‘Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies

The Major oak, one of Europe’s oldest, largest and most celebrated ancient trees, has died.

The huge tree, which has grown in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England, for at least 1,000 years, failed to produce any leaves this year, after becoming stressed by a series of hot, dry summers.

Thousands of visitors admire the oak each year, with its great age, enormous 11-metre girth and 28-metre canopy inspiring a forest of folklore. Although the oak would not have been hollow in Robin Hood’s day, it was said to have provided a sanctuary for the outlaw and his gang when fleeing the tyrannical Sheriff of Nottingham.

Major oak, c 1900. Photograph: Heritage Images/Getty Images

In the winter of 2010, when snow fell on the tree, it traced an eerily precise image of Friar Tuck on the trunk. In other winters, when snow fell all around, none appeared on the tree’s limbs.

But it was recent summers – and human admiration – that probably hastened the natural end of the tree’s long life.

Like other ancient oaks, the tree has been repeatedly stressed by the heat and drought of global heating, particularly the heatwave of July 2022 when Britain baked under record 40C temperatures.

Robin Hood arrived in an electric van for an impromptu, informal funeral beside the tree after the RSPB, which manages the Sherwood Forest site of special scientific interest (SSSI), announced the tree’s passing.

Robert Brackley, an outdoor educator who has shown thousands of schoolchildren the wonders of the Major oak while dressed in authentic outlaw furs with functioning bow and arrow, said: “The stories it has given us is the legacy. It’s the most famous tree in the world. The legend always lives on. I feel sad but it’s a fleeting moment in time. We must remember how it was and be in awe of it today.”

Visitors from Spain, Sheffield, the US, South Korea and Australia paused beside the tree to pay their respects. “It’s ginormous!” said Carter Jackson, eight, from Sheffield. “It’s a really beautiful tree and it’s sad it’s died.”

Props and metal chains were installed in 1904 to support the oak’s branches. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian

Ryan Jackson, his father, added: “It’s a piece of history that’s dying but it was 1,000 years old, you can’t live for ever.”

“Poor tree,” said Kirsty Champion from Adelaide. “I always watched Robin Hood on the TV and read the books. It’s so sad that we tried to help it and conserve it but it probably made it worse.”

England has a unique wealth of very large and ancient oaks: 114 living ancient oaks with a girth of more than nine metres, described by conservationists as “the white rhinos of the UK”, with only 98 found across the rest of Europe, including Scotland and Wales.

Ever since the oak was named in honour of Maj Hayman Rooke, a local historian who described the tree in 1790, it has attracted admirers – these days, 350,000 each year. Although a protective barrier was placed around the tree in the 1970s, the oak was weakened by poor soil health and soil compaction from visitors as well as Sherwood’s wartime role as a military camp.

Well-intentioned historical interventions have not helped its longevity. In 1904, props and metal chains were installed to support its branches. In the 1960s, hollow parts of the tree were filled with concrete to support it, while limbs were clad with lead, then fibre-glass and even treated with fire-retardant paint.

Experts believe that the props that continued to support the tree’s mighty limbs also placed it under strain. Left alone, ancient oaks shed their limbs and “grow down”, retreating into their trunk and thereby requiring less water and nutrients as they age.

(From left) Kirsty Champion, Sue Winston and Chris Champion from Adelaide, Australia, at the Major oak. Kirsty said: ‘It’s so sad that we tried to help it and conserve it but it probably made it worse.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian

Since the RSPB took over management of the site in 2018 and undertook studies and emergency action to address the tree’s failing health, it was discovered that the oak’s mighty trunk was becoming depleted of water as it was pumped to the outer branches, which were artificially supported by props.

The props “probably impacted its ability to sustain itself,” said Chloe Ryder, RSPB Sherwood Forest estates operations manager, but they could not be removed because the tree would have collapsed. She said she was “devastated” by the death of a tree she used to visit as a child.

“It’s heartbreaking. I’m genuinely gutted it’s happened in my lifetime, let alone in my tenure. I’ve almost dreaded coming to see it and have that confirmation, and see no leaves on it. I still think it’s one of the most beautiful trees. We call it a living museum because it’s got so much to teach us, both good and bad.”

Robin Hood with Little John. The Major oak is said to have provided a sanctuary for the outlaw and his gang when fleeing the Sheriff of Nottingham. Photograph: Print Collector/Getty Images

Underground tests revealed “a strangled and starved root system in total disconnect to its surrounding environment,” according to Ryder, in nutrient-poor soil that was starved of microbial life. Over the past three winters, the RSPB gently excavated around the tree’s roots to aerate, feed and restore their health and vitality. Although tests showed life returning to the soil, the Major oak sprouted hardly any leaves last year and has no buds or leaves this year.

Reg Harris, an arborist who has monitored the tree’s health for the past nine years for the RSPB, said it was impossible to isolate a single cause for its decline. “The range of factors affecting it over such a long period of time is very wide and varied, including 200 years of tourist footfall and vehicular compaction, changes to the water table from coal mining beneath it and significant changes to the climate, particularly in the last 10% of its life.

“Sadly, it seems probable the lack of summer rainfall over the last five years, coupled with the unprecedented high temperatures, have had a significant hand in it.”

Although the tree is leafless and lifeless, it will be allowed to continue standing, particularly because its “deadwood” is almost as valuable to other wildlife as a living tree.

“It still has this totally irreplaceable habitat value. It’s still one of the largest trees in Europe and it’s still doing a lot for the ecosystem,” said Ed Pyne, senior conservation adviser at the Woodland Trust. A quarter of all forest species are dependent on deadwood at some point in their lifecycle.

While everything was done to save the Major oak, Pye said other ancient trees were dying or being destroyed without anyone realising, and called for the government to introduce special protection. “We lose a tree like this every year. They have no designated legal protection and we are losing them because they are not being valued appropriately.”