Sherwood Forest

We went to Sherwood Forest yesterday, erstwhile home of Robin Hood and his band of merry men.

I’ve yet to see what I would consider a “true forest” in England, and it turns out that Sherwood is no exception. I’ve always thought a forest to be “a large area covered chiefly with trees and undergrowth”, but this is only one definition of a forest. It turns out that there is a secondary meaning as well.

From the Nottinghamshire County Council website:

‘Forest’ was a legal term, and meant an area subject to special Royal laws designed to protect the valuable resources of timber and game (‘Vert and Venison’) within its boundaries. These laws were strictly and severely imposed by agisters, foresters, verderers (wardens) and rangers, who were all were employed by the Crown.

Medieval Sherwood was not – as many imagine – a continuous swathe of dense virgin forest. It comprised birch and oak woodland, interspersed with large areas of open sandy heath and rough grassland. Sherwood also contained three Royal deer parks.

Medieval woodland was by no means wild. It was a productive resource, carefully managed. Landowners got the most value from their woodland by using techniques such as ‘coppicing’ and ‘pollarding’ to produce poles and laths for building. ‘Underwood’ (twigs, brushwood etc) was collected and sold for domestic fuel, and the woodland supported several industries, such as charcoal burning and the stripping of oak bark to use in tanning leather. The autumn crop of acorns produced in oak woodland was used to feed pigs. Cattle, sheep and deer grazed ‘wood pasture’.

This explanation makes the landscape much more understandable to me.

In Sherwood Forest, there is a large oak tree known as the Major Oak. Legend has it that this tree was the place Robin and his merry band feasted wealthy travellers before fleecing them of their lucre. It is a beautiful tree, its limbs spreading far into the clearing around it. The girth of its trunk is incredible. It is a majestic tree!

It is highly unlikely, though, that Robin’s crew took shelter under it’s boughs. Although it is at least 800 years old, perhaps over a thousand, it would have only been a sapling when Robin roamed the forest. Molly suggested that the metal supports that have been installed to prop up the old branches were unbecoming and that such a magnificent tree should be allowed to die with some dignity. Apparently, there are over 1000 trees in the Sherwood Forest that are over 500 years old. I suppose one of these trees might replace the Major Oak in the public imagination sometime in the future.

I suppose there are some that might question if Robin really existed, but I like to believe that he did. In fact, here is a modern reincarnation: River Hood.

She’s been taking target practice very seriously!

Here is Maid Marian playing one of our favorite games: Settlers of Catan.