SHERWOOD FOREST. 25 



records in later days attest the fact of the use of trees 

 as meeting-places. 



" In the Celtic period, the district in which Sherwood 

 Forest is comprised, formed a part of that division of our 

 country that was occupied by the Coritani, and some few 

 remains belonging to that period have, I believe, at one 

 time or other, been exhumed within what were once its 

 boundaries. During the Romano-British period, there is 

 abundant evidence of occupation, for Roman camps have 

 been discovered in various parts of the forest, and other 

 remains have been brought to light. Of some of these, 

 Hayman Rooke furnished an_ account to the Archceologia. 

 Among these, were one near Pleasley, 600 yards in length, 

 by 146 in breadth, of pretty regular form, with its ditches 

 remaining ; another, which he considered an exploratory 

 camp, near the east end of his own village of Mansfield 

 Woodhouse, on an eminence called Whinny Hill; a third 

 in Hexgrave Park; a fourth at a place called Combs, 

 near the same neighbourhood, and others. Remains of 

 Roman villas have also been exhumed. Beyond this, 

 writes Mr Stacye, ' a Roman road appears to have crossed 

 the forest, branching off from the great Foss Way, pro- 

 bably at the station named Ad Pontem in the Antonine 

 Itinerary, which is supposed to have been situated at 

 Farndon, near Newark. It passed through or near Mans- 

 field, where Roman coins have been found, and so by the 

 camp near Pleasley Park to the neighbourhood of Chester- 

 field, when it would join the road from Derventio, or Little 

 Chester, near Derby, to the north. 



" During Anglo-Saxon times the forest must have been 

 not only well known, but much frequented, and many 

 places within its boundaries bear undoubted Saxon names, 

 and are, indeed, known to have belonged to King Edward 

 the Confessor, and afterwards become the property of the 

 Conqueror. Among these, according to Stacye, are ' Mans- 

 field, Edwinstowe, Warsop, Clune, Carburton, Clumber, 

 Budby, Thoresby, and others ; ' and ' it is worthy of obser- 

 vation/ he continues, ' as regarding the Saxon times, that 



