AN INTRODUCTION TO 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, one of the north-midland counties of 

 England, is in form an irregular oval, about fifty miles in 

 length from north to south, and with a greatest width of about 

 twenty-six miles from east to west : its total area is about 844 

 square miles. Its political borders are formed by the counties of York, 

 Derby, Leicester and Lincoln, which bound it on the north, west, south 

 and east respectively. In the north-east portion of the county the river 

 Trent forms a natural boundary, as do also the Erewash and Soar, and 

 about three miles of the Trent, in the south-west, but elsewhere the 

 boundary is not formed by natural features, unless we except the few 

 insignificant lengths along which the Witham and one or two small 

 streams coincide with the county boundary. In its physical features 

 Nottinghamshire presents no very great diversity ; it possesses none of 

 the wild moorland or bold mountainous scenery of its neighbours on the 

 north and west. Along the course of the Trent, which stretches across 

 the southern and eastern parts of the county, are extensive areas of rich 

 low-lying pasture and arable land, but elsewhere the surface is for the 

 most part of a gently undulating character, rising in some places into 

 low ranges of hills, which attain their greatest altitude to the south and 

 west of Sutton-in-Ashfield, where there is a good deal of ground lying 

 above the contour line of 600 feet. The highest points indicated on the 

 last edition of the ordnance map are 651 feet at Hucknall-under-Huth- 

 waite ; 631 feet at Wild Hill, one mile north of the former station ; 

 and 629 feet and 614 feet respectively to the east and south-east of East 

 Kirkby. Of lesser height are the hills north of Blidworth (500 feet) ; 

 c The Plains ' in the immediate neighbourhood of Nottingham, which 

 rise to a height of 470 feet at Dorket Head, and 508 feet at Cockpit 

 Hill ; and the Wolds in the extreme south of the county, which just 

 reach 400 feet. On the other hand a great part of the eastern side of 

 the county lies below the 100 feet contour line, and in the Carr lands of 

 the extreme north we have an area much of which is less than i o feet 

 abo 1 . o sea level. 



The most striking of the physical characteristics of Nottingham- 

 shire is however the beautiful park and woodland scenery of Sherwood 



XXVll 



