Robin Hood and Little John (Litlington)

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Robin Hood and Little John.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2013-08-07. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2019-06-02.

This inn located somewhere in the village of Litlington is first mentioned in 1811. It closed in c. 1910. Its name is supposed to have been inspired by a local tradition that Robin Hood shot an arrow from the mound on Limlow Hill which, according to one version, landed in Litlington Chalk Pit and grew into a thorn tree. Another variation is that the arrow fell on Ermine Street c. 2.5 km away (apparently without growing into a thorn tree).

Quotations

The village inns [in Litlington] included the Robin Hood and Little John, recorded by 1811. [...] Named from a local fable that an arrow shot by Robin grew into a thorn tree at the village chalkpit, [...] it closed c. 1910.

One source [sc. Courcy-Ireland] says that the arrow fell in the village chalk pit (now disused, [...] a few hundred metres across the road from the hill), and there grew into a thorn tree. By 1811 an inn (which closed in 1910) in the village had been named the Robin Hood & Little John, supposedly after this legend.

Gazetteers

• Not included in Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), pp. 293-311.

Sources

• Cambridgeshire Record Office, 296/SP 454. Mentions closing of the inn in 1910 cf. British History Online (see below). Not seen
• Cambridge Chronicle, Aug. 23, 1811. Cf. British History Online (see below). Not seen
• Courcy-Ireland, Magens de. History of Abington Pigotts with Litlington: Churches & Parishes, with the Manors (Royston, 1944), p. 48. Not seen
• Hidden East Anglia - Litlington
• Palmer, W.M. 'The "Limbury" Tumulus, near Litlington, Cambs.', The East Anglian, or, Notes & Queries on Subjects Connected with the Counties of Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, and Notfolk, New Series, vol. VI (1895-96), p. 28.

Maps

Maps focused on Litlington.

• 25" O.S. map Cambridgeshire LVII.8 (1887; surveyed 1886). No Copy in NLS
• 25" O.S. map Cambridgeshire LVII.8 (1903; rev. 1901) (georeferenced)
• 25" O.S. map Cambridgeshire LVII.8 (1903; rev. 1901)
• 6" O.S. map Cambridgeshire LVII.NE (1886; surveyed 1886)
• 6" O.S. map Cambridgeshire LVII.NE (1903; rev. 1900-1901) (georeferenced)
• 6" O.S. map Cambridgeshire LVII.NE (1903; rev. 1900-1901)
• 6" O.S. map Cambridgeshire LVII.NE (1947; rev. c. 1950)
• 1" O.S. map sheet 204 Biggleswade (Hills) (1896)
• 1" O.S. map 147 Bedford & Luton (1946)
• 1" O.S. map 147 Bedford and Luton (1959)
• 1:25,000 O.S. map TL34 (1956; surveyed 1937-53).

Discussion

• British History Online: Litlington; web edition of: 'Parishes: Litlington', in: A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, vol. 8 (1982), pp. 54-66.

Notes