of campaigning at the Woodland Trust. ‘They’re out there somewhere – hidden in field corners, woods, hedges, even gardens and parks.’ Another amended song springs to mind: If you go down to the woods today, are you sure of a big surprise?
