This walk takes you north from the Sherwood Forest visitor centre near the village of Edwinstowe into the forest, past the famous Major Oak tree and out onto the open heathland of Budby Forest. The tracks are good in all weathers, with a few small hills.
Start and finish: Sherwood Forest visitor centre
Distance: 6.2km (3.8 miles)
The walk is from the Sherwood Forest visitor centre which has a bus stop outside that most buses to Edwinstowe call at during the day. Check if your bus calls at the Centre. If it doesn’t it is only a short walk from the village to the visitor centre.
From the crossroads in the centre of Edwinstowe head north along a quiet road (Church Street) past the church going away from the village. The church, where Robin Hood married Maid Marian according to the stories, is the official end of the Robin Hood Way (or the start), which goes all the way to Nottingham castle if you decide to tackle it from this direction. After 200m on the left you come to the road to the new Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, which you may well wish to visit before doing the walk . Turn left along the road. On the right is a cricket pitch. The road to also leads to the Sherwood Forest Youth Hostel.
The Walk
After the seemingly endless days of rain and overcast skies of this winter a sunny Friday morning beckoned me out for my first proper walk of the year. The aforementioned rain has turned many of my local paths into quagmire or puddles, transforming leggings and shoes into mud stiffened repositories for grime. Walks by a river are frought with danger as you may find the path disappearing into the water so I planned a walk somewhere that I knew would drain well and provide a more pleasant experience.
As a keen, although not obsessive, bird watcher I had noted in recent weeks that a Great Grey shrike has been seen around Budby Forest for a few weeks. I’ve never seen one of those and this gave me the motivation to get out for this walk.
The sunny morning had brought out decent numbers of people to Sherwood Forest and from the car park and bus stop area I went into the still quite new visitor centre and down stairs to where you leave the centre and enter a sort of amphitheatre area. Go to a large wooden pole which is sculpted with some of the features of local interest. There are children’s playground areas here too.
The first important task of the walk is to make your way to the Major Oak, about a kilometre away. There are two main paths, both very obvious and well signposted. I took the most direct route which bears slightly to the left of the wooden pole but then goes pretty straight on into the forest. It goes gently uphill at first before descending through the deciduous woodland to the clearing where the Major Oak stands, the branches largely supported these days by struts. There are information boards and picnic tables too.
Carry on past the Oak, keeping it to your right, and leave the clearing on a good path. Ignore the path signed Robin Hood Way going off to the left and continue along our path for another 100m as it bends to the right. You reach a crossroads of signposted paths and turn left along the bridleway track towards Budby Reserve. Follow this wide track through the trees. Soon it goes downhill for a short distance. At the bottom look to the trees just ahead of you on the right. When I was there a bird feeder attracted several species including nuthatch and marsh tit.
Carry on uphill for 300m until you reach the end of the forest and reach the open heathland. As you reach a gate entering the heath you will see a sign with the proclamation “NATURISTS” and a warning to naturists to be respectful of other users of the heath. I have to say that I was a little bit surprised to see this notice, which also appears at other boundaries to the heath, as I wasn’t aware this area was a hotbed for naturists. I don’t know how frequently you are likely to encounter them but I certainly saw no sign on a chilly February morning. In my experience you are much more likely to meet birdwatchers or dog walkers.
The path onto the heath, aka Budby Forest, although there aren’t that many trees, is a wide, quite sandy and dry one for the next kilometre. There are good views across the heath here as you are at the high point of the Forest. The path soon descends and at this point I was lucky enough to see a woodlark for the first time ever, thanks to the identification skills of some serious birders with telescopes.
From the bottom of the dip you go past benches which you may wish to make use of as we near the midpoint of the walk. The path climbs again and soon comes to a gate near an information board and map of the forest. Don’t go through the gate but turn and follow the path angling across the heath to the right. This path is a little less formal than the one you have been following up to now and feels a bit more like you are in the heart of the heathland. There is some scrubby vegetation to either side and gorse bushes proliferating. Having said that the path is obvious and is very straight. There are paths coming across at a few points, plenty more in the forest near the Major Oak and you can devise your own route with the aid of a map should you wish.
My route keeps things simple and goes straight on all the way across the heath for 800m ignoring the paths coming across, past a cattle grid on the left after 500m.
The path reaches the trees again and a wide track. Go straight across this wide track and follow another good path going into the forest. This path may have a few puddles but they are easily negotiated. You reach a signpost after 200m and follow the path straight on heading for the Major Oak. Just past this you will see a small footpath sign directing you to the right. This path soon reaches another crossroads where you turn left and rejoin the path you just came off!
Follow this good path pretty straight for 600m until you go down to a path junction and signposts. Going straight on here takes you directly back to the visitor centre but my choice was to return to the Major Oak by turning left. This path follows the Robin Hood Way, the most popular of Nottinghamshire long distance footpaths, which I have described in detail in other walks on this blog. You soon reach the Major Oak and can return to the visitor centre either by retracing your steps from the start of the walk or like me take the slightly longer route (about 1200m long) following the Robin Hood Way.
For my route walk past the Oak and turn left along a wide track with the Oak on your left following the signs for the visitor centre. Follow this track slightly uphill past wooden signs with names for parts of the forest relating to the Merry Men as you make your way through glades of silver birch trees. The path starts to bend to the right as you approach the old car park for the earlier incarnation of the visitor centre, now vanished. Ahead you see the Edwinstowe cricket field. Follow the main path which goes to the right of the cricket field. You can now see the visitor centre again and it’s a short walk downhill then across to the Centre. There is also a cafe and gift shop.
I reached the end of the path after having failed to see the shrike but pleased with the woodlark. As I waited for the bus home with my binoculars in my hand a man with a telescope over his shoulder told me that he had seen a woodlark for the first time after sixty years of trying.
Walks in Central Nottinghamshire (and Beyond) 