Robin Hood's Chair (Kirkby in Ashfield)

Locality
Coordinate	53.0865, -1.2304
Adm. div.	Nottinghamshire
Vicinity	2.9 km SSE of Kirkby in Ashfield
Type	Natural feature
Interest	Robin Hood name
Status	Extant?
First Record	1774

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Robin Hood's Chair.

The white area at the bottom of the outcrop is probably Robin Hood's Chair / Photo courtesy Rich.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2016-10-04. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-07. Photos and information kindly provided by Rich.

Robin Hood's Chair is a rock located about 100 metres due south of Robin Hood's Hills in Kirkby Forest, not quite 3 km SSE of Kirkby in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, an area that was once part of Sherrwood Forest. About 640 metres south-west of these two localities is Robin Hood's Cave. Some 1.25 km SSW of them, just east of Annesley, was the Robin Hood public house.

The name 'Robin Hood's Chair' is first recorded on John Chapman's map of Nottinghamshire, surveyed 1774 and published 1776. Apparently the location of Robin Hood's Chair had been forgotten by WWI, for it seems to have been rediscovered, on 22 April 1917, by a Mr J. H. Pointon of Hucknall.

Thanks to IRHB user Rich we now have fresh photos of the site. He was only able to pay a short visit to the site: 'I also had a wander down to Robin Hood's Chair, and took a couple of photos there too. I couldn't see anything that matched with the sketch on your site'. He notes that the photo in portrait format included below 'shows the little prominence which leads out to where Robin Hood's Chair is marked on the OS map, overlooking the golf course'. The second photo in the gallery below shows

the most obvious rock outcrop on the prominence, which was at the top and had a good view of the surrounding land. I only got a short time to look around but I couldn't see anything that resembled the picture on your website [see last photo in the gallery], so maybe I missed the actual area. However, I've had a look back at some old photos from when I first visited the area and if you zoom into the eighth photo [shown first in the gallery below] at the bottom of the outcrop can make out a shape which looks a little like the shape in the picture on your site.

You will find more of Rich's excellent photos on the pages dealing with Robin Hood's Hills and Cave in Annesley (Kirkby in Ashfield).

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 Hills'.

Sources

• Gover, J.E.B.; Mawer, Allen; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. XVII) (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 122, 294.

Maps

• Chapman, John, cartog. Nottingham Shire Survey'd in 1774 ([London], 1776). Not seen, but cf. J. E. B. Gover, cited under Sources above
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.16 (1900; rev. 1898) (georeferenced)
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.16 (1878; surveyed 1877-78)
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.16 (1900; rev. 1898)
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.16 (1916; rev. 1913)
• 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.16 (1947; 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).

Backgrounds

• Picture the Past.

Also see

• Kirkby in Ashfield place-name cluster
• Places named Robin Hood's Chair
• Robin Hood's Hills (Kirkby in Ashfield)
• Robin Hood's Cave (Kirkby in Ashfield)
• Friar Tuck's Well (Blidworth).

Notes

Image gallery

Click any image to display it in the lightbox, where you can navigate between images by clicking in the right or left side of the current image.

• 

  The white area at the bottom of the outcrop is probably Robin Hood's Chair / Photo courtesy Rich.

• 

  '[T]he most obvious rock outcrop on the prominence' / Photo courtesy Rich.

• 

  '[T]he little prominence which leads out to where Robin Hood's Chair is marked on the OS map, overlooking the golf course' / Photo courtesy Rich.

• 

  Robin Hood's Chair / S. Clements.

 Nottinghamshire place-names 

 Place-names