Abbey Courtyard, Rufford Country Park, Ollerton - 01623 824 545 sherwoodtic@nsdc.info

Ollerton is a small town in Nottinghamshire, England, on the edge of Sherwood Forest in the area known as the Dukeries. It forms part of the civil parish of Ollerton and Boughton and is in Newark and Sherwood District . The population of this civil parish at the 2011 census was 9,840.

Formerly a rural village with a tradition of hop-growing, from the 1920s onwards the main industry was coal mining with Ollerton expanding greatly during the 1960s and 1970s. The colliery was sunk in the 1920s and completed during the General Strike of 1926, which led to a saying of "Ollerton was ever built with scab labour". During the expansion of the pit, many miners from closed collieries in north-eastern England and Scotland moved to work at Ollerton. There was a large Polish community amongst the miners at Ollerton, estimated to make up roughly half the workforce at the time of the 1984-1985 strike.

As Ollerton Colliery was considered one of the most left-wing pits in Nottinghamshire, it was subject to heavy picketing at the time of the ballot by the Nottinghamshire NUM in March 1984. A miner from Ackton Hall Colliery, near Featherstone, West Yorkshire died at Ollerton when picketing during the miners' strike on 15 April 1984. David Gareth Jones was hit in the neck by a brick thrown by a local youth when he was picketing, but the post-mortem ruled that it had not caused his death and that it was more likely to have been caused by being pressed against the pit gates earlier in the day. News of his death led to hundreds of pickets staying in Ollerton town centre overnight. At the request of Nottinghamshire Police, Arthur Scargill appeared and called for calm in the wake of the tragedy. However, several working miners in Ollerton reported that their gardens and cars had been vandalised during the night. A memorial bench was sited near the spot where David died. As a mark of respect for David Jones, Ollerton Colliery closed for a few days afterwards.

Ollerton features in a connected song by Australian singer Darren Hayes called "A Hundred Challenging Things A Boy Can Do" on his 2007 album, This Delicate Thing We've Made.

The mine closed in 1994. Subsequently, the land around the mine was reclaimed and redeveloped as an ecologically sustainable "village" of commercial offices, including a large nearby Tesco superstore.

In the old part of the original village, Ollerton Watermill was built in 1713 on the River Maun. It operated commercially producing flour until 1984. Restored in 1993, it now houses a teashop and exhibition. Ollerton Town has a local football team, Ollerton Town F.C.

Transport: Ollerton is served by Stagecoach Mansfield, Travel Wright. Stagecaoch Bassetlaw run the Sherwood Arrow between Worksop/Retford-Ollerton-Nottingham every 60 minutes.

Ollerton is the birthplace of Tim Flear MVO (Royal Victorian Order), career member of the British diplomatic service and a HM Consul-General in the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Flear's father was the local butcher.

There is some ambition to reinstate passenger train services to the town by using the current freight only line from Shirebrook on the Nottingham-Worksop route.

Rufford Abbey is some 2 miles (4 km) south of Ollerton. Originally a Cistercian abbey, it was converted to a country house in the 16th century after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Part of the house was demolished in the 20th century, but the remains, standing in 150 acres of park and woodland, are open to the public as Rufford Country Park. Part of the park is a Local Nature Reserve.

The house itself is constructed of rubble, brick, dressed stone and ashlar with ashlar dressings and plain tile roofs. It is Grade I listed and scheduled as an Ancient Monument.

The abbey itself was founded by Gilbert de Gant, on 12 July 1147, and populated with Cistercian monks from Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire.

The English Pope, Adrian IV gave the blessing for the abbey in 1156, following which the abbey's lands expanded and the villagers of Cratley, Grimston and Rufford, Inkersall were evicted. A new village of Wellow, just outside the estate housed some of the displaced people.

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 gives the gross income of the abbey as £254 6s. 8d. (equivalent to £160,000 in 2015), and the clear annual value as £176 11s. 6d. (equivalent to £110,000 in 2015).

Abbot Doncaster obtained a pension of £25 a year, on the dissolution of the house in 1536 among the lesser monasteries, but it was voided on his speedy appointment to the rectory of Rotherham on 2 July 1536.

After its dissolution, the abbey gained a reputation of being haunted by the spectre of a giant monk carrying a skull.