Duke Wood Oil Museum

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Dukes Wood is a marvellous example of cooperation between the Oil industry and the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. It combines an area of ancient and secondary woodland with what was the site of the UK’s first oilfield. Some of the ‘nodding donkey’ pumps have been restored and can be seen on the trail. On the nature trial you'll find the bronze statue of the The Oil Patch Warrior, commemorating the American 'Roughnecks of Sherwood Forest'. The wood, on a ridge of high ground, is dominated by oak, ash, hazel and birch. The shrub layer also contains guelder rose (flowering white with shiny red poisonous berries), dogwood (flowering white, black berries) and wild privet (white blossom, shiny black berries) - species that thrive in the limy soil. The area contains many species of wild orchid and also is the habitat of the rare Vetch Nissola (found only in one other location in the UK). There are usually a good many spring and early summer flowers - bluebell, primrose, wood anemone, yellow archangel among them - no less than twenty four species of butterfly have been found at Dukes Wood. Among the songbirds you may hear the Nightingale and Pipistrelle Bats have been seen roosting in the Museum.

The land was donated to the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust in 1989 by British Petroleum.
www.dukeswoodoilmuseum.co.uk/