Inglewood Forest is a large tract of mainly arable and dairy farm land with a few small woodland areas between

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...

and Penrith in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

non-metropolitan county A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a county-level entity in England that is not a metropolitan county. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.8 million. The term ''shire county'' is, however, an unoffi ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

or ancient county of

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

Etymology

''Inglewood'' is first attested in the forms ''Englewod’'' (c. 1150), ''Engelwode'' (c. 1158) and ''Englewud'' (1227). The name means "Wood of the English or Angles". This seems to reflect a situation where, at the time of the name's formation, Cumbria was still predominantly a Celtic-speaking region, and sometimes part of the

Kingdom of Strathclyde Strathclyde (lit. "Strath of the River Clyde", and Strað-Clota in Old English), was a Brittonic successor state of the Roman Empire and one of the early medieval kingdoms of the Britons, located in the region the Welsh tribes referred to as Yr ...

, and English settlement or land-ownership was still unusual enough to be a distinctive feature in a place-name. Noting that the other place-names of this kind are in places that were border areas between English-speaking and Britonnic-speaking cultures, Jayne Carroll and John Baker suggest that "this is perhaps not a case of a 'minority population' name, but one used with a particular political significance to mark a borderland area".

History

Soon after the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...

this area became a

Royal Forest A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...

. The word forest in this sense did not necessarily mean a wooded area but one that was set aside for hunting though several areas of Inglewood were heavily wooded. The animals that were hunted in this area were mainly

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

and

wild boars The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...

. The forest boundaries changed many times and included at one time most of the Cumberland

wards Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a priso ...

Leath Leath was one of the wards of the historic county of Cumberland in north west England. Unlike most other English counties, Cumberland was divided into wards rather than hundreds. The ward was bounded on the south by Westmorland, the north b ...

and

but the core or heart of the forest was the parishes of

Hesket-in-the-Forest Hesket (also Hesket-in-the-Forest) is a large civil parish in the Eden District of Cumbria, England, on the main A6 between Carlisle and Penrith. At the 2001 census it had a population of 2,363, increasing to 2,588 at the 2011 census, and es ...

, Skelton and

Hutton-in-the-Forest Hutton in the Forest is a Grade I listed country house near the village of Skelton in the historic county of Cumberland, which now forms part of the modern county of Cumbria, England. It has belonged to the Fletcher-Vane family, latterly t ...

. Higham places the "core of the forest between the Chalk Beck and the

River Petteril The River Petteril is a river running through the English county of Cumbria. The source of the Petteril is near Penruddock and Motherby, from where the young river runs southeast through Greystoke, Blencow and Newton Reigny, before passing und ...

, in particular the townships and civil parishes of

Dalston Dalston () is an area of East London, in the London Borough of Hackney. It is northeast of Charing Cross. Dalston began as a hamlet on either side of Dalston Lane, and as the area urbanised the term also came to apply to surrounding areas includ ...

Sebergham Sebergham is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Cumbria. It is located on the B5305, south of Carlisle and south-east of Wigton. The civil parish population at the 2011 Census was 365. St Mary's Church is medieval in ori ...

, Hesket,

Mungrisdale Mungrisdale is a small village and civil parish in the north east of the English Lake District in Cumbria. It is also the name of the valley in which the village sits. Mungrisdale is a popular starting point for ascents of the nearby hills, su ...

Catterlen Catterlen is a small village and civil parish north west of Penrith, Cumbria. At the 2001 census the civil parish had a population of 471, increasing to 605 at the 2011 Census. The village is a linear one with the B5305 road dividing it into t ...

, Hutton, Skelton, and

Castle Sowerby Castle Sowerby is a civil parish in the Eden District of Cumbria, England. In 2001 it had a population of 337, increasing to 344 at the 2011 Census, and includes the hamlets of How Hill, Millhouse, Newlands, Sour Nook, Southernby and Sowerby Row. ...

". The forest ultimately belonged to the

English Crown This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself King of the Anglo-Sax ...

and was governed by the strict Forest Law exercised by wardens. In the reign of

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

the forest laws were repealed and Inglewood ceased to be a Royal Forest although it is still to this day marked on maps as such". The borough and city of Carlisle (the area within the city walls) was outside the forest though Penrith was within it and was the main administrative centre and

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

for the southern part of the region.

Border reivers Border reivers were Cattle raiding, raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. They included both Scotland, Scottish and England, English people, and they raided the entire border ...

were active in the area and it contains a number of fortified buildings referred to as

Peel towers Peel towers (also spelt pele) are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, mainly between the mid-14th century and about 1600. They were free-standing ...

