# Transcript

## Sherwood Forest

Wendy Douglas
This is Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, steeped in legends and mythology. Before we can work out how humans changed this landscape, I need to find out what it looked like when they first arrived and that is what botanist Steve Clifton is going to help me do.
Wendy
There's something really magical about it. How can I begin to tell how old it is?
Steve
One of the first things to do in a place like this is to look at the vegetation: the trees, the wildlife, in particular the insects. There's a host of rare insects here. So I think it's time that we went out and find a few.
Wendy
So you're telling me that I've got to look at the creepy crawlies then?
Steve
Yes, the creepy crawlies.
Wendy
Ok, let's go then.
Fortunately, we only needed to find one very particular species to give us clues about the age of everything around us.
Wendy
Steve, over here a minute, what's that?
Steve
Excellent, well I think what you've found there is a saproxylic beetle, a beetle that lives in rotting and decaying wood. Sherwood Forest is home to some of Britain's rarest beetles and this is probably one of them, and the reason that they are so rare is not only do they only live in this type of habitat, but they're very poor at dispersing to newer woodland. So not only does this tell me that this tree is very old but it also tells me that this whole woodland also has a long history to it too.
All these holes here have been made by a very impressive population of beetles and other insects. It certainly suggests to me that we could probably estimate this tree is centuries, if not many centuries years old.
Wendy
Amongst all of these trees is Sherwood Forest's major oak. It's more than just a tree, it's an English icon and it gives us real clues about the kind of landscape our ancestors needed to tame if they were going to turn this into more than just a woodland.
Steve
The fantastic thing about this tree is that it's probably our closest relative to the original trees of the wild wood, it's probably only ten generations removed from some of the very first trees that colonised this country after the ice age.
Wendy
So how do we go about giving it an age?
Steve
Well it's not easy, it's not an exact science but what we can do is a simple experiment just to measure the size of the trunk and we'll try and work out roughly how old the tree will be.
So if you want to take that and walk around the tree…
Wendy
Are you sure we've got enough tape for this?
Steve
Hopefully so.
Wendy
It just keeps going and going. Hello again!
So what we've got is 10 metres, that's huge.
Steve
That is a massive, massive tree. The general rule of thumb is that a tree that has a girth more than 5 metres is truly ancient, so this is double that figure.
Wendy
so 'double ancient'
Steve
We're probably looking at least a thousand years old.
Wendy
A thousand years old?
Steve
Yes, a thousand years old.