Monument record 7345 - Great Wood, Mickelewode

The extensive ironstone extraction in the Rothwell area, the loss of Little Wood to urban development and the early clearance of the woodland in the post medieval period means that it is unlikely that the former woodland areas offer any significant potential to study woodland development and its relationship to Saxon or earlier settlement.

{2} In 1262 the demesne of Rothwell manor included two woods, of 84 and 312 acres respectively. In 1295 and 1306 the demesne included a wood called 'mikelewode' of 80 acres with income from rights of pannage, while in 1314 there were 120 acres of wood. According to Bridges, writing in 1720, the woods had been only relatively recently cleared. The area of old inclosures, with its sinuous boundaries, to the north west of the town in 1819 can be identified as Great Wood, the Mickelewode of 1306. At inclosure this comprised two areas separated by the main road, on the west 55 acres and on the east 59 acres (if the obvious extension to the south beyond the sinuous boundary is removed, which would have given a total of 65 acres). The open field to the north of Rothwell, encompassing the two woodland areas was itself known as Wood Field in 1819. The medieval woods survived on part of the boulder clay capped ridge to the north of the town. It seems likely from the extent of the boulder clay deposits that the woodland will have been far more extensive in the late Saxon period, with substantial clearance in the late Saxon and early medieval periods. The absence of any reference to woodland in 1086 may mean that the amount of woodland was already extremely limited by this date and may have been little more extensive than that recorded in later centuries. The woodland will also presumably have extended west and east also on the clay capped ridge into Thorpe Underwood, where Rothwell Wood existed in the C19th, and eastward into Glendon. This woodland represents a western extension of Rockingham Forest which, at least as an area of jurisdiction extended westward, as late as the C13th, as far as Brixworth.

<1> 1819, Rothwell Inclosure Map 1819, (unchecked) (Map). SNN100516.

<2> Foard G, 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Rothwell (Medieval and Post Medieval), (checked) (Digital archive). SNN100514.

Record last edited

Oct 25 2012 11:38AM