Archers, outlaws and wild boar

River Pettril (21)

This is a view over the valley of the Pettril at a point where the M6, the railway and the river are close together. Obviously, you can see the motorway, but you will probably have to take my word for it that the railway is a couple of fields away, where there is a straight line of trees, and the Petteril is winding its way alongside the railway. The landscape here is farmland – arable and pasture, with farms, hamlets and villages scattered around. We are close to Southwaite, where the M6 services are. 

Now . . . take away just about everything, except the river – no roads, railway, houses, fields and imagine . . .

. . . a huge forest. A Royal Forest no less. For the whole of the area here between Carlisle and Penrith, some 16 miles, with a circuit of around 60 miles, was for a long, long time the Royal Forest of Inglewood. On 14th century maps of the English Royal Forests, Inglewood appears as one of the largest and certainly the furthest north. The forest boundaries changed over the years, but always this area, the parishes of Hesket-in-the-Forest and Hutton-in-the Forest (the clues in the name!), were the heart of the forest. 

The word forest here does not necessarily mean it was all wooded, although a large part of it was heavily wooded, it meant that it was an area set aside for hunting. It was mainly deer and wild boar that were hunted – Edward I was said to have killed 200 bucks in one day. But there must have been an awful lot of trees – when Carlisle was burnt down in 1391 Richard II gave 500 oak trees from the forest for the rebuilding. There was very little settlement in the area and it was deliberately kept under-developed to act as a ‘buffer zone’ between the Scottish border and England. 

Inglewood Forest (as it still appears on maps) was governed by strict forest laws and of course this meant that there were outlaws and courageous deeds done. Legends abound. It is even said that this was the original setting for the Robin Hood legend and King Arthur was here, as was Sir Gawain etc. I may regale you sometime with a few ballads and legends involving notorious groups of archers and outlaws, not to mention castles and tarns that no longer exist.