Engagement Photographer Sherwood Forest — Ancient Oak Woodland and the Greenwood of Robin Hood
Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire is one of the oldest pieces of surviving ancient woodland in England — a remnant of the medieval hunting forest that once stretched across a vast swathe of the Midlands. At its heart is the Major Oak, an 800-year-old tree with a canopy spanning 28 metres and a trunk circumference of more than 10 metres. Sherwood’s veteran oaks, with their vast gnarled trunks and dense summer canopies, create a woodland interior unlike any commercial plantation. As an engagement photographer in Sherwood Forest, I work in and around the Country Park, the wider Birklands SSSI and the ancient heath and coppice of the surrounding Clumber Park estate.
The Ancient Oaks of Sherwood
Sherwood’s finest photography opportunities are found among the veteran oaks of the Birklands — several hundred hollow-trunked, bracket-fungus-encrusted pedunculate oaks that have been growing since the Norman period. The light inside the veteran oak zone is dappled, green and layered, and the tree trunks are wide enough to lean against, sit within or use as architectural framing for portrait compositions. Autumn in Sherwood — from October through to mid-November — brings a deep amber and russet leaf colour to the canopy and carpets the rides in fallen leaves. Spring brings bluebells through the lighter sections of the wood and fresh green bracken unfurling beneath the oak shade.
Clumber Park and the Surrounding Greenwood
Clumber Park, five miles north of the Sherwood Visitor Centre, is a National Trust estate with a long ornamental lake, Gothic chapel and extensive parkland managed for wildlife. In addition to ancient oaks you have open parkland with a chapel backdrop, lakeside reflections, a lime tree avenue and quiet sandy rides through pine and birch. Together with the ancient woodland of Birklands, an engagement session covering both locations in a single afternoon gives you complete visual variety — from the wild and ancient to the grand and architectural — within a short drive.