Robin Hood's Arbour (Maidenhead)

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Robin Hood's Arbour.

[[File:|thumb|right|500px|Robin Hood's Arbour / National Trust: Maidenhead & Cookham.]]

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2017-12-20. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-05-30.

Robin Hood's Arbour is a square prehistoric earthwork in Maidenhead Thicket, which by the late 17th century was known as 'Robin Hood's Bower', still today an alternative name for it.

Bannard described the location as follows in 1931: "It is close against the private road that runs from the Henley road to Stubbings House. It is in sight of the Lodge and about 300 yards south-east of it. It is in the angle of the road to Stubbings and the grass track which crosses it, and is barely 30 yards south of the latter".[1] The site was first discussed by Charles Kerry (1861), who concluded from what he considered its "well-known features of Roman castramentation" that Robin Hood's Arbour was of Roman construction, an idea that persisted well into the 20th century.[2] Mrs M. Cotton Aylwin, who made the first modern archaeological excavation of the site in 1961, describes the "arbour" as a sub-rectangular "ditched rectilinear enclosure". Its shape, which can be seen on the plan in the image gallery at the foot of this page, is not unlike that of the handle of some modern coffee cups and mugs. Its outer dimensions are approximately – clockwise from the north – 44 m, 64 m, 70 m, and 47.5 m. There is an inner bank along all sides except the southern, a ditch of variable width and depth along all sides and, except to the north, where it may however once have existed, a counterscarp bank.


The earliest of the O.S. maps liste below to include the name of the "arbour" is the 25" map published 1912.


Robbers and dancers in Maidenhead thicket

Dobson & Taylor believed the existence of this place-name in the late 17th cent. was the reason Thomas Hearne (see Allusions on this page) included the Chiltern Hills among Robin's haunts.[3] Conversely, it may also well have been the case that the character (and history) of this area made it seem a fit haunt for a famous robber and one where interesting localities such as the 'arbour' might well come to be named after such a character. While it was evidently safe enough for boys like the young Thomas Hearne to roam there in the lath 17th century, Maidenhead Thicket had been infested with robbers in earlier centuries. In 1255, under Henry III, an order was issued to widen the road between Maidenhead Bridge and Henley-on-Thames and cut down vegetation along it in order to make it safer for travellers. Legislation as late as the reign of Elizabeth indicates that the problem persisted. and in this period the vicar of Hurley , who also served the parish of Maidenhead, was granted an increase of salary in view of the risk he ran passing through the Thicket en route from one parish to the other.[4]


"known for some unfathomable reason, as Robin Hood's Arbour, though there is no trace in record or legend of Robin Hood ever having frequented the Thicket"


Allusions

1733 - Hearne, Thomas - Note in Chronicon Prioratus de Dunstaple

Certe Silcestria in agro Hantoniensi non aliud valet atque silicium urbem (id est, urbem è silicibus confla- [vol. I, p. 388 n.:] tam sive confectam) etsi ignorasse videantur et Camdenus & Somnerus, uti etiam forsitan Lelandus, cujus eò spectantes observationes penitus interciderunt. Quinimo & in ipsa regione Ciltriensi domos è silicibus non raro conditas conspicias. in quibus exstruendis olim aliquammultos ære alieno oppressos fuisse puto. in quod postquam incidissent, ut tandem, si fieri posset, sese liberarent, à magnatibus nescio quibus versuram fecerunt, quæ adeo perturbavit animos, ut fures evaderent, multaque perpetrarent, reipublicæ Anglorum neutiquam grata. Hinc magnates operam dederunt, ut sylvæ in locis Ciltriensibus ingentes magna ex parte excinderentur, ne ibi lateret vis magna latronum, qui aliâs easdem in latibula convertere solebant. Quid fecerit Leofstanus, S. Albani abbas, in fageis lucis sylvisque succidendis memoriæ prodiderunt multi. Itaque de ea re disserere non aliud esset, quam oleum perdere. Ad rem magis spectat, monere, ex ejusmodi latronibus fuisse Robinum vel Robertum illum Hoodum, de quo tam mira quotidie canit vulgus. Is antequam in partes boreales, exlex jam factus, secessisset, in plagis nostris Ciltriensibus crebro latrocinatus, in earundem locis, ne deprehenderetur, opera dedita delituit. Inde factum, ut nobis peris (animum, pro more ludis exhilarantibus) Hoodi id genus latibulum (vulgo Robin Hood's Bower vocitatum) in dumeto Maydenhithiano (Anglice Maydenhead-thicket) ostenderent ruricolæ quidam, quibuscum verba forte fortuna haberemus. quod quidem dumetum idem est quod Lelandus in Itinerario frið nuncupabat, quo nomine de dumetis locuti & ipsi etiam usi sunt Anglo-Saxones. Etsi enim frið; pacem re vera signet, luci tamen quum permulti apud ipsos (quemadmodum & antea apud Britones) tanquam sacri habiti fuerint, mirandum ædepol non est, sylvam majorem haud alio quam friðer nomine (utpote asylum plane) Anglo-Saxonum sententiâ appellandam esse. Atqui dumetum illud Maydenhithianum inter sylvas majores censendum fuisse vel ipse testis est Le- [p. 389 n:] landus. Recte proinde & Robinus, quem diximus, Hoodus (utpote frið-bena) in eodem tuto commorandum esse duxit.

[Joseph Ritson's translation:]
Certainly Silchester, in Hampshire, signifies nothing but the city of flints (that is, a city composed or built of flint-stones). [. . .] And what is more, in that very Chiltern country you may frequently see houses built of flints, in erecting which, in ancient times, I suppose that many persons involved themselves deeply in debt, and that, in order to extricate themselves, they took up money at interest of I know not what great men, which so far disturbed their minds that they would become thieves, and do many things in no wise agreeable to the English government. Hence, the nobility ordered that large woods in the Chiltern country should, in a great measure, be cut down, lest they should conceal any considerable body of robbers, who were wont to convert the same into lurking places. [. . .] It concerns this matter to call to mind, that of this sort of robbers was that Robin or Robert Hood, of whom the vulgar dayly [sic] sing so many wonderful things. He (being now made an outlaw) before he retired into the north parts, frequently robing [sic] in the Chiltern country, linked[5] [sic] in the thickets thereof on purpose that he should not be taken. Thence it was, that to us boys, (exhilarating, according to custom, the mind with sports) certain countrymen, with whom we [vol. I, p. cii n.:] had accidentally some conversation, shewed us that sort of den or retreat (vulgarly called Robin Hoods bower) in Maydenhead-thicket: which thicket is the same that Leland in his Itinerary, called Frith, by which name the Anglo-Saxons themselves spoke of thickets. For although frið in reality signifys [sic] peace, yet since numerous groves with them (as well as before with the Britons) were deemed sacred, it is by no means to be wondered at that a great wood (because manifestly an asylum) should in the judgment of the Anglo-Saxons be called by no other name than friðer: [sic] and that Maydenhead-thicket was esteemed among the greater woods Leland himself is a witness. Rightly therefor [sic] did Robin Hood (as frið-bena) reckon himself to abide there in security.[6]

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