Robin Hood's Well (High Park Wood, Moorgreen)
[[File:|thumb|right|360px|Robin Hood's Well / [s.n.]. Robin Hood's Well, High Park Wood, Moorgreen (Peveril Series) ([s.l.], [s.d.]). Photographic postcard (b./w.). 87 x 139 mm; postmarked 1905. private collection]]
By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-02-27. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-02-27.
Robin Hood's Well in High Park Wood, Moorgreen, Greasley civil parish, Nottinghamshire, is a spring known from D.H. Lawrence's delightful Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), where it appears as "John's Well". It is situated c. 125 m NE of the site of Beauvale Priory.
The well is noted in the English Place-Name Society's volume on Nottinghamshire,[1] but without a source or date, which indicates that the editors knew no early source. The earliest reference I have at present is a 6" O.S. map of the area published in 1880 (see Maps section below).
Quotations
The next afternoon she went to the wood again. She followed the broad riding that swerved round and up through the larches to a spring called John's Well. It was cold on this hillside, and not a flower in the darkness of larches. But the icy little spring softly pressed upwards from its tiny well-bed of pure, reddish-white pebbles. How icy and clear it was! Brilliant! The new keeper had no doubt put in fresh pebbles. She heard the faint tinkle of water, as the tiny overflow trickled over and downhill. Even above the hissing boom of the larchwood, that spread its bristling, leafless, wolfish darkness on the down-slope, she heard the tinkle as of tiny water-bells. This place was a little sinister, cold, damp. Yet the well must have been a drinking-place for hundreds of years. Now no more. Its tiny cleared space was lush and cold and dismal.
'Do you think there is a second key to that little hut not far from John's Well, where the pheasants are reared?’ she said. 'There may be. Why?' 'I happened to find it today — and I’d never seen it before. I think it’s a darling place. I could sit there sometimes, couldn't I?' 'Was Mellors there?' 'Yes! That’s how I found it: his hammering. He didn’t seem to like my intruding at all. In fact he was almost rude when I asked about a second key.'
She fled as much as possible to the wood. One afternoon, as she sat brooding, watching the water bubbling coldly in John’s Well, the keeper had strode up to her.
Allusions
1913 - Lawrence, D H - Sons and Lovers
Carston, Waite and Co. found they had struck on a good thing, so, down the valleys of the brooks from Selby and Nuttall, new mines were sunk, until soon there were six pits working. From Nuttall, high up on the sandstone among the woods, the railway ran, past the ruined priory of the Carthusians and past Robin Hood’s Well, down to Spinney Park, then on to Minton, a large mine among corn-fields; from Minton across the farm-lands of the valley side to Bunker’s Hill, branching off there, and running north to Beggarlee [p. 10:] and Selby, that looks over at Crich and the hills of Derbyshire; six mines like black studs on the countryside, linked by a loop of fine chain, the railway.[3]
Gazetteers
- Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), p. 303, s.n. Robin Hood's Well.
Sources
- Gover, J.E.B.; Mawer, Allen; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. XVII) (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 145, 294.
Maps
Well indicated and labelled on these maps.
- 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.15 (1880; surveyed 1878)
- 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.11 (1900; rev. 1899)
- 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.11 (1900; rev. 1899) (georeferenced)
- 25" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.15 (1915; rev. 1913-14)
- 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.SE (1886; surveyed 1878-79)
- 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.SE (1901; rev. 1899)
- 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.SE (1901; rev. 1899) (georeferenced)
- 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.SE (1919; rev. 1913-14)
- 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.SE (1921; rev. 1913-14)
- 6" O.S. map Derbyshire XLI (1921; rev. 1913-14)
- 6" O.S. map Nottinghamshire XXXII.SE (c. 1949; rev. 1938)
- 1" O.S. map Derby (Hills) Sheet 125 (1897; rev. 1895) (georeferenced)
- 1" O.S. map Derby (Outline) Sheet 125 (1897; rev. 1895) (georeferenced)
- 1" O.S. map Nottingham (1960; surveyed 1958) (georeferenced)
- ½" Bartholomew map Derby & Nottingham Sheet 13 (1902) (georeferenced)
- ½" Bartholomew map Peak District – Great Britain Sheet 29 (1943) (georeferenced)
- 1:25,000 O.S. map SK54 (1951; surveyed 1938-50) (georeferenced)
- 1:1 million–1:10K (1900s) (georeferenced)
- 1:1m to 1:63K (1920s-1940s) (georeferenced)
Background
- Lawrence, D.H. Complete Works of D. H. Lawrence (Series One). Version 10 ([s.l.], ©2015), Kindle Locations 75123-75129, 75210-75214, 75591-75592
- Wikipedia: Greasley.
Brief mention
Notes
- ↑ Gover, J.E.B.; Mawer, Allen; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. XVII) (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 145, 294.
- ↑ Lawrence, D.H. Complete Works of D. H. Lawrence (Series One). Version 10 ([s.l.], ©2015), Kindle Locations 75123-75129, 75210-75214, 75591-75592.
- ↑ Lawrence, D.H.; Baron, Helen, ed.; Baron, Carl, ed.; Morrison, Blake, introd. Sons and Lovers (Penguin Classics) (London etc., 2006), pp. 9-10.