On Friday we planned to visit Sherwood Forest, photograph the oak trees and look for Robin Hood.
Sorry, I’m a bit late wth this – it’s so late on Saturday that it’s almost Sunday.
So much for my good intentions about being more organised and reliable. (And that’s before I reveal that I left my spare batteries at home and had to use the back-up camera).
The plan was that we would get up early and make the best of the light, but there was no light, just a foggy murkiness. So we went back to sleep for another hour. By that time the light was a bit better so we set off for Sherwood Forest. It’s not quite as big as it once was. At one time it covered 115,000 acres: now the country park manages just 450 acres. Royal Forests once covered a third of southern England, including 100% of the counties of Essex and Huntingdonshire.
Fortunately a Royal Forest wasn’t full of trees, which would have made it very awkward for living and farming, they were just areas where Forest Laws took precedence over normal laws. This made life difficult, but still allowed for fields, grazing, marshes and other land without trees.
Anyway, in today’s country park there are around 1,000 ancient oaks, all looking to be on their last legs. Despite this they keep coming back year after year. The most famous is the Major Oak, around 800 – 1,000 years old and held up by a cradle of wood and iron. It was supposedly a hideout used by Robin Hood, but if it’s only 800 years old it would have only been an acorn at the time.
This is just a selection of photos – as usual have managed to take too many!
I just love old trees! Great photos!
Thank you.
Interesting to see the oak strapped up.
Yes, they’ve done a lot of work on it over the years. It seems to be working as it looks better than it used to do. 🙂
I wonder if they could work the same magic on people – looking better as I age sounds quite appealing.
The TLC would be OK but I think the scaffolding could be a problem. 🙂
Nice to see a photo of the Major Oak.
I’ve been visiting it for 30 years – it’s actually looking better now than it used to – conservation methods are improving.
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