Projects
End of an icon
The world’s most famous tree will never grow another acorn or shed another leaf. So what can we learn from the loss of the Major Oak?
ICON, INSPIRATION, behemoth of biodiversity... and now prophet. After a thousand years at the heart of Sherwood Forest, the Major Oak has died – and the Woodland Trust is determined to ensure the lessons of its loss resonate for decades to come.
The renowned oak, legendary hideout of Robin Hood, was the very first on the Trust’s UK-wide Ancient Tree Inventory in 2006, and eight years later was voted our first UK Tree of the Year. But it has been ailing badly since the long drought of 2022, and it failed to come into leaf this spring.
Chloe Ryder, who runs the Sherwood National Nature Reserve for the RSPB, says its death has prompted an outpouring of public affection, with messages and memories flooding in from across the globe: “I grew up in Nottingham and my blood runs Lincoln green,” Chloe says, “so it has been personally devastating to witness the Major Oak’s demise. But its legacy in inspiring generations of nature-lovers is immeasurable.”
Since 2023 the RSPB has partnered with the Trust in a desperate bid to save the monumental oak, whose trunk stretches ten metres around. It has undergone DNA profiling, careful soil improvement, root and leaf analysis and targeted watering, with dendrometer devices attached to the branches to monitor its response.
“Sadly it all came too late,” says the Trust’s Louise Hackett. “The tree has been a tourist attraction since Victorian times, and 150 years of visitor pressure fatally compacted its roots. You could say it has been loved to death.”
Louise runs our Sherwood’s Living Legends project, launched to track down and conserve every special old tree that remains across 534 square kilometres of the wider Nottinghamshire countryside.
“My overriding message is that the Major Oak did not simply die of old age,” she says. “These ancient trees have the ability to retrench, dropping limbs and reducing their crowns to adapt to changing conditions. But in decades past it was propped and braced in ways that prevented it from adapting naturally. We are working to ensure those same well-intentioned mistakes won’t be repeated with other wonderful trees, at Sherwood and beyond.
“We want this to become a centre of excellence for their care, and the science gathered from the Major Oak will inform our new gold standard.”
years old: the Major Oak is estimated to have stood in Sherwood for 10 centuries
years of relentless visitor pressure has fatally compacted its roots
km2 – the wider Nottinghamshire area where we’ll record, protect and restore ancient trees
Circular ecology!
Double win for rainforests, as new research lab builds with timber from our Devon restoration drive
A PIONEERING NEW science centre is being built to probe the secrets of Britain’s rainforests – using tonnes of timber culled from the Trust’s rainforest restoration work.
The £1.2 million research hub, the first of its kind in Europe, is taking shape at Cabilla, on Bodmin Moor. It is the brainchild of conservationist Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, who retreated to his family’s Cornish oakwoods to recover from PTSD he suffered in the military.
His charity the Thousand Year Trust has since joined with the Woodland Trust and other partners in our new South West Rainforest Alliance, with a mission to triple the imperilled habitat across the region. Moist and mossy temperate rainforest survives right along the UK’s western seaboard, and last year we teamed up on an innovative scheme to extend Cabilla’s woodland by scattering 80,000 tree seeds using giant drones.
“We want this valley to become a blueprint for wide-scale rainforest recovery,” Merlin says. “We’re already hosting 14 research projects with six international universities on our land.”
His state-of-the-art research facility will feature a ‘living laboratory’ on the roof and lodgings for scientists and students. Its timber design is far more sustainable than concrete – especially as it’s using 400 tonnes of beech, fir and western hemlock from the Trust’s rainforests on Dartmoor.
At woods like Fingle and Ausewell, we are thinning out post-war plantation trees to allow ancient rainforest flora to recover, and the timber is also going to build a new education centre at Yarner Wood, near Bovey Tracey. The Trust’s David Rickwood says: “It’s about finding new markets that help fund our vital ecological restoration work. Merlin’s science centre couldn’t be a better place to showcase that story.”
“We want this valley to become a blueprint for wide-scale rainforest recovery. We’re already hosting 14 research projects with six international universities.”
Landowner and conservationist Merlin Hanbury-Tenison
A HOME FOR ALL SEASONS
The Woodland Trust is a registered charity, numbers 294344
and SC038885. Image: Laurie Campbell CP03042/WTML 08/26
From trunk to twig, blossom to branch, our native trees are a home for nature all year round.
Plant Woodland Trust trees this autumn and grow your own thriving haven for the birds, insects and mammals in your neighbourhood. Watch your garden come alive with wildlife and remember, every tree you buy supports our vital work protecting and restoring UK woodland, so even more species benefit.
A HOME FOR ALL SEASONS
The Woodland Trust is a registered charity, numbers 294344
and SC038885. Image: Laurie Campbell CP03042/WTML 08/26
From trunk to twig, blossom to branch, our native trees are a home for nature all year round.
Plant Woodland Trust trees this autumn and grow your own thriving haven for the birds, insects and mammals in your neighbourhood. Watch your garden come alive with wildlife and remember, every tree you buy supports our vital work protecting and restoring UK woodland, so even more species benefit.