The maypole on Wellow's green is fifty-five feet of steel, sixty with its weathervane, and it's one of only a handful left standing anywhere in England. Wellow has had one, in some form, since at least 1835. The Olde Red Lion sits directly opposite it, a 400-year-old pub with a wood-beamed interior split into restaurant, lounge and bar, and it has had a ringside seat for most of that pole's various sawings-down and re-erections.
Order the steak and ale pie or the roast beef dinner. Reviewers keep singling out the chips — "proper chips," one wrote, "the best chips I've had in a pub." Landlady Michelle runs the place, and when a father's wake overran its expected numbers she still got the food out "fresh, hot, and beautifully presented." The pub brews its own house beer, Olde Lion Ale, a 3.8% session bitter made for it by the Maypole brewery, and keeps two rotating guest ales — Castle Rock Harvest Pale and Eagle Bombardier have both been through recently. There's a beer garden, its own car park, dogs on leads are welcome, and lunch runs Wednesday to Sunday.
The Maypole Inn stands on the other side of the green, named for the same landmark, and was a different pub entirely until its refurbishment — the Durham Ox. It runs theme nights: Pie Night, Burger Night, Curry Night, Fish & Chips Night, plus a Wednesday special where two can eat from £15. Sunday roast is available as a takeaway — pork with crackling, roast beef, homemade apple pie and custard. Reviews split: some visitors are "always blown away" by food cooked to order at reasonable prices; at least one complained of food past its date. It has dog-friendly rooms for anyone staying over, and an outdoor terrace for dining.
For everyday shopping there's the Wellow Parlour Shop, community-run by volunteers since 1997. Order meat, fish and Hobbs House bread by Monday for Friday collection. There are second-hand books at 50p and a Tuesday dry-cleaning drop-off. It calls itself "Fresh. Local. Convenient," and opens weekday mornings and afternoons, Saturday mornings only.
St Swithin's Church has a 12th-century core, its tower built up in three stages across three centuries, gargoyles under a crenellated parapet, and a clock made by Richard Roe of Epperstone in 1699. The churchyard holds a 1651 stone altar tomb to Alice Braylesford.
Walk the Gorge Dyke and you're tracing the reason the village exists at all. Wellow was founded around 1145 by peasants pushed out of Rufford when Cistercian monks moved in, and they dug a bank and ditch around a triangular green for defence — locals claim it's the only village green in the country that was never a market place first. The Robin Hood Way runs through, with a signposted path near the old windmill on to Kirklington, and a longer circular walk links Ollerton, Wellow and Rufford Country Park.
Rufford Abbey is a couple of miles off if you want ruined cloisters and a lake to walk round. Sherwood Forest and the Major Oak are a short drive further, beyond Edwinstowe. A direct bus runs hourly from the Markhams stop to Nottingham, about seventy minutes each way.
The current maypole went up in February 1976, paid for by Nottinghamshire County Council. The ones before it were wood, and had a harder life: one was sawn down by an intoxicated person in 1860, and its replacement was carried in on villagers' shoulders from Pittance Park in Sherwood Forest. A later pole was a Jubilee gift from Sir John Savile of Rufford, seasoned at the Red Lion under the eye of a Mr Cartlidge before it went up. Every May Day, the green still fills for the dancing.
