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- SHERWOOD FOREST, England
(Reuters) - A giant 800-year-old oak tree in the heart of Sherwood Forest,
said to have been the hideaway of Robin Hood and his fabled merry men,
has been granted nearly $40,000 to keep it from collapsing.
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- The tree is dying because, quite simply, it is very old.
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- ``There is a saying about oak trees,'' said Richard Sales,
the manager of Sherwood Forest. ``They take 300 years to grow, 300 years
to live and 300 years to die.''
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- The grant, awarded last month from a trust funded by
tax, will pay to lengthen the life of the ``Major Oak'' and, in turn, the
old English legend of the 13th century outlaw who stole from the rich and
gave to the poor.
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- The tree draws some 675,000 visitors a year from around
the world. They ignore the views of skeptics who doubt the ``Major Oak''
could have been large enough centuries ago to give refuge.
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- Its trunk, where legend says Robin Hood's band hid from
their arch-enemy the Sheriff of Nottingham, measures 33 feet around. It
stands about 90 feet high and its branches spread some 92 feet.
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- Preservation work on the tree, which weighs some 23 tons,
began early this century. Cables were attached in the early 1900s to hold
the massive limbs together, while the limbs were propped up with wooden
beams in the 1970s.
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- Layers of green fiberglass coat the tree where souvenir
hunters have stripped the tree of its bark.
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- But the limbs have since grown around the rusty cables,
and the beams are beginning to rot.
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- ``If we don't take action within a short period of time,
this tree will literally collapse,'' said Roger Alderson, head of tourism
and country parks for Nottinghamshire County Council.
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- Sales said the $39,750 grant could be spent to replace
wooden beams with steel ones. He hopes to complete the project in the next
six months.
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- It would also fund a study of the tree's future health.
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- ``The tree could live for another 300 years if it's properly
looked after,'' Sales said.
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