On the Edge of Sherwood Forest [image 1680x1050 pixels 75]

From the Painting by John MacWhirter, R.A.
John MacWhirter (1839 – 1911) was a Scottish painter. He showed great promise as a boy, and his work was shown at the Royal Academy of Art (entitling him to the initials R.A.) when he was fourteen years old. The cynic in me says this was because his paintings were entirely without the slightest hint of controversy!

“Ollerton, a sleepy little town, most charmingly situated on the south edge of the Dukeries, is a delightful place whereat to stay or to lunch, but, like Edwinstowe, it possesses few features of antiquarian or archælogical interest. Immediately in front stretches that part of Sherwood Forest known as Bilhagh, a veritable wilderness of ancient oaks, some alive and flourishing, some gnarled, decaying, or dead, but all suggestive of mediæval England, of Robin Hood, and of the days when English monarchs used to hunt the red deer beneath their shade.” (p. 205)

On the Edge of Sherwood Forest details