magazine magazine Central England Central England 07 Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire 08 Selly Oak, Birmingham l Distance 5½km/3½ miles l Time 2hrs l Type Family, woodland l Distance 3km/2 miles l Time 1hr l Type Short, canal-side city walk NAVIGATION FITNESS NAVIGATION FITNESS 1 LEVEL 1 1 LEVEL 1 1 LEVEL 1 1 LEVEL 1 plan your walk plan your walk l Nottingham l l Stoke-on-Trent l Sheffield Gainsborough l Derby NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Wolverhampton l Leicester SHERWOOD Birmingham l FOREST Mansfield l l SELLY OAK l Coventry Newark- WEST MIDLANDS on-Trent ES l l Stratford- l OAT Worcester upon-Avon Nottingham C l Derby L Cheltenham l HY: ALAMY HY: HY: NEI HY: P P Where: Circular walk in x Where: Circular walk around Sherwood Forest. Selly Oak, along Birmingham Start/end: Sherwood Canal and through the PHOTOGRA Forest National Nature PHOTOGRA University of Birmingham Reserve & Visitor Centre, Whether Robin Hood ever existed is 1. START From the Visitor Centre, campus. This short walk around the leafy 2. Walk along The Dingle, crossing a Edwinstowe (SK626677). a moot point; less debatable is the follow the waymarked path for the Start/end: Selly Oak suburb of Selly Oak – home to the small road as you go and passing a terrain: Firm paths and long association between the Major Oak, which winds through Library (SP044829). University of Birmingham’s Hazelnut tree on your L. When you forestry tracks. Easy folklore hero and Sherwood Forest. groves of oak and birch to reach terrain: Pavements, campus – will take you under an reach the canal at the end of The walking, but may be muddy The verdant wild wood and Norman the famous landmark. Grandest of towpaths and parkland paths. hour and visits some of the area’s Dingle, turn L and walk along the after rainfall. No stiles, but hunting forest where Robin and all Sherwood’s trees, it is maybe MapS: OS Explorer 220; most recognisable landmarks. The canal towpath. As you go, you’ll pass two bridle gates. his Merry Men sparred with the 1,100 years old and now supported Landranger 139. university’s clock tower is clearly under a bridge carrying the Bristol MapS: OS Explorer 270; Sheriff of Nottingham is now a on an arboreal Zimmer frame of GettinG there: Trains run visible as you follow a stretch of Road overhead. At this point, notice Landranger 120. shadow of its former self, when struts. It’s named after Major Hayman every 10 minutes from the Birmingham Canal, before on your R the very clear view of the GettinG there: outlaws could have walked beneath Rooke, a local historian in Georgian Birmingham New Street to heading over the green-lawned University of Birmingham Clock Stagecoach’s “Sherwood the greenwood between Yorkshire times. Circle the enclosure clockwise, Selly Oak (✆ 0121 634 2040, campus, past the large bronze Tower. Affectionately known as ‘Old Arrow” service 33 runs and Leicestershire in the great soon reaching benches and a www.londonmidland.com) or sculpture that honours the Joe’, after the university’s first regularly every day from Forest of Barnsdale. That which waymarked bridleway to the L. take the 61 bus (✆ 0121 254 famous scientist Michael Faraday. chancellor Joseph Chamberlain, the Nottingham and Worksop to remains, however, offers a glimpse Turn along this and walk to reach 7272, www.travelwm.co.uk). The route finishes by exploring 100m/328ft building is the world’s the Visitor Centre; buses into that medieval landscape. This open pasture on your R in 200 yards. eatinG & drinkinG: There some quieter pathways and tallest freestanding clock tower. Keep also run to Edwinstowe corner of Nottinghamshire oozes At this juncture, turn L on a lesser are several takeaways and recreation grounds, passing the walking along the towpath until you from Mansfield and atmosphere, from the heathland of path, shortly reaching a bridle gate cafés along Bristol Road. historic Westley Richards & Co reach the bridge directly under the other local towns Budby South to the remarkable and fence gate. Use the bridle gate The Goose at the OVT (a Gunmakers shop. university railway station. (✆ 0871 200 2233, www. forest giants dappling the shady and turn L on the distinct track that favourite with students) travelineeastmidlands.org. groves or standing, gaunt and strikes up a wide, shallow grassy serves budget food and real 1. START Coming out of Selly Oak 3. Go under the bridge and then up the uk). There’s ample parking twisted, in clearings beside sinuous bowl – it develops as a slightly ale (✆ 0121 472 3186). Library (SP044829), turn R towards a metal staircase directly to your L. Once at the Visitor Centre woodland ways. Children’s gravelly, sandy way. In 700 yards, SleepinG: There are lots of pedestrian crossing. Cross over the at the