Robin Hood's Bed (Blackstone Edge)

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Robin Hood's Bed.

[[File:|thumb|right|500px|Robin Hoods Bed, looking north / The Northern Antiquary: Robin Hood’s Bed, Blackstone Edge, Lancashire.]]

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2014-09-18. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2019-05-15.

Robin Hood's Bed is a "name applied to whole or part of the prominent ridge of Blackstone Edge in the Pennines". Neolithic flints have been found at the site.[1]

While the name is sometimes applied to the entire ridge, there is no doubt that, as noted on Northern Antiquary's informative page on this locality, what suggested the name is a rock which "overlooks the very edge of the ridge, detached from the main section, with a large and very curious nature-worn ‘bed’ on its very crown" which is c. 125 cm wide and c. 215 cm long. This "bed" has a roughly horseshoe-shaped ridge. Blackstone Edge forms a border between Lancashire and Yorkshire.

The earliest reference for the name located so far is John Watson's History and Antiquities of Halifax, published in 1775 (see Allusions below). "Robin Hood's Bed" is indicated twice on the 6" O.S. map of the area published in 1851, for the specific geological feature and for the ridge on which it is found. The later 6" O.S. maps include the name for the specific feature only.

Robin Hood is supposed to have slept in the bed and to have used this lofty location as a look-out from which he could conveniently survey the Roman road below. He also amused himself by flinging a boulder all the way to Monstone Edge, where it remains under the names of the Manstone (Man Stone) or Robin Hood's Quoit (see 1831 allusions below). Paul Bennett (Northern Antiquary) notes that the Bed is mentioned in records of the township of Rishworth in 1836.Template:PnItemQry

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