Robin Hood (Wakefield)

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Robin Hood.

Street view in center of Robin Hood / Google Earth Street View.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2013-08-07. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2020-05-17.

According to the well-known place-name specialist A. H. Smith, the first mention of the hamlet or village named Robin Hood c. 2.5 km south-west of Rothwell is found in an 1841 MS Tithe Award. Dobson & Taylor refer to an O.S. map from the same year. IRHB has not yet been able to locate the tithe award, unless Smith was in fact referring to the map drawn in 1841 for the tithe award, dating from 1838-41, for the neighbouring township of Lofthouse in the parish of Rothwell. This includes 'Robin Hood Quarry', in the main map as well as an insert. A quarry is of course not quite a village but it may have lent its name to the small community that came into being when, according to a (local) contributor to Wikipedia, a mine was opened in the mid-19th century and miners settled in the neighbourhood. The mine closed in the 1960s, and the village is now a residential area. Several localities in the area are/were named after Robin Hood (the village and/or the outlaw).Template:PnItemQry

Gazetteers

• Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), p. 308, s.n. 'Robin Hood'.

Sources

• Smith, A.H. The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire (English Place-Name Society, vols. XXX-XXXVII) (Cambridge, 1961-63), pt. II, p. 138.

Background

• 1841 tithe map for the township of Lofthouse in the Parish of Rothwell, online at the Genealogist.co.uk, piece 43, sub-piece 268, image 207 (subscription required).
• Wikipedia: Robin Hood, West Yorkshire; brief but useful on the village, but the discussion of its alleged Robin Hood associations is misguided.

Notes