45 11 APRIL 2024 Weekending Weekend walks Wander through Robin Hood country to discover a dazzling display of bluebells, says Oliver Smith CLUMBER PARK Information Best map OS Explorer 270 Sherwood Forest Start & nish Hardwick Village Distance 3 miles Duration 2 hours Di culty Easy ‘St George’s Day is particularly associated with the sight and scent of bluebells in bloom’ Sherwood Forest has captured the imaginations of millions – evoked in books, movies and TV shows. The real-life version is, unfortunately, rather small, longsince reduced to a few clumps of woodland amid the old collieries of north Nottinghamshire. It covered around 100,000 acres in the 13th century, but the largest single surviving remnant today is 3,800 acre Clumber Park – once the country estate of the Dukes of Newcastle and now in the care of the National Trust. At any time of year, you might tread forest trails and imagine a hooded man hidden in the foliage, or perhaps a sheri hot on his trail. But visit in spring, and you can also find this mythical greenwood adorned with one of Britain’s best displays of bluebells – a sight that’s legendary in its own right. The National Trust suggests a bluebell-themed walk around the wood (search ‘the bluebell woods of Clumber’ on its website). Start in Hardwick, an estate village built by the dukes of yore. Their ancestral home is no more, as the mansion was demolished in the 30s after being ravaged by fire (works by Rembrandt and Durer were lost in the blaze). But the village built to service the great house survives, its neo-Elizabethan homes crowned by high chimneys that vie with the tallest specimens in the forest. Walk north-west of the village and you soon enter ancient woodland – some oaks here are five centuries old, almost old enough to remember the footfalls of passing outlaws. In spring, these trees are islands in a sea of bluebells – St George’s Day on 23 April is particularly associated with the sight and scent of bluebells in bloom. Continue northeast of the woods, passing a distinctive hexagonal house in a field. Turn west into Hardwick Wood, where a track runs as straight as an arrow from Robin’s bow, passing heathlands and clumps of Scots pine. You soon arrive at another of Clumber Park’s defining sights – Lime Tree Avenue. Planted in the mid-19th century, it’s the longest double avenue of lime trees in Europe at two miles. It’s especially stirring to walk beneath them in late April as they come into leaf – their emerald leaves forming a tunnel of greenery burrowing through the forest. Push on through White Pheasant Wood – where you should see a second patch of bluebells – and you come to Clumber Park’s long serpentine lake, on whose waters the Duke of Newcastle once staged mock sea battles. A causeway ushers you back to Hardwick village, where you can stand on the lake shore and see the forest mirrored in the still waters. Look out too for the Lake Brew café, which serves hot drinks and toasties for wandering merry men and women. @olismithtravel SPRING SPECTACULAR Bluebells at Clumber Park in Sherwood Forest (top); the estate’s lake (left); Lime Tree Avenue (bottom) Photographs: Getty images
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