Nottinghamshire's maypole village
Wellow
A red-brick village gathered around a triangular medieval green, with a permanent maypole and the Gorge Dyke around its edges.
- Best for
- Maypole history, medieval earthworks and village walks
- Give it
- Time for the green, church and Gorge Dyke
- Don't miss
- The 55ft steel maypole on the green
The Fox verdict
A village shaped around its maypole and medieval defences
Wellow combines a long maypole tradition with a 12th-century church, surviving earthworks and paths into the surrounding countryside.
The triangular green and permanent maypole give Wellow its focal point, while St Swithin's Church and the Gorge Dyke carry the story back to the settlement founded around 1145. The Robin Hood Way passes through, and Rufford Abbey Country Park and Sherwood Forest extend the visit nearby.
Where to go
Places in Wellow
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesWellow Maypole
The current 55ft steel maypole was erected in 1976, continuing a Wellow tradition traced to at least 1835.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 20 minutes
- Locality
- on the village green
Gorge Dyke
A scheduled bank-and-ditch earthwork around Wellow, surviving as a rare example whose exact purpose and date remain unsettled.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- east, north-east and south-east of the village
Rufford Abbey Country Park
The ruins of a 12th-century Cistercian abbey and later country house, with a lake circuit, playground, mini-golf, archery and summer boating.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 150 minutes
- Locality
- south-west of Wellow
Food & drink
1 placeThe Maypole Inn
A former coaching inn with fireplace seating, a modern restaurant, rooms, themed food nights and an outdoor dining terrace.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- on the edge of the green
Walks & outdoors
2 placesSherwood Forest and the Major Oak
Sherwood Forest is home to 900 veteran oaks, including the Major Oak, thought to be around 1,000 years old and linked by tradition to Robin Hood.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 150 minutes
- Locality
- via Edwinstowe
Robin Hood Way
The Robin Hood Way passes through Wellow, with a marked footpath leading on towards Kirklington.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 120 minutes
- Locality
- passing through Wellow
History & heritage
2 placesSt Swithin's Church
A Grade II* church with a 12th-century core, a three-stage tower, gargoyles, crocketed pinnacles and a clock installed in 1699.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 40 minutes
- Locality
- Wellow
Wellow Church Schoolroom
A former village school and present church and village hall, restored from 2015 to 2021 and displaying seven panels of village history.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- next to the Maypole Inn facing the green
- Access
- Heritage displays are open to visitors.
Things to do
1 placeWellow Recreation Ground
A community-managed recreation ground with tennis and netball courts, a football pitch, cricket nets, jogging track, boules piste and outdoor gym.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Wellow
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Three ways to explore Wellow
Signature outings
Gargoyles and a 1699 Clock
Look up at St Swithin's three-stage tower, where gargoyles sit below the crenellated parapet and four crocketed pinnacles.
The Inn Across the Maypole
Settle into the former coaching inn for themed food nights or an outdoor-terrace meal overlooking the maypole.
Sherwood's Major Oak
Head via Edwinstowe to Sherwood Forest and its 900 veteran oaks, including the Major Oak linked by tradition to Robin Hood.
The village story
Wellow Village Guide
A permanent maypole, two village inns and a medieval bank-and-ditch lead into Wellow's story.
The Maypole and the Olde Red Lion
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.
Across the Green and Everyday Provisions
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.
Church, Earthworks and Walking Ways
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, Sherwood and May Day Memory
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.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Nottinghamshire, linked directly to their property pages.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Wellow Maypole — wellow.me operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Maypole Inn — maypoleinn.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Swithin's Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Gorge Dyke — her.nottinghamshire.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Wellow Recreation Ground — recreation.wellow.org operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Wellow Church Schoolroom — register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Rufford Abbey Country Park — ruffordabbey.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Sherwood Forest and the Major Oak — visitsherwood.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Robin Hood Way — robinhoodway.com operator, sector body or destination organisation