Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
Historical Description
Sherwood Forest, a quondam forest in Notts, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, from Nottingham northward to Worksop, and thence less strictly to Whitby. It is commonly computed to have extended only to Worksop, but it really extended as truly to the neighbourhood of Doncaster, and reached thence in a less proper sense to Whitby. It was the haunt of the fabulous dragon of Wantley, the retreat of Robin Hood and his followers, and the scene of many sanguinary battles in the wars of the Roses, and it continued so late as the time of Elizabeth to occupy as large a space as the present New Forest in Hants. Considerable remains at it still exist near Mansfield, around Rotherham, and in the parks of Wentworth and Wharncliffe. A recreation ground and a racecourse were formed under an Act of Parliament in 1852-53 out of the part of the forest in the parish of Mansfield. Part of it was cut up into allotments. See NOTTINGHAM.
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Nottinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Sherwood Forest are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Nottinghamshire newspapers online: