Robin Hood (Borrowdale)

From International Robin Hood Bibliography
Locality
Coordinate 54.4474, -2.2786
Adm. div. Westmorland
Vicinity c. 4.6 km E of Sadgill and c. 800 m E of Borrowdale
Type Natural feature
Interest Robin Hood name
Status Extant
First Record 1859
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Robin Hood.
Cairn on the west top of Robin Hood / Michael Graham, 10 Feb. 2008, Geograph, Creative Commons.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2017-08-28. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-07.

'Robin Hood' is the name of a moorland top on the ridge between the upper reaches of Crookdale and Borrowdale. The earliest known record is an 1859 MS Ordnance Survey name book in which the locality is listed as 'Robin Hood Wood'.[1] Evidently there must at one time have been a wood or stand of trees there. All later sources refer to 'Robin Hood' tout court.

A. H. Smith's Place-Names of Westmorland, refers to an 1865 O.S. map[2], but the place-name in fact appears – as 'Robin Hood' – on a slightly earlier (1863) 6" O.S. map of the area (see Maps section below).

Gazetteers

Sources

Maps

Background

Brief mention


Notes

  1. Smith, A.H. The Place-Names of Westmorland (English Place-Name Society, vols. XLII, XLIII) (Cambridge, 1967), pt. II, p. 176. Dobson & Taylor (see Gazetteers section), citing Smith as source, mistakenly refer to an 1859 O.S. map. Smith's source reference reads 'OS' (in italics), not 'OS'. Somewhat unusually, the county volumes of the English Place-Name Society use italics for inline source references to MSS, but ordinary type for those to printed sources. Thus 'OS' (without italics) refers to a printed Ordnance Survey map, but this italicized reference is to an MS Ordnance Survey name book, cf. Smith, pt. I, p. lxvi.
  2. Smith, A.H. The Place-Names of Westmorland (English Place-Name Society, vols. XLII, XLIII) (Cambridge, 1967), pt. II, p. 176.