23/08/2026
The Great Fire of Sherwood Forest on this day.
In August 1623 we nearly lost all of the woods of Sherwood to a great fire which swept the forest. The fire was reported about noon on Monday 23rd August 1623. The smoke could been seen as far as Newark some 15 miles away and was said to have darkened the sun!
The fire was reported to be some 4 miles long and a miles and a half deep.
The JP’s (Justices of the Peace) for Nottinghamshire ordered that local people should bring pickaxes, spades and shovels to dig fire breaks to stem the spread of the conflagration. In the nick of time the wind changed or the flames might have spread to Nottingham and engulfed the town.
The account of the fire is given in a letter by an eye-witness from here in Nottinghamshire written to a friend. The letter is now preserved in the British Museum.
The writer says:—"Vpon Munday, the 23 of August, beinge Bartholume eve, aboute nounetide as it shoulde seeme the brackin and lin and trees together wereof a flam that it caused such an extreordenary smoke and the wind bringing of it to vs warde: (i.e., to Newark) that it made such a greet mist in the aire that it did darken the sonne withall: that many peepell did come out of ther houses in greete wonderinge at such a sudden and feerfull fire: and most did coniecture it to be the sonne in the cliptes and others said noe it smellt like fire: the which proufed the most trueste: for persently vpon came ther commande from the Justeses to rayse the cuntery ther aboute: And to bringe pickaxes spades and shouelles to make dikes and trenches to breeke the fire in the forreste: And such a fire as never knowne in mannes memory: beinge 4 mile longe and a mille and a hallfe ouer all at once: And had it not plesed the Lorde to turne the winde at an instant when it was sesinge vpon a greet and longe wood that was betweene Mancefellde and Nottinggame ( Mansfield and Nottingham) which if it had taken houllde but the Lord prevented it, which to my knowelege which afterwards I did see: did run up vnder the hy trees above a stones cast which if it had got vp into the bowes and branches of the greet trees it was thought it wulde have brunte vp all the cuntry before it as far as Nottingegame."
Much of the deer, it seems, escaped the flames, and were seen huddled together in fear. The writer tells us that "ridinge on my way through the forrest homeward I saw of the other side of the sellfe sam hill a grete herde of faire red deere, and amongst them 2 extreordanary greet stags, the which I never saw the like."
