Team Day Out at Sherwood Forest

This month AWA Tree Consultants had a team day out to Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, with a guided tour of the beautiful woodland and ancient trees.

In the morning we were given a guided tour by a member of Sherwood Forests outdoors management team. The tour was an excellent opportunity to see the awesome ancient trees and learn about the issues surrounding the woodlands management. Including modern history and current management issues, focusing on ancient trees, ecology, and visitor management.

Sherwood Forest is a historic woodland, surrounded by myths and legends, notably as the legendary hideout of Robin Hood and his band of merry men. This was highlighted by several primary school groups who we walked past, who were being guided entertained by ‘Robin Hood’ including swords and archery – a fantastic educational resource!

A highlight of the trip was, of course, The Major oak – one of the most famous trees in the world – and our team was lucky enough to see it up close.

The tree is likely around 1,000 years old and has a girth of over 10m, making it a true wonder. However, as a major tourist attraction since the Victorian era – it poses some unique management challenges. The tree is being carefully monitored for potential damage caused by changes in climate and the impact of visitors over the last few hundred years, with issues of ground compaction, historic mismanagement and vandalism, potentially causing irreversible damage.

During the guided tour, our team learned about the different management techniques used to protect the ancient trees in Sherwood Forest. We looked at the ancient trees that had recently undergone ‘Haloing’ works. As an ancient tree ‘grows down’ within a woodland environment, they are often overshadowed by dense younger and taller trees. The practice of Haloing involves the removal of the younger competing trees from around the ancient tree. However, concern was raised that the last couple of extremely hot summers may have resulted in the death of more ancient trees this year than would be expected. It was clear that a ‘little-and-often’ approach was needed as a sudden large increase in sunlight may also damage the ancient trees, via bark scorching, especially in light of increased heat-waves. The recently dead ancient trees struck a sombre yet still impressive figure with the forest.

We saw lots of cool examples of ‘Veteranisation’ – essentially knackering up live younger trees, in a variety of ingenious methods, to help create vital habitats to complement the existing ancients and importantly to act as a stop-gap, between the eventual loss of the ancient trees until the existing mature trees becoming veteran and ancient. The need for public explanations for the seemingly brutal work was highlighted, as was the necessity and difficulty in bridging the gap between old trees and the ancients.

Ongoing research suggests the veteranisation work is yielding great results in a relatively short space of time, for bird, insect and fungi associated with ancient trees.

We got access to some ‘off piste’ areas – including the recently demolished old visitor centre – a site that is full of veteran oak trees. We finished up the morning having brunch and coffee at the new visitor centre, with great views of the forest edge, and more Robin Hood movie posters than we knew existed!

Following this, we took ourselves out for another walk around the woods, and got to play with the drone to capture some birds-eye images.

Aside from the professional development and learning opportunities, the team day out to Sherwood Forest was also a fun and relaxing experience which allowed our team simply to enjoy some cool trees without the pressure of providing professional arboriculturist advice! With the early summer sun creating dappled shade over the stunning tree-scenery, we were able to take a break from our busy work schedules and enjoy some of the best oak trees the world has to offer.