top, turn L and then R at West (charged at weekends, bank imaginations can run riot here, as the trees pinch in again, you’ll budget guesthouses in the main Bristol Road using the crossing Gate to walk past the large bronze holidays and school where Longhorn cattle graze wood reach a split. local area and mid-price and turn R, along Bristol Road until figure on your L. The sculpture of the holidays, otherwise free). pasture, trees offer hidey-holes, hotels nearer Birmingham you reach the car park of a Vauxhall 18th-century scientist Michael Faraday eatinG & drinkinG: and thin paths an escape route 2. Keep ahead-R on a narrowing city centre (✆ 0844 888 3883, car showroom over the road. Pass was created by the celebrated artist Sir The Forest Table, from the Sheriff’s vengeance… path, which meanders through the www.visitbirmingham.com/ the car park and, before reaching Eduardo Paolozzi to commemorate lots of chances, too, for nature woods to reach a hand gate onto a accommodation). the Vauxhall dealership, turn L into the university’s centenary. The ▲ Sherwood Visitor Centre ▲ ▲ watching and learning. compacted track. Turn R along ▼ a small avenue called The Dingle. inscription around the base of the Ordnance Survey map Survey Ordnance Ordnance Survey map Survey Ordnance 3 continued… 4 continued... ViSitor information: Visit (✆ 01623 823 202); Birmingham (✆ 0844 888 3883, Edwinstowe Bistro, ping © Crown copyright.AM34/08 ping ©Crown www.visitbirmingham.com). copyright.AM34/08 ping ©Crown 19 High Street gUiDeBooKS: Waterside Walks (✆ 01623 824880). in the Midlands by Birmingham Sleeping: B&B at Ramblers, (£4.95 + £1 P&P, The Cottages, 1 Church 3 Meridian Books, Street, Edwinstowe ISBN 1 869922 09 3). 5 (✆ 01623 824383); The Forest local ramBlerS area/ Lodge Hotel, 2–4 Church 2 groUp: South Birmingham Street, Edwinstowe Ramblers (✆ 0121 624 2533, (✆ 01623 824443, www.sbramblers.pwp. www.forestlodgehotel.co.uk); blueyonder.co.uk). Sherwood Forest YHA, Forest Corner, Edwinstowe sculpture are lines from TS Eliot’s The (✆ 0845 371 9139, 4 1 Dry Salvages, chosen by the artist to www.yha.org.uk). START reflect on the reasons young people ViSitor information: 5 FINISH come to university: to travel, listen, Sherwood Forest National think and change. Nature Reserve & Visitor Centre, Edwinstowe 4. Follow the path towards the Public (✆ 01623 823202) — seasonal, Health building along the signposted otherwise contact Ollerton Map not to scale. footpath and cycle route. At the end, TIC (✆ 01623 824545, Representation of turn L following signposts on your L www.visitnewarkand Landranger MAP 120, to Grange Road Gates. Cross over to sherwood.co.uk). 1:50,000 the same side of the road as the gUiDeBooKS: www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk Chemical Engineering building so it’s 1 START Nottingham and Sherwood on your R-hand side. At the end of FINISH Forest: Leisure Walks For All this road, cross over and turn R, to Ages – Short Walks Guides by Steepness of walk walk towards an old tower with a Terry Marsh (£5.95, Crimson 100 large weeping willow tree on your L Publishing, ISBN and the Estates West building on 9780711720862). your R. Continue to follow this road local ramBlerS area/ 50 around to the L. Cross a road and groUp: Mansfield & Sherwood keep walking until you reach a Ramblers (www.mansfield- (m) Elevation pedestrian zebra crossing. ramblers.co.uk). 0 1 2 3 4 5 5.5 Total distance of walk (km) 5. Take the zebra crossing and walk past a recreational ground on your 2 this, a tranquil bridleway through of a wide, grassy strip through the their splayed ‘stags heads’ or L, along a beautiful tree-lined the heart of Sherwood. Keep your trees. The large oak on your R is the gnarled, lived-in looks, they create pathway. Follow this path round to eyes peeled for the Longhorn Centre Tree, the very middle of the an atmosphere of mystery and the L, towards Grange Road Gate, cattle and Hebridean sheep, used old forest. even menace. The most and cross the bridge over Bourne Map not to scale. to grazing the fenced area on your impressive of these are in a Brook. Entering Grange Road, you’ll Representation of L – these are the largest mammals 4. Turn L, past the barrier; in 70 cleared area to your R, thrusting notice the famous Westley Richards Birmingham A-Z map in today’s Sherwood, as the Merry paces fork R on a path signed for their decrepit boles above thick, & Co Gunmakers on your L, Men’s favoured quarry, Edwinstowe. Simply keep ahead re-generating birch woodland. established in 1812. Turn R along deer, are now extremely rare. on this and ignore cross-paths, Keep R at a fork beside this plain Dale Road, past Jarratt Hall on your At the major fork, keep L on the taking you through Birklands of Methuselah trees to reach a R.