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| | | From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
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|  | The Great Oak, Sherwood Forest
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Helen Mark explores Nottinghamshire, a county that is home to the world’s most famous forest and discovers that there is more too it than just trees.
The heart of Sherwood Forest was given National Nature Reserve status late last year. A great number of oaks aged over 500 years provide an abundance of aesthetic beauty, wonderful shapes and amazing structures.
Helen meets Izzy Banton, site manager, who has worked in Sherwood Forest for 16 years and Helen discovers that heathland and grassland are also to be found there in the forest. She watches as silver birches are cleared in order to restore Sherwood to its original landscape.
Nottinghamshire Tourist info
Laxton is the only farm left in Europe to use the medieval method of strip farming. It has survived enclosure and modernisation and strips have been passed down through generations. The landscape is special in that its clusters of houses, barns, and animal paddocks are all tightly built together rather than isolated in their own fields. Stewart Rose has lived in the village all his life and is now one of the 14 Crown Estate permanent tenants farming on the land. He takes Helen out to one of the fields to explain how the farming is done and shows her the ancient art of pegging out that is still used today.
Laxton
Andrew Poole is the wood warden at Thoresby Estate, the only privately owned estate left of The Dukeries. Standing between another collection of veteran oaks with their eerie presence, this is another area that is being restored, mainly through the process of bracken rolling and the reintroduction of grazing. Andrew explains how the forest once worked, and the importance of preserving the old trees.
The small village of Wellow has an extremely prominent structure at its centre that stands over 60 feet tall. The Wellow Maypole is the pivotal part of the village’s May Day celebrations and its origins can be traced back to 1856. Janet Carr is the current treasurer of the Maypole Committee. She has a firm knowledge of the history of the pole and her daughter is May Queen this year. As she's the only girl in the village eligible for this position, there is concern that traditions will have to be changed in order for the May Queen crowning to continue.
Haidee Jackson is curator at Newstead Abbey and she has her own romantic story to tell about the magical location as well as how Lord Byron was a hero for the poor people of Nottinghamshire.
Newstead Abbey
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