Robin Hood's Hills (Kirkby in Ashfield)

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Robin Hood's Hills.
Robin Hood's Hills / Dave Bevis, Wikimedia Commons.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2016-10-03. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-07-12.

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.[1] The hills now form the NW boundary of Kirkby Forest Golf Course.[2] 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.

Michael R. Evans argues that the 'boscus vocatus Robynhill' – 'wood called Robynhill' – mentioned in the c. 1163 foundation charter of the Augustinian Priory of Newstead, preserved in the priory's 1286 chartulary, should be identified with Robin Hood Hills.[3] Since Robin Hood Hills are located c. 3.25 km NW of Newstead Abbey and several other localities mentioned in the charter are even closer to the abbey, this is quite plausible, but it should perhaps be noted that, though this has not been found recorded earlier than 1884, there is a also a Robin Hood Hill c. 9 km due east of the abbey, and the gap in the record between c. 1163 and the first occurrence of the name "Robin Hood's Hills" in 1774 is a rather large one. That 'Robin' may well become 'Robin Hood' is hardly surprising given the popularity of the outlaw.

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.[4]

Allusions

1841 - Hall, Spencer Timothy - Forester's Offering (1)

Leaving this melancholy monument of feudal animosity [sc. an unfinished manor house near Annesley Woodhouse], by the farm-house I have mentioned, you come in a walk of about half a mile to the ridge of those wild, grey, ferny uplands, Robin Hood's Hills, over which, most probably, Washington Irving has already taken you, in his delightful reminiscences of Newstead Abbey. You have rested at the top — you have gazed again and again on the countless hamlets, and halls, and cottages, and spires which stud the beautiful, far-stretching, western landscape, to where it closes with the sky up amid the Peaks of Derbyshire — and you have recognised the old farm-house at Grives, sending its long, long wreath of blue smoke gracefully upcurling in the still, pure sunshine, below you, but where is the romantic little glen you so recently rejoiced in? Conscious as you are that it can not be more than half a mile distant, see you no pleasant sign of its locality? None! any more than if it had been opened by enchantment just for the occasion, and then immediately closed again forever![5]

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