Rockingham Forest is a former royal hunting forest in the county of

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It ...

, England. It is an area of some lying between the

River Welland The River Welland is a lowland river in the east of England, some long. It drains part of the Midlands eastwards to The Wash. The river rises in the Hothorpe Hills, at Sibbertoft in Northamptonshire, then flows generally northeast to Mark ...

and

River Nene The River Nene ( or : see below) is a river in the east of England that rises from three sources in Northamptonshire.OS Explorer Map sheet 223, Northampton & Market Harborough, Brixworth & Pitsford Water. The river is about long, about of w ...

and the towns of Stamford and

Kettering Kettering is a market and industrial town in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) ...

. It has a rich and varied landscape, with farmland, open pasture, pockets of woodland and villages built from local stone.

History

The forest was named after the village of Rockingham, where the castle was a royal retreat. The boundaries were marked by the

on the eastern side and on the western side what is now the

A508 road The A508 is a short A-class road for north–south journeys in central and south central England, forming the route from Market Harborough in Leicestershire, via Northampton, to Old Stratford, just outside Milton Keynes (and the Buckinghamshi ...

from

Market Harborough Market Harborough is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England, in the far southeast of the county, forming part of the border with Northamptonshire. Market Harborough's population was 25,143 in 2020. It is the adm ...

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England ...

. Over the years the forest shrank, and today only a patchwork of the north-eastern forest remains. The bulk of the remaining forest is located within a square, of which the corners are

Corby Corby is a town in North Northamptonshire, England, located north-east of Northampton. From 1974 to 2021, the town served as the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Corby. At the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 Census, the built-up ...

Thrapston Thrapston is a market town in North Northamptonshire, England. It was the headquarters of the former East Northamptonshire district, and at the time of the 2011 census, had a population of 6,239. The town's name means 'Farmstead or town of a ...

and

Oundle Oundle () is a market town on the left bank of the River Nene in North Northamptonshire, England, which had a population of 5,735 at the time of the 2011 census. It is north of London and south-west of Peterborough. The town is home to Ound ...

. The area became a royal hunting ground for King William I after the

Norman conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...

. The term ''forest'' represented an area of legal jurisdiction and remained so until the 19th century. A

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint B ...

abbey was established in 1143 which became known as Pipewell Abbey. In 1298 the

de Lacy de Lacy (Laci, Lacie, Lascy, Lacey, Lassey) is the surname of an old Norman family which originated from Lassy, Calvados. The family took part in the Norman Conquest of England and the later Norman invasion of Ireland. The name is first recorde ...

s were granted permission to inclose pertaining to the manor of Wadenhoe, lying within the forest, in order to make a park. The forest boundaries were set in 1299, although the boundaries returned to a smaller area as a result of King Charles I's actions. King Charles II took little interest in the forest and gave away or sold much of it. By 1792 there was no significant royal ownership of the forest area. Parliamentary enclosure of the bailiwicks and disafforestation of Rockingham bailiwick in 1832 resulted in a much smaller forest area with much of the land turned over to agriculture. The

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also resp ...

took over the remnants of public woodland in 1923. The forest originally stretched from Stamford down to Northampton.

Geology

The forest extends across a tract of country underlain by

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

s of

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

age, a part of the great Jurassic escarpment stretching from the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of J ...

to the southwest through the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Leicestershire, Derbyshire, L ...

to the

Humber The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between ...

via Lincoln Edge. Largely a mix of

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology.' ...

and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

layers dipping gently eastwards, the sequence is this (in stratigraphic order i.e. youngest/uppermost at top): *

Ancholme Group The Ancholme Group is a geologic group in England. It preserves fossils dating back to the Jurassic period. It has previously been referred to as the Ancholme Clay Group. The group consists of predominantly grey, marine mudstone and silty mudst ...

** Oxford Clay Formation *

Great Oolite Group The Great Oolite Group is a Middle Jurassic stratigraphic unit that outcrops in southern England. It consists of a complex set of marine deposits primarily mudstone and bioclastic ooidal and fine grained limestone, deposited in nearshore to shel ...

Cornbrash Formation The Cornbrash Formation is a Middle Jurassic geological formation in England. It ranges in age from Bathonian to Callovian, the uppermost part of the Middle Jurassic. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the form ...

Blisworth Clay Formation The Blisworth Clay Formation is a geological formation in England. It is part of the Great Oolite Group and was deposited in the Bathonian stage of the Middle Jurassic. The predominant lithology is mudstone with thin beds of limestone and sandst ...

** Blisworth Limestone Formation **

Rutland Formation The Rutland Formation is a geologic formation in England. It preserves fossils dating back to the late Bajocian to Bathonian stages in the Jurassic period, about 169 million years ago. It is the lateral equivalent of the Sharp's Hill Formation ...

Inferior Oolite Group The Inferior Oolite is a sequence of Jurassic age sedimentary rocks in Europe. It was deposited during the Middle Jurassic.Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Middle Jurassic, Europe)." In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Pet ...

Lincolnshire Limestone Formation The Lincolnshire Limestone Formation is a geological formation in England, part of the Inferior Oolite Group of the (Bajocian) Middle Jurassic strata of eastern England. It was formed around 165 million years ago, in a shallow, warm sea on the ...

Grantham Formation The Grantham Formation is a geological formation in England, which dates to the Middle Jurassic Aalenian age around 172 million years ago. It is composed of mudstones and sandstone, usually with abundant plant debris. It overlies the preceding No ...

** Northampton Sand Formation The plateau is largely covered by glacial

till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

of a stony, clayey nature. Exploitation of the

ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...

within the Northampton Sands was the basis for the once-important iron and steel industry in Corby on the western edge of the forest.

Management

Areas managed by the Forestry Commission include: * Southey Wood,

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...

* Wakerley Great Wood * Bedford Purlieus National Nature Reserve * Fineshade Wood * Fermyn Woods It is famous for its population of red kites which now number 300.

Chequered skipper reintroduction

In the spring of 2018 chequered skipper butterflies (''Carterocephalus palaemon'') from

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

were released at a secret site as part of the Back from the Brink (BftB) project. A further release of butterflies from Belgium will take place in the spring of 2019, to supplement the newly emerged offspring of last years release. Invasive scrub has been removed from more than 8 km of woodland rides by

Butterfly Conservation Butterfly Conservation (BC) is a UK-wide nonprofit environmentalist organization and charity dedicated to conserving butterflies, moths, and the environment. The charity uses its research to provide advice on how to conserve and restore butterfly ...

and their partners, and if the reintroduction is successful they will be the first native-born chequered skippers to emerge in England in more than 40 years.

External links

Forestry Commission

References