Robin Hood's Cave (Kirkby in Ashfield)

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Robin Hood's Chair.

[[File:|thumb|right|500px|Robin Hood's Cave is here in the darkest area among the bracken. Cropped photo / Courtesy Rich. Also see photos in gallery below.]]

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2016-10-04. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2020-05-19. Photos and information courtesy Rich.

Now filled in and hidden to the casual passer-by, Robin Hood's Cave sits near a path immediately east of Derby Road, some 1.5 km SSE of central Kirkby in Ashfield. About 700 m NE of the site of the cave are found Robin Hood's Hills and Robin Hood's Chair, while the Robin Hood, a public house, could once be frequented about 600 m S of the Cave, just south of Annesley at what was then a crossroads but is now the corner of Derby Road and Forest Road. The earliest source for this place-name would seem to be an O.S. map from c. 1825.

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Gazetteers

• Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), p. 302, s.n. 'Robin Hood's Cave' [II] and 'Robin Hood's Hills'
• Gover, J.E.B.; Mawer, Allen; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. XVII) (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 64, 294.

Maps

• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.15 (1900; rev. 1898) (georeferenced)
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.15 (1879; surveyed 1877)
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.15 (1900; rev. 1898)
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.15 (c. 1917; rev. c. 1914). No Copy in NLS
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.15 (1945; rev. 1938)
• 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.SE (1886; surveyed 1877-78)
• 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.SE (1900; rev. 1898)
• 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.SE (1900; rev. 1898) (georeferenced)
• 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.SE (1921; rev. 1913-14)
• 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.SE (c. 1949; rev. 1938)
• 6" O.S. map Derbyshire XXXVI (1921; rev. 1913-14).

Background

• Panoramio: In search of Robin Hood's Cave.

Notes

• 

  Robin Hood's Cave is here in the darkest area among the bracken. Cropped photo / Courtesy Rich.

• 

  Preceding photo uncropped / Courtesy Rich.

• 

  'Robin Hood's Hills as you first see them from Shoulder of Mutton Hill in Annesley. The cave would be off to the right of the photo' / Courtesy Rich.

• 

  This photo 'shows the location of the cave, currently hiding in bracken' / Courtesy Rich.

• 

  This photo 'shows the cave as I first spotted it – my eye was drawn to the dark area behind the bracken in the middle of the photo / Courtesy Rich.

• 

  The 'roof of the cave after I'd done a bit of excavation with the big stick at the bottom of the photo' / Courtesy Rich.