Clipstone Parish - The Sherwood Forest Trust’s work

 The Sherwood Forest Trust’s project work has enabled various landscape and biodiversity enhancement works to take place within the parish;

Vicar Water Country Park

The Trust has provided specialist advice to Newark and Sherwood District Council to enable the re-creation and management of over 30 hectares of lowland heathland on the restored pit site.  As well as offering guidance, The Trust also supplied the heather brash which was harvested from nearby Budby Forest and mechanically spread on to the tip to provide valuable new habitat. For the last 5 years the Trust has funded habitat creation & management works, access improvements and interpretation on the site.

 Intake Wood

On behalf of the owners Newark & Sherwood District Council The Trust has produced a management plan to direct the site’s progress and bring this area of mixed woodland and open land beneath the power lines to heathland and native woodland with a view to Local Nature Reserve designation.

Parliament Oak & Sherwood's Historic Oaks 

In partnership with Notts County Council, Forest Enterprise & local landowners in the area, the Parliament oak is to be enhanced by protecting the area around the historic tree, securing the boundary of adjacent fields, providing new interpretation and rationalising car parking in the small lane. Other named oaks in the Birklands area are to have small boards erected next to them to highlight their historical importance to the Sherwood area. 

Sherwood Pines

The Trust works closely with the Forestry Commission and provides advice and machinery such as bracken rollers and weedswiper for controlling invasive bracken on some of the heathlands of this 1100 hectares of Forest. For the last 5 years the Trust has funded habitat creation & Management works, access improvements and interpretation on the site including the restoration of the relict heathlands of Clipstone Forest.

Local Origin Tree Nursery

Based at Sherwood Pines, The Trust has facilitated and funded the construction of a nursery in conjunction with Nottinghamshire County Council and the Forestry Commission.  Seed collected from known origin trees will be grown on at the nursery and will be available for use in landscape enhancement schemes throughout the County.  Shrubs and smaller plants such as heather will also be propagated.

 Sherwood Forest Golf Club

This Golf club backing onto Sherwood Pines, prides itself on being a heathland course and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.  The Trust has produced an ecological management plan for the site and works with the Greens staff and committee providing advice and funding to ensure that the heathland landscape is managed and enhanced.

 Archway House

The owners of this private residence styled on Worksop Priory gate house have, with guidance and funding and advice from the Trust, brought the woodlands into management to encourage native species to develop and improve the structure for wildlife.  An historic interpretation board relating to the building is to be installed soon and has also been funded by the Trust to educate local users as they pass on the Sustrans cycle route.

 Archaeology

The Sherwood Initiative Archaeology project is run by Nottinghamshire County Council’s archaeology department and aims to increase our historical knowledge of the Sherwood area. Amongst the wide range of work undertaken the Trust has funded project officers to undertake geophysical survey work to King John’s palace, woodland walking & archaeological survey work within Sherwood Forest Country Park & Sherwood Pines and provide interpretation and investigations to the Historic Duke of Portland Water Meadows

Goresthorpe

Working with the land-owners, Nottinghamshire County Council, the Trust is advising and funding woodland management work on the restored landfill site.

 The Birklands Oakwood project

The Birklands woodland to the north of Clipstone, owned and managed by Forest Enterprise (FE) are part of the best remaining examples of oak-birch woodland & pasture woodland in Nottinghamshire. The large number of ancient oaks in this area are relics of the last surviving ancient oak woodland in Sherwood. The Trust has been funding FE to undertake management work to remove areas of conifers & other alien plantation trees, in stages around veteran oaks, up to 700 years old, giving them renewed vigor and provide space for their saplings to grow. New oaks have been planted in clear-fell areas and regenerating oak woodland thinned to improve it’s structure over the 250ha site.