Beech Avenue, Thoresby Estate.

 

Above: Birklands Wood.

In the 19th Century the wooded areas of Birklands, around the Major Oak, and Bilhaugh, next to Ollerton Corner, were popular tourist attractions, both a part of Thoresby Estate. Birklands was landscaped and maintained with a mixture of Oak and Birch, and there is an interesting record of how a 1902 scheme to seed the area with new birch trees was thwarted by pre-myxomatosis levels of rabbit population, before which up to 10,000 rabbits were shot annually on the estate.

Thoresby Colliery opened in 1925. When a railway track was planned to run from the colliery, through Cockglode, and into Ollerton Corner, letters of protest appeared in The Times. Thanks to the public support of Earl Manvers (who had never liked the idea of the mine being named after his estate), the scheme was dropped. But the woods of Ollerton Corner, were still cleared of their timber during the needs of two world wars, and the colliery itself.

Above: Beech Avenue, 1940s / 50s.

These rows of trees apparently rivalled Robin Hood's Major Oak as a place of both local and national interest.

It is known that war time entertainer Gracie Fields once visited Beech Avenue whilst staying at the Coaching House, now known as the Hop Pole. Beech Avenue acquired the nickname "the Cathedral" because of the way its branches met over the roadway like the arches over a cathedral's aisle. Allegedly, even at the height of summer, the only light which penetrated was from each end of the Avenue.

Above: Beech Avenue 1969. Copyright 2013 Graham Travis and used with consent.

Above: Proteus Camp 1965.

In 1942 Proteus Camp (eventually re-named the Dukeries Training Area) was established. Understandably, the woodlands in this area became a more secretive, off limits, military site. Beech Avenue itself was finally cleared in 1976 / 78, following decades of neglect, overgrowth, old age, the storm damage of 1976.

Happy ending: Where once stood Proteus camp, now stands the ironically and appropriately named "The Sherwood Hideaway". Starting in 2009, a joint venture between Thoresby Estate and a luxury lodge developer, in rents cabins for short term holidays. It even seems to have its own new Beech Avenue: