The Rockingham Forest Connection

King’s Cliffe: The Rockingham Forest Connection (With acknowledgments to our sources: ‘Rockingham Forest Revisited’ by Dr Peter Hill; ‘The Royal Forests of Northants 1558 – 1714’ by P A J Pettit; and ‘The Royal Forests of England’ by J Charles Cox.) Some early history … The ancient woodlands of the Rockingham Forest area were once part of a great prehistoric forest which stretched from Peterborough to Oxford. Stone Age man settled in the area and neolithic remains have been found in places such as Gretton, Oundle, Twywell, Weldon, Wansford and Brigstock. Bronze Age finds include pottery at Oundle, Corby, Weldon and Wakerley; a skeleton and bronze dagger near Corby; several burial sites; and a drinking cup at Fotheringay. Iron Age people are known to have settled on three pieces of high ground in the area – at Rockingham, Wadenhoe and at Wakerley. Remains of iron smelting furnaces at Wakerley show that our ancestors were already making use of iron ore deposits. The smelting process needed a lot of heat and they made charcoal to fuel their furnaces. The Romans also made use of the iron ore deposits. Extensive iron smelting from the Roman period has been unearthed close to Bulwick and in Bedford Purlieu woods. Roman occupation was not just a temporary affair. They drove a road west from Ermine Street running from Wansford to the foot of the hill outside King’s Cliffe. They also built villas in the area. Tessellated pavements have been excavated near Deene, at Lowick and Weekley, and a villa and large mosaics was found in the grounds of Apethorpe Hall in 1859. Coins struck for various Roman Emperors have also been found in several places, including King’s Cliffe. The Anglo Saxons settled the area in permanent communities, clearing forest and using the woodland resources for building materials and charcoal burning. Large burial grounds have been excavated near Nassington and at Wakerley: both date from the 6th century. When the Vikings from Denmark landed in East Anglia in 865, they used the rivers to move inland. The River Welland brought them to the valley below Rockingham (the name means Rocca’s homestead) and to a settlement beside the Willowbrook that became known as Corby (Kora’s village). Apethorpe is another place-name with Danish roots, meaning ‘Api’s farmstead’. Anglo-Saxons and Viking Danes co-existed for 200 years. In 886 the Saxon king, Alfred, and the Viking leader, Guthrum, established a boundary between their territories and ‘Danelaw’ applied to places under Danish control. Much of present-day Northamptonshire was within the ‘Danelaw’ boundary. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, William I, ‘the Conqueror’ ordered a survey of his new kingdom and this was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. His commissioners were also briefed to seek out prime hunting land across the country and claim it for the king. Rockingham Forest was such an area reserved for the exclusive use of the king and his royal entourage and subject to ‘Forest Law’. The landscape of the newly-formed Rockingham Forest was probably similar to what we see today – tracts of woodland, some of it ancient, set in areas of open countryside in which settlements and small villages had been established. One such village was King’s Cliffe. The Domesday Book The first mention of King’s Cliffe as a village is in The Domesday Book of 1086: “ The King holds Cliffe, Clive. I hide and 2½ virgates. Earl Algar held it. Land for 14 ploughs. In lordship 2 ploughs, with 1 slave; 7 villagers with a priest and 6 smallholders who have 5 ploughs. A mill at 12d; meadow, 4 acres; woodland 1 league long and ½ league wide. It paid £7 before 1066; now £10. “ …. or in plain English Earl Algar held the area around King’s Cliffe until his death in 1062. He was the son of Earl Leofric of Mercia and Lady Godiva (she of the famous bareback ride through Coventry). � The name ‘Cliffe’ or ‘Clive’ refers to the sloping valley side on which the village was established. � A ‘hide’ was a unit of land used to calculate tax payable to the King. It was not a true measurement of land as it varied between 120 and 240 acres! � A ‘virgate’ was one quarter of a ‘hide’. � A ‘plough’ implied a plough team with 8 oxen. The Latin ‘carucata’ meant the amount of land which could be ploughed in one day by a plough team of 8 oxen. � A ‘slave’ owed personal service to a master and was not free to move home or work, to buy or to sell, without permission of the master. � A ‘smallholder’ was a middle class of peasant, with more land than a ‘cottager’ but less than a ‘villager’. � A mill recorded in Domesday Book was always a watermill, as windmills did not exist in England until 100 years later. � A ‘league’ was a distance of 3 miles This entry tells us there was extensive woodland surrounding the village. The meadow and plough land would have been cleared gradually for grazing and cultivation as the needs of the settled community demanded. The Oldest Tree in King’s Cliffe A magnificent beech tree of great age stands at the corner of Westhay Wood at the far end of Willow Lane. The tree has graffiti carved on it which shows it has been visited by people over several centuries. This engraving is taken from ‘The Forest Trees of Britain’ by Rev C A Johns. The book bears no date but is of late Victorian style. .

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