3. Living Legends: the ancient oaks of Sherwood Forest

Accompanied by experts Adam and Louise and a 100-year-old-book, our latest episode takes us to Nottinghamshire's Sherwood Forest to visit two astonishing trees. The Parliament Oak and Major Oak have each stood through several centuries and have fascinating stories attached to them. Equally astonishing is the fact that magnificent oaks like these don't have legal protection like our built heritage. Join us as we learn the magical lifesaving strategy of ancient oaks that could make them immortal, how penny coins can tell us about the health of a tree, whether Robin Hood really lived in Sherwood Forest and what you can do to help earn living legends like these the protection they deserve.
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Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam Shaw: Today I'm off to Sherwood Forest, home, famously, of course, of Robin Hood. The name Sherwood Forest actually comes from its status as a shire and the word shire was turned into sher...wood of Nottinghamshire, therefore Sherwood. Anyway, I've come to visit two trees, in particular: the Parliament Oak and the Major Oak. But before we get to that a lot more details on why those trees are so important later on, but first of all, of course I have to meet my two guides for the day.
Louise Hackett: I'm Louise Hackett. I'm the treescape lead for Sherwood. I manage essentially a partnership project across the landscape of what was the historic Sherwood Forest. So that extends from Nottingham up to Worksop and Retford.
Adam Shaw: Fantastic. So huge portfolio and I'm also joined by another Adam. So you are?
Adam Cormack: Adam Cormack and I head up the campaigning team at the Woodland Trust.
Adam Shaw: Fantastic. And we are standing in a beautiful field. I've forgotten to bring my suntan lotion so I could have a red bald head by the end of today, which is very naughty, but we are standing by, well, I'm going to start with, it's called a palace, it may not be what you quite imagine this to be. I'll try and put this on my social media and the Woodland Trust social media so you know what this looks like, but who just wants to explain to me a bit about where we are? Adam’s being thrust towards the microphone.
Adam Cormack: So we're in a field in the middle of Nottinghamshire in a place called Clipstone and we’re by King John's Palace, which is a few remaining walls from an old royal hunting lodge that's about 900 years old. So this dates back to that time when Sherwood was a royal hunting forest. So it's called King John's Palace. But you have to kind of remove that idea of a palace from your mind as you're saying, Adam, it's basically a few remaining walls.
Adam Shaw: Yeah.
Adam Cormack: Which I you know, I can still still find it interesting. Kind of imagine what life was like here years ago.
Adam Shaw: Yeah. No, it is. I mean, yes, I mean look, it is a few remaining walls, but it is beautiful. It's you know it's it's it's not like a a breeze block or anything like that. OK. So we've we've talked about history already a couple of times and the only thing I know about Sherwood Forest and I think I'll be joined by lots of people here is Robin Hood. So Robin Hood was here. Apart from Robin Hood, what else is the historical context of this place?
Louise Hackett: So yes, as as Adam was just saying with the area subject to forest law, which is what made this area a royal hunting forest, the vert and the venison was protected for virtue of the king and that resulted in an incredible landscape that was a a rich mosaic of oak birch woodland, lowland heathland, acid grassland and it covered a huge swathe and it was incredibly dynamic landscape with a long history as as a hunting forest that would have looked very different through the years.
Adam Shaw: So this, it was protected because the king wanted to ride around and catch wild boar and all of that sort of stuff.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely.
Adam Shaw: And what sort of period are we talking about?
Louise Hackett: So we're talking from roughly the 1100s onwards or or earlier than that even, it has a long history.
Adam Shaw: Now also on the car journey here from, you were very kind you picked me up from the station we’re quite a way from the station, but you were, I was surprised you also said oh look we've been we've been in the forest all this time. So I often think of oh, we get to a forest and there's a bit of woodland, but we've been driving half an hour, I don't know, 40 minutes or so, and throughout that time we've been in Sherwood Forest.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely. And I think this is one of the things that I think w...