Image ID: 12420

Forest Scene, Birklands, Sherwood Forest, Edwinstowe, c 1880

Sherwood Forest
Edwinstowe
England

William Allen opened the first photographic studio in Mansfield around 1875. This photograph was purchased in 1966 for half a crown (30p). During the Middle Ages vast areas of England were Royal Forest and came under Forest Law, an additional law applying to those living within its jurisdiction. Originally extremely harsh, Henry III granted in 1217 that a man should no longer lose life or limb for taking the King's deer. Sherwood Forest Country Park is a 450 acre site with the Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, run by Nottinghamshire County Council to provide a tourist attraction and educational site. As a royal forest, many kings have hunted in Sherwood; King Richard I, King (the monarch formerly known as Prince) John, Kings Edward I, II and III, just to name some of the kings whose visits to Sherwood are documented in both Robin Hood stories and historical records. King John was on his way to his favourite hunting grounds, Clipstone in Sherwood, when he died in 1216. (You can still visit the ruins of this lodge.) Sherwood literally meant 'Shire Wood', and in the Middle Ages, Sherwood did cover much of Nottinghamshire, extending beyond into Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Some of the trees in Sherwood included oaks like the Major Oak, beech and silver birch trees, and the area around Sherwood also contained areas of heathland, particularly where the soil was sandy, due to the underlying Bunter sandstone rock. The defining characteristic of a forest is that it was governed by forest laws. There would have been many poachers and outlaws like Robin Hood, and Sherwood was patrolled by foresters who would mete out swift justice to those who broke the forest laws by such acts as killing the king's deer. Today most of the vast spread of medieval hunting forest is gone. Sherwood Forest exists today mainly around Sherwood Forest Country Park, centering on the Major Oak at Edwinstowe, with pockets of woodland ranging from Papplewick in the southwest up to Clipstone and beyond. Birklands was the area of Sherwood Forest landscaped by the Dukes of Portland from nearby Welbeck Abbey. It was given lawns, flower-beds and ridings.

Date: 1880

Organisation Reference: NCCM000221

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