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Hayman Rooke is a name which deserves to be well known in Nottinghamshire and, indeed, around the world, writes historian Richard Townsley.

In fact, he is hardly known at all for his name – but is for his rank.

Rooke was born on February 20, 1723, and baptised at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster.

After an uneventful military career, he retired from the Army, having risen to the rank of Major, and came to live in Mansfield Woodhouse just a few miles from Sherwood Forest.

Musicians performing at the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest.

In his retirement, he reinvented himself as a natural historian. It proved to be something of a smart career move.

Today, he is associated with the discovery of Roman relics around the area. His name also became etched in the history of Sherwood Forest.

Rooke enjoyed long walks, especially through Sherwood. The woodland was a great love of his.

He proceeded to write a Description or Sketches of Remarkable Oakes in Welbeck Park in 1790. followed by A Sketch of the Ancient and Present State of Sherwood Forest, nine years later.

Richard Townsley studies the ancient manuscript with the first official mention of Robin Hood

Such was the impact of his writing about the forest, its most prominent tree has borne his rank for decades. It should arguably be the Major’s Oak, but has settled as the Major Oak.

Sherwood Forest’s Major Oak is voted England’s tree of the year

Writing in 1790, Maj Rooke said: “No-one can behold this majestic ruin without pronouncing it to be of very from it antiquity, and might venture to say, it cannot be much less than a thousand years old.”

This ancient oak, which we estimate today to be about 1,100 years old, is now the most famous tree in Britain and world-renowned, its reputation bolstered by its association with the legend of Robin Hood.

Rooke died in 1806 and is buried in St Edmund’s Church, Mansfield Woodhouse.

But his name, or at least his title, will live on for centuries to come whenever we talk of Robin Hood, Sherwood Forest and the huge old oak which attracts thousands of visitors each year.

The work Rooke did to record and promote the ancient oaks in Sherwood still help to preserve and protect them.

We owe him a debt of gratitude and at least for one day, the 300th anniversary of his birth, on February 20, let us all call it The Major’s Oak.

Celebrating the man who ‘made’ the Major Oak