麻豆社

Southwell Minster was built around 1100. Any serf or peasant coming out of Sherwood Forest from their wattle and daub hut to see this grandeur will have been awestruck.

The stone arches in the Norman section of the Minsteral are some of the best examples you'll be able to see today. Standing (nobody sat on a pew in those days) in the Minster and looking up and around them a common man or woman would see God's Heavenly Grace and Power manifested on earth in a very visible form.

The surrounding buildings reflected the place as a seat of learning and mystery. Various symbols within the Chapter House and elsewhere have a curious pagan past - the foliate heads of 'Green Men' can be found here and in other Notts churches built in or after the 12th Century.

In Europe they are common before this date. They are said to be a visual representation of the earlier disguise of Robin Hood, as a god of woodland and fertility: once firmly believed in and worshipped before eclipsed by Christianity and taking on another form reflecting a new role in a new society.

Look for the stained glass depicting King Edwin, Ethelburga and her chaplain Paulinus - 7th Century characters who have associations in the Legend of Robin Hood.

Paulinus baptised early Christians in the same way as John the Baptist; but without access to the River Jordan he used the River Trent.

Blacke Dickon's tour of Robin Hood's county

One of the Sherwood Foresters, Blacke Dickon, takes us to Southwell.

Blacke Dickon: "One of the pagan symbols carved into the Minster is of the green man - an early interpretation of what Robin Hood might have looked like in his early form."