Robin Hood's Park (Fountains Earth)
By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2013-07-21. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-09-22.
Dobson & Taylor thought Robin Hood's Park was a "name apparently applied to part of an estate near Fountains Abbey",[1] four miles SW of Ripon. In this they have been followed by at least one of the better Robin Hood websites.[2] However, the place-name is listed by A.H. Smith under the township of Fountains Earth[3] which is not adjacent to Fountains Abbey. Located in Nidderdale, it owes its name to the fact that it (or most of the land within it) was owned by Fountains Abbey. Robin Hood's Park is an area c. 1 km east of (and above) the southern end of Gouthwaite Reservoir, close to a listed building called Sigsworth Grange, which in pre-Reformation times was a cattle lodge belonging to Fountains Abbey.[4] Adding to the confusion over the location is the fact that both the Robin Hood's Wood adjacent to Fountains Abbey and Robin Hood's Park in Fountains Earth were located next to a Robin Hood's Well. Robin Hood's Park is c. 12.5 km west of the Abbey as the crow flies. According to Grainge,[5] Robin Hood's Park was an area with many rocks. Most of them must have been used in constructing Gouthwaite Reservoir (1893-1910), but an area just below and to the SW of Robin Hood's Park and immediately east of and above Yates Wood still appears strewn with rocks; this can be seen if the Google map below is put in satellite mode and zoomed to a high resolution. In or just outside Yates Wood was the Robin Hood's Well mentioned in the verse cited below.
Robin Hood's Park was not in objective terms an 'enclosed tract of land held by royal grant or prescription for keeping beasts of the chase'[6], neither can it have been a park in the sense of an ornamental park, a phenomenon we tend to connect with mansions, towns or cities. If the former was the intended sense of 'park' in 'Robin Hood's Park', those who (first) applied the name to this field must have imagined Robin Hood as some sort of huntsman sprite or goblin. Yet the locality to which the name was applied was a field, not a wood, in a pastoral area, so the signification of 'park' is here that of an 'enclosed piece of ground for pasture or tillage; a field; a parrock or paddock', a sense in evidence from 1581 to 1899 and used mainly in Ireland, Scotland, and the north of England.[7]
Macquoid, the 1883 Allusion below, mentions the park and well near Sigsworth Grange but does not quote the verse cited in the 1863 Allusion or add anything of substance to the passage in Grainge.[8] Note that the verse quoted in the 1863 Allusion is said elsewhere to have been written by Walter Scott for use as an inscription for Robin Hood's Well at Fountains Abbey. 'Doubergill' cited below is now Dauber Gill.
The earliest source I have found for this place-name is the O.S. 6" map of the area published in 1853 (see Maps section below). It is not included in the 1838 tithe award for Fountains Earth.[9] Robin Hood's Park is still included on O.S. online maps,[10] which I take as an indication that the name is still in use.
Allusion
1863 - Grainge, William - Nidderdale
Sigsworth Grange is the last of the monastic farms, and was valued at the dissolution at 100s. per annum. It is situated on a ridge of land overlooking the rugged, wild wood clad glen of Doubergill, also commanding a fine view of the valley towards Bewerley and Guy's-cliffe. The present house and buildings are all modern; in an enclosure a short distance to the westward are traces of the foundation of a building which appears to have been composed of large stones; a great part of which has been removed for the purpose of forming fence walls. A field adjoining, full of native rocks, bears the name of "Robin Hood's Park." A spring of pure water in the wood below, is called "Robin Hood's Well." How singular to find the renowned outlaw's name asociated with places so remote from his general haunts; but as he loved to chase the deer of the monks as well as those of the king, he certainly might enjoy that sport in Nidderdale, where deer were plentiful at a much later period than that in which he lived. It is also pleasing to contemplate the outlaw quenching his thirst at this rock-born fountain.
Beside this crystal fount of old,
Cool'd his flush'd brow — an outlaw bold;
His bow was slackened while he drank,
His quiver rested on the bank,
Giving brief pause of doubt and fear,
To feudal lords and forest deer: —
Long since the date, but village sires,
Still sing his feats by Christmas fires;
And still old England's free born mood,
Stirs at the name of Robin Hood."[11]
1883 - Macquoid, Thomas - About Yorkshire
There are several wild glens [on the hill above the village of Lofthouse] which well reward the explorer; Wath woods and waterfalls near Pateley Bridge on the Doubergill beck, near which we found a trace of Robin Hood ; a rocky field not far from Sigsworth Grange is called Robin Hood's Park, and a spring in the wood below Robin Hood's Well.[12]
Gazetteers
Sources
- Grainge, William. Nidderdale; or, An Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive Sketch of the Valley of the Nidd, including Pateley Bridge, Bishopside, Dacre Banks, Hartwith, Brimham Rocks, Stonebeck Down, Ramsgill, Stonebeck up, Middlesmoor, Fountains Earth, Greenhow Hill, and the Stump Cross Caverns (Pateley Bridge and London, 1863), p. 185.
- Macquoid, Thomas; Macquoid, Katharine. About Yorkshire (London, 1894), p. 143.
- Smith, A.H. The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire (English Place-Name Society, vols. XXX-XXXVII) (Cambridge, 1961-63), pt. V, p. 205.
Maps
- 6" O.S. map Yorkshire 117 (1853; surveyed 1849-50)
- 6" O.S. map Yorkshire CXVII (1896; surveyed 1890)
- 6" O.S. map Yorkshire CXVII.NE (1910; surveyed 1907-1908)
- 1:25,000 O.S. Map SE16 (1952)
- Geograph Map: Grid Reference SE140684.
Background
- British Listed Buildings: Sigsworth Grange and Attached Barn, Fountains Earth
- Midgley Webpages
- Platt, Colin. The Monastic Grange in Medieval England: a Reassessment (New York, 1969), pp. 74, 102 n. 1, 109, 190
- Wikipedia: Gouthwaite Reservoir.
Notes
- ↑ Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), p. 309.
- ↑ For instance Midgley Webpages.
- ↑ Smith, A.H. The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire (English Place-Name Society, vols. XXX-XXXVII) (Cambridge, 1961-63), pt. V, p. 205.
- ↑ For the Nidderdale cattle lodges of Fountains Abbey see Platt, Colin. The Monastic Grange in Medieval England: a Reassessment (New York, 1969), pp. 74, 102 n. 1, 109.
- ↑ Grainge, William. Nidderdale; or, An Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive Sketch of the Valley of the Nidd, including Pateley Bridge, Bishopside, Dacre Banks, Hartwith, Brimham Rocks, Stonebeck Down, Ramsgill, Stonebeck up, Middlesmoor, Fountains Earth, Greenhow Hill, and the Stump Cross Caverns (Pateley Bridge and London, 1863), p. 185.
- ↑ OED2, s.n. park, n., 1.a. (c1260-1818)
- ↑ OED2. s.n. park, n., 3.a.
- ↑ Grainge. loc. cit..
- ↑ See tithe award at The Genealogist, piece 043, sub-piece 162 (subscription required).
- ↑ Geograph Map: Grid Reference SE140684.
- ↑ Grainge, William. Nidderdale; or, An Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive Sketch of the Valley of the Nidd, including Pateley Bridge, Bishopside, Dacre Banks, Hartwith, Brimham Rocks, Stonebeck Down, Ramsgill, Stonebeck up, Middlesmoor, Fountains Earth, Greenhow Hill, and the Stump Cross Caverns (Pateley Bridge and London, 1863), p. 185.
- ↑ Macquoid, Thomas; Macquoid, Katharine. About Yorkshire (London, 1894), p. 143.