HOW IT ALL STARTED
Just south of the original Sherwood Forest you will find a place called Barwell. It is in the county of Leicestershire and is situated quite close to Birmingham, Coventry and Leicester. There you will find a motorcycle dealership called Windy Corner. During the middle to late 1990s, this dealership sold Triumph and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and sponsored a HOG chapter called Barwell Branch. In 1997, Harley-Davidson UK wanted Roger Winterburn, the chairman and managing director of Windy Corner, to only sell Harley-Davidsons and move either to Leicester or Nottingham; something he was not willing to do. As a consequence, Windy Corner ceased to be an ‘authorised’ Harley-Davidson dealership on the 31st December 1997. During 1998, whilst there was no other Harley-Davidson dealer in the area, Barwell Branch was sponsored by Harley-Davidson UK. Eventually, it became known that a dealership was going to open on the 7th November 1998, in Nottingham. This was to be known as Big Rock Harley-Davidson, situated in Church Street, Stapleford, Nottingham. At Barwell Branch’s AGM, held on 2nd November 1998, it was announced that, after consultation with Harley-Davidson UK, HOG UK and the new dealership, the Barwell Branch name would no longer exist after the new shop opened. It was considered that the name Barwell was too specific to one place and had no connection to Nottingham or the surrounding area. The members were also told that the local management of Big Rock / Carnell, (actually part of the Dixon Motors Plc), wished the members to have a lot of input on how the shop and Chapter should progress, asking for three committee members to advise them on what a new HOG Chapter would like to see from its sponsoring dealer.
The three members nominated were Kev Taylor, Russ Timbrell and Terry Beesley. A meeting was to take place in about three week’s time, when, amongst other issues, the name of the new Chapter was to be considered.
The first Harley-Davidson motorcycle to be sold at Big Rock was a silver coloured Dyna Sport. The sale was made by Patrick Yates to Stuart Mills from Nottingham. As has been said before, you cannot talk about Nottingham without thinking of Robin
Hood and Sherwood Forest, so it was not long, therefore, before Sherwood was put forward as the name for the new Chapter.
This name was acceptable to all the parties concerned as it would, in future, allow the Chapter to retain its name even if the
dealership moved elsewhere in the Sherwood area. HOG records show that Sherwood Chapter (number 9794) was officially established on 1st December 1998.
ABOUT THE CLUB
SHERWOOD CHAPTER'S
FIRST 14 YEAR HISTORY
1998
This account of the living history of Sherwood Chapter is dedicated to all the people who have been members, full or associate, since its inaugural meeting in 1998 to the present day.
History on History
Welcome to the Sherwood Chapter History section of the website.
The first Chapter Historian position was shared by Mick Smith and Vivien Bennett in 2000. Unfortunately, the role was filled for just one season and there was no record of early Sherwood Chapter history and so when our third Historian, Vince Fellows, took on the role in 2008, he had to dig deep into the archives to forge the first twelve chapters of our history that covered Sherwood Chapter’s first ten years.
The first decade of Sherwood Chapter’s history is a fantastic read, as I am sure those of you who have read it will agree. It has been pulled together for you to reflect on the times of early Chapter membership and for new members to appreciate the Chapter’s history.