Robin Hood.

Robin Hood:

Mention the name ‘Robin Hood, and most people think of Sherwood Forest and the Sheriff of Nottingham.  The legend, entrenched in popular imagination by numerous TV series and blockbuster Hollywood movies, tells how Robin of Loxley returns from the Holy Land where he has been fighting the Saracens in the service of Richard the Lionheart, to find his father killed and his lands forfeit.  Forced to live as an outlaw in the woods he becomes Robin Hood, where with his childhood sweetheart Maid Marion at his side, he gathers a trusted band of men about him in order to frustrate the ambitions of Prince John and protect the rights of common people until King Richard returns from the crusades.

Nottingham has built a thriving tourist industry on the slimmest of evidence.  Other areas, notably Barnsdale in Yorkshire, make similar claims to be the home of Robin Hood.  There assertions are based on myth and folklore rather than hard historical fact and when it comes anecdotal evidence, Staffordshire can more than match anything Nottingham or Barnsdale has to offer.

Louis Rhead, who wrote one of the most popular books on Robin Hood, published in 1912, sets much of the action in Sherwood Forest but identifies him at the beginning as living ‘on an estate near Locksley village, about two miles from the famous old town of Uttoxeter  … on the borders of the Royal Forest of Needwood’.  Most of the legends identify Robin as Robin of Locksley/Loxley and sometimes as the Earl of Huntingdon.  Loxley, between Abbots Bromley and Uttoxeter is as good a candidate as any.  Modern Loxley Hall largely dates from the 18^th century but parts of the fabric are two hundred years older and an earlier house stood on the same site.

Loxley Hall.

A more recent photo of
Loxley Hall.

The Great Hall.

The Hall is now a school.

The gates to the school depict an
image of Robin Hood.

          In the grounds can be found Maid Marion’s Walk and arbour, Robin Hoods hunting horn', reputedly a prize won in an archery competition at Tutbury, once hung in Loxley Hall.

All that's left of the Arbour. The remaining
stone work was removed for safe keeping. 

Maid Marion's Walk in the grounds
of Loxley Hall.

The silver hunting horn that
mysteriously disappeared.

 The silver horn engraved with the initials ‘RH’ mysteriously disappeared after US soldiers were billeted at Loxley during World War II.  According to local tradition, Maid Marion grew up in a cottage at Yoxall and met Robin when he passed by as she was bathing in the River Swarbourn.  Today a modern bungalow occupies the site on the banks of the river just north of the village.

Loxley is on the fringes of Needwood Forest.  Anyone growing up in the area in the medieval period is likely to have learned woodland skills and how to hunt deer and other game.  A family called ‘Hodes’ is documented living at Loxley in a 13^th-century survey.  We can easily dispel the Huntingdon myth, the earls are well documented but there is an interesting connection with Loxley and the Hodes.  David St Liz, Earl of Huntingdon in the early 13^th-century married Maud, sister of the Earl of Chester and it was the Norman earls of Chester who dispossessed the Saxon Hodes of their land at Loxley after the Conquest.  Saxon/Norman rivalry is a common thread running through many of the tales told of Robin Hood.   

Each year in September, the village of Abbots Bromley celebrates the Horn Dance.  The origins of this festival are obscure but it is worth noting that Robin Hood and Maid Marion appear as characters in the ritual.  A medieval stained glass window formerly in St Margaret’s Church, Betley (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum though the church has a copy) features Robin Hood, Maid Marion and other ‘Merry Men’ figures. 

The Horn Dance.

One of the earliest written sources to mention Robin Hood is a medieval manuscript in the British Museum.  This tells not of Maid Marion marrying Robin Hood but Clorinda, Queen of the Shepherds.  In this account Robin meets Clorinda in Needwood Forest, dressed in a gown of green velvet and armed with a longbow.  She tells him she is going ‘to kill a fat buck; for tomorrow is Titbury (i.e. Tutbury) fair’.  Soon after Clorinda makes good her boast when a herd of deer pass by and is joined by a suitably impressed Robin, Little John and other companions for a feast.  Afterwards, Robin proposes marriage and the couple send for Sir Roger, the local parson, taking their vows beneath an ancient yew in the churchyard of St Cuthbert’s, Doveridge.  A placard in the churchyard where the centuries old yew still stands recounts the legend.

The Placard.

The Yew Tree.

Tutbury Castle.

From Doveridge, Robin, Little John and Clorinda leave Tutbury. The ballad continues that after travelling ‘five Staffordshire miles’ they are accosted by a group of eight yeomen who demand they hand over the buck Clorinda had bagged earlier.  Robin and Little John set about the men until they beg for mercy.  The writer locates the scene ‘near to Titbury town where the bagpiper baited the bull’.  Is it just coincidence that a stone said to mark the scene of a battle fought by Robin Hood, recorded in the mid-19^th century close to crossroads north of Draycott in the Clay where Fauld Lane leads to Tutbury but now lost, is just about the right distance and en route to fit with the medieval ballad?  Tutbury Fair, famously featuring bull running, is well documented and was held in mid-August each year.  During the middle ages it involved a Minstrels’ Court and festivities that drew people from far and wide.

There are many more stories spanning the years from c.1200 to the early 14^th century.  His legendary prowess as an archer certainly points towards a later date than the time of Richard I when the longbow was little used.  By the late-13^th century archery was hugely popular and the most proficient archers won popular acclaim.  

Burton Bridge Circa 1600

Among the numerous folktales is one that Robin fought against Edward II in the retinue of the Earl of Lancaster, whose stronghold was Tutbury Castle, at the Battle of Burton Bridge in 1322.  If he was involved it is more evidence to suggest he was local.  It also provides a plausible reason why he was outlawed and as it happens, the King’s right hand man was the Sheriff of Nottingham.  Edward subsequently pardoned many of those outlawed for their part in the Lancastrian revolt.  A royal pardon for Robin Hood fits the story commonly told, though the king involved is widely assumed to be Richard I, he is usually identified in early ballads only as ‘the comely king’, and records reveal a Robin Hood serving for a year in Edward’s household in 1323.

The people round Uttoxeter will continue to believe that the famous outlaw was born at Loxley and that he was possibly a member of the De Ferrers family ’Robert Ferrers’ son of the Earl of Derby who once owned the Hall and Chartley Castle. The Earl of Derby forfeited his lands including Tutbury Castle for taking part in the abortive Rebellion by the Barron's against Henry 111 in 1264 or 1266. Two local historians Erdeswich and Redfern also believe that the Loxley where Robin Hood came from is the Loxley in Staffordshire near Uttoxeter. This  area of Staffordshire along with all its other connections seems to have more to offer than all other contenders for being the true birthplace of Robin Hood. The picture of Robin Hood’s Hunting Horn has the initials R.H. quite clearly engraved upon it and either side of his initials can be seen three horseshoes set in a shield. These horseshoes are part of the arms of the De Ferrers family laying claim to suggest he was from that family. 

This bungalow is said to have been
built on the original foundations of Maid Marion's home.

We will probably never know the truth. Man or myth: fact or fiction? The legend of Robin Hood has a potent grip, and the weight of evidence certainly stacks up for a Staffordshire man - our hero!

The Forrester's Arms at Yoxall
until recent years, depicted a sign of figure of a man drawing his bow dressed in Lincoln Green.