History of Sherwood Forest

1000 years of Sherwood Forest history to explore, forest, medieval ruins, great estates, industrial revolution and two world wars.

Ancient Sherwood Forest and the modern Forest

Brief History of Sherwood Forest

If you are interested in the history of the forest you really must visit Andy Gaunt’s website Archaeology and History of Medieval Sherwood Forest. Andy is a professional archaeologist in Nottinghamshire specialising in archaeological fieldwork including supervising excavation, archaeological topographic surveying, archaeological geophysics, and field walking.

The ancient trees of Sherwood Forest

Some of the ancient and famous trees in pictures and words.

History of Clipstone Forest

The story of the replanting of the Clipstone Forest (Sherwood Pines).

Clipstone Forest’s war-time role

Clipstone heath was an important training ground in both the 1914 to 1918 and the 1939 to 1945 World Wars.

Clipstone Park Water Meadows – the Flood Dykes

The changing face of Sherwood Forest.

“The contrast between the wild beauties of nature and the finished works of cultivation and art, thus placed side by side, is very striking and remarkable.

The eye, after wandering through the glades of the forest, and resting on the brown carpeting of fern and heather with which it is clothed, is amazed on coming suddenly in view of the rich green of the meadows, extended for miles before it, laid in gentle slopes and artificial terraces, and preserved in perpetual verdure by supplies of water thrown continually over their surface.

The land immediately occupied by these meadows was in its wild state a line of hill-sides, covered with gorse and heather, – a rabbit-warren, over which a few sheep wandered, and a swampy valley below, thick set with hassocks and rushes, the favourite haunt of wild ducks and snipes; through which the little stream, the Maun, wound its way in its descent from the town of Mansfield.”