Robin Hood's Hills (Kirkby in Ashfield)

Locality
Coordinates	53.0878, -1.2296
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 Hills.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2016-10-03. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2017-05-07.

Robin Hood's Hills in Kirkby Forest (formerly part of Sherwood Forest) not quite 3 km SSE of Kirkby in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, are a group of sandstone hillocks forming a natural amphitheatre, their highest point being 195 m above sea level. In the immediate vicinity are found Robin Hood's Chair and Robin Hood's Cave. The name "Robin Hood's Hills" is first recorded on John Chapman's map of Nottinghamshire, surveyed 1774 and published 1776. The hills now form the NW boundary of Kirkby Forest Golf Course. Some 1.25 km SSW of Robin Hood's Hills and the Chair, 325 m NW of New Annesley, was the Robin Hood public house.

A visitor from down under, most probably in 2014, visited the locality during a ramble in Nottinghamshire:

We slid under more barbed wire and onto Kirkby Forest golf course where we discreetly followed a track which took us behind a plantation within earshot of the A611. Strictly speaking we were trespassing. I am normally a law abiding walker but I felt I had a right to my horizon. We were walking over heathland, vanilla scented gorse bushes in full bloom, patches of dead bracken and dark sandy soil. These were Robin Hood’s Hills, the highest hills in the county at a modest 180 metres. We came out on a sandstone bluff, looking down on the remains of Annesley colliery with its distinctive red and white pithead tower. Annesley colliery is a conservation area because of the variety of different buildings on the site, but sadly is in a state of decay. Beyond the colliery we could see Newstead village and beyond that, Nottingham. We were at the furthest and highest point of the horizon from my house, nine miles [c. 15 km] away as the crow flies.

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), p. 122, and see pp. 11, 294.
• Rising to Gale: Wellington/Melbourne: Walking my horizon: Nottingham.
• Wikipedia: Robin Hood Hills, Nottinghamshire.

Maps

• Chapman, John, cartog. Nottingham Shire Survey'd in 1774 ([London], 1776). Not seen, but cf. J.E.B. Gover, cited under Sources above.
• 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 (1921; rev. 1913-14).
• 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXVII.SE (c. 1949; rev. 1938).

Also see

• Kirkby in Ashfield place-name cluster
• Places named Robin Hood's Hill.

Notes

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