Literature

The Forest is the setting of many of the adventures in the late medieval Northern Gawain Group of

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

chivalric romances As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric ...

. Around the same time,

Andrew of Wyntoun Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun (), was a Scottish poet, a canon and prior of Loch Leven on St Serf's Inch and, later, a canon of St. Andrews. Andrew Wyntoun is most famous for his completion of an eight-syllabled metre entitled, '' ...

's ''Orygynale Chronicle'' (written c. 1420) claims the forest as the original setting of the Robin Hood legend: :Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude :Wayth-men ware commendyd gude :In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale :Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale. According to legend, Inglewood Forest is also home to the outlaws

Adam Bell Adam Bell was a legendary English outlaw. He and his companions William of Cloudsley and Clym of the Clough lived in Inglewood Forest near Carlisle and were figures similar to Robin Hood. Their story is told in Child Ballad 116 entitled ''Ada ...

, William of Cloudsley and Clym of the Clough. Their story is told in

Child Ballad The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as '' ...

116.

Honour of Penrith

The manors of Penrith,

Great Salkeld Great Salkeld is a small village and civil parish in the Eden District of Cumbria, England, a few miles to the north east of Penrith and bordering the River Eden. At the 2001 census the parish had a population of 445, decreasing to 412 at th ...

Langwathby Langwathby is a village and civil parish in northern Cumbria, England, about north east of Penrith on the A686 road. The village lies on the east bank of the River Eden. At the 2001 census the parish had a population of 748, increasing to 8 ...

, Carlatton (not Carleton as it sometimes said to be),

and

Scotby Scotby is a village in the City of Carlisle district of Cumbria, England. It is separated from Carlisle, Cumbria, Carlisle by the M6 Motorway, and it is close to other dormitory villages in the area, such as Wetheral, Cumwhinton and Aglionby, Cu ...

were collectively known as the

Honour Honour (British English) or honor (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of socia ...

of Penrith. This was given to the Scottish crown in exchange for Scotland giving up its claim to all of Cumberland. In 1272 King Alexander III complained that a William de Leyburne, the local seneschal, has unlawfully appropriated the manors' rents. Later

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...

took them for himself. Later they passed to the

Neville family The Neville or Nevill family (originally FitzMaldred) is a nobility, noble house of early medieval origin, which was a leading force in Kingdom of England, English politics in the later Middle Ages. The family became one of the two major powers in ...

but came back to being Crown property during the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

and remained so until the joint reign of

William III William III or William the Third may refer to: Kings * William III of Sicily (c. 1186–c. 1198) * William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702) * William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg ...

and

Mary II Mary II (30 April 166228 December 1694) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, co-reigning with her husband, William III & II, from 1689 until her death in 1694. Mary was the eldest daughter of James, Duke of York, and his first wife ...

. The honour was also known as "The Queen's Hames" due to the fact the manors were often given to a Queen consort on her marriage or at the death of the previous consort. The last Queen consort to be

Lady of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

or Honour was Queen

Catharine of Braganza Catherine of Braganza ( pt, Catarina de Bragança; 25 November 1638 – 31 December 1705) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland during her marriage to King Charles II, which lasted from 21 May 1662 until his death on 6 February 1685. Sh ...

, consort of Charles II.

Glassonby Glassonby is a small village and civil parish in the Eden Valley of Cumbria, England, about south south east of Kirkoswald. At the 2001 census the parish had a population of 314, decreasing marginally to 308 at the 2011 Census. There is a m ...

and Gamblesby were sometimes included in the Honour, William III gave the lands belonging to the manor to his friend

William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland Hans William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, (20 July 164923 November 1709) was a Dutch and English nobleman who became in an early stage the favourite of William, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder in the Netherlands, and future King of England. H ...

whose descendants later sold them to their relatives the

Cavendish family The Cavendish (or de Cavendish) family ( ) is a British noble family, of Anglo-Norman origins (though with an Anglo-Saxon name, originally from a place-name in Suffolk). They rose to their highest prominence as Duke of Devonshire and Duke of Newc ...

References

Sources

* * * * * *

External links

Cumbria County History Trust: Hesket in the Forest
(nb: provisional research only – see Talk page) {{Coord, 54, 47, N, 2, 55, W, display=title, region:GB_type:forest_source:GNS-enwiki Forests and woodlands of Cumbria English royal forests History of Cumbria Locations associated with Arthurian legend