In 1939, Duke''s Wood was the site of the UK’s first oilfield, which played an important role in World War II collecting the fuel to power some of Britain's fighter planes. In 1989, the land was donated to the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust by British Petroleum (BP).
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Walking around the circular route, you can still see some of the ‘nodding donkey’ pumps that have been restored. I can remember learning all about donkey pumps at school. In fact, that's all I can remember from my school days! Even though they say they have been restored, some are looking a bit dishevelled, so I'm not convinced they are maintaining them properly.
Also on the trail was the bronze statue of the Oil Patch Warrior commemorating the 42 American workers of the drilling crew in World War II that had travelled to the area to work at the oil field. Source
The oil museum was also situated here but was moved to a different area along with the original Oil Patch Warrior. Someone tried to steal the statue so it was replaced by a replica. Source
At some point, we joined up with the lovely named Pudding Poke Wood. There was some logging going on and lots of green moss on the trees and green blanket weed on the pond.
I don't think we visited at the right time as the footpath was extremely muddy in parts. The mud nearly sucked my boots off. It was perfect for fungi, but we only spotted some wood ears.
Like all wooded areas, everything will come alive in the spring and summer time. It's sad they don't make more of a feature of the nodding donkeys, though. They are part of our history, so it's a shame they are not looked after properly but at least they are still there.
