The village of Little Stainforth is located 2 miles to the north of Settle, in the Yorkshire Dales. The first edition OS map from 1851 marks a ‘Robin Hoods Mill’ in a field half a mile to the south of the village. This interesting place name was noted several years ago, but Googling the name at that time produced no results, however a more recent search did provide some information.
In the late 1600’s, the vicar of Newington – James Brome, visited the Ebbing and Flowing Well at Giggleswick Scar, and after describing the well he goes on to mention that ….
“…. on the other side of this hill is heard a clacking noise, such as is made by a mill, which is caused, as is supposed, by some current of water, which creeping under ground falls down upon the rocks, and this the country people call Robin-hood’s Mill.“ (Brome, 1700)
150 years later, Jonathan Otley also noted the site ….
“…. there are a few scattered stones lying around a sort of natural drain. This is called “Robin Hood’s Mill” and if the ear is put to the aperture, as closely as possible, a sound as of rumbling machinery is distinctly heard.” (Otley, 1842).
The Stainforth Parish Council website has this explanation for the name …
“Just below the road from Little Stainforth to Giggleswick, near the parish boundary, there is a hollow filled with stones. According to local legend, this is the site of Robin Hood’s mill. Robin the miller had been a greedy sort who worked all the hours available, even on Sundays, never resting if there was money to be made. Over time, the weight of his clanking machinery sank further and further into the ground until it completely disappeared from sight. Before it was filled with stones, if you put your ear to the ground, you could still hear the millstones grinding deep below. Was it the sound of Robin’s ghost at work? Sadly not. It was the gurgling sound of underground water.“
The Robin Hood’s Mill site is located in a rough pasture field on a hillside leading down to the river Ribble. There is not really much to see at the location, just a patch of nettles around some holes filled with stones (as noted above), but originally this seems to have been a small pot hole connected to an underground stream. There is a reference to cavers investigating this opening in the 1930’s, and this probably explains the disturbed ground where they tried to follow the narrow passage into the hill. It is also likely that they filled the holes with stones afterwards to prevent sheep falling in.
The original clacking noise was probably caused by a loose block of stone below ground being moved around by the water flowing in the underground stream. This odd sound emerging from the small pothole seems to have been a natural curiosity in the area, just like the Ebbing and Flowing Well a few miles away. There are signs of where the underground stream emerged on the spring line further down the hillside, and from there it would flow into the river nearby.
Why Robin Hood?
What is perhaps most interesting is why would Robin Hood be connected with this site? With the old map also showing that the adjacent field was called ‘Robin Hoods Pasture’ as well. The local story of Robin the Miller is not mentioned in the earlier accounts, which suggests that it perhaps dates to a later time, and came about to explain the name and the mill noises mentioned in the old books. The fact that there is another pot hole called ‘Robin Hood’s Mill’ near the Ingleborough Cave, 4 miles to the north west of Stainforth, also suggests that these sites were actually named after the legendary outlaw – Robin Hood.
But why Robin Hood? – there are no stories of him visiting this area, and the Yorkshire Dales are a long way from his traditional haunts, and yet curiously, there are several Robin Hood place names in the Dales. This puzzle cropped up a few years ago when looking at the holy wells and springs across the North Yorkshire region, where there seem to be more Robin Hood’s Wells in the Yorkshire Dales than any other parts of the county.
Ten miles east of the Stainforth Robin Hood’s Mill there is a Robin Hood’s Well near Kilnsey. This is a strong flowing spring, which is actually an underground stream emerging from a Pot hole (called Robin Hood’s Cave) at the foot of a hill. The hilltop above the cave and well was also known as Robin Hood’s Point. Another Robin Hood’s Well can be found at Wath near Pateley Bridge, where a spring fed stream runs down a hillside and into a trough. On top of this hill there is a field called Robin Hood’s Park. A third Robin Hood’s Well can be found on a hill top at Halton Gill, where the water flows up through a gap in the limestone bedrock and creates a small pool and a stream. While on the upper slopes of Penhill in Wensleydale, a spring of water flows from an opening in the rock, and this is also called Robin Hood’s Well.
The link seems to be with springs and streams emerging from underground, and hilltop locations, but what possible connection could these have with Robin Hood in the Yorkshire Dales?
While pondering these ‘out of place’ Robin Hood’s Wells, it was noted that before the Dissolution of the monasteries, Fountains Abbey owned land where most of these wells are located. Robin Hood is actually linked with Fountains Abbey in one story, where it is the scene of his fight with Friar Tuck, but it is hard to imagine that the Abbey authorities would name wells and fields on their land after a legendary outlaw. But perhaps the Robin Hood names came after the monasteries had closed down, and this was a bit of Dales humour poked at the old abbot and his monks.
The earliest references to Robin Hood suggest that this was a general name used to describe criminals because they wore a hood to conceal their identity when committing crimes (‘Robin’ people perhaps?). In Medieval times, the Church and monasteries collected rents and tithes from tenants and farmers who had to pay one tenth of their annual produce to support the church. This tax was the cause of much resentment, and stories of abbots living lavish and ungodly lifestyles would only increase this. So perhaps the Abbot was seen as no better than a ‘Robin Hood’, and the hooded monks were his ‘merry men’, leading to the name being attached to some locations that used to be owned by the abbey?
Alternatively, it is tempting to suggest that in the Yorkshire Dales, ‘Robin Hood’ was some how used as another name for a fairy spirit. The little pot holes leading down to ‘underground mills’, and streams emerging from caves and crevices in the rock do seem more like traditional fairy locations. The Fairy Well near Leyburn in Wensleydale is another strong flowing underground stream which emerges from beneath some stones in a pasture field near the river Ure.
This fairy/Robin Hood suggestion may not be as far fetched as it sounds, as Robin Hood was regarded as a legendary and mythological figure, with scholars doubting that he ever existed as a real person. The word Hob is a short version of the name Robin, but in the North of England a Hob was also the name given to small supernatural beings who inhabited rocky places. Robin seems to have been a generic name for a mischievous spirit, with Robin Good-fellow being the name of an imp-like forest spirit who played tricks on people, and he has also been linked with Robin Hood.
So perhaps when the stories of Robin Hood found their way into the isolated Yorkshire Dales, the cunning trickster Robin Hood some how became linked with older beliefs and locations connected with Hob spirits or Robin Good-fellow?
This 17th Century ballad is attributed to Ben Jonson. In 1635 Jonson also wrote a play called ‘The Sad Shepherd’, which featured both Robin Hood and Robin Goodfellow.
The above suggestions can only be speculation, but there seems to be no obvious reason for these rather obscure Robin Hood place names in the Yorkshire Dales.
Afternotes
One final suggestion for how Robin Hood came to be linked with these locations is that they may have originally been called something like ‘Huds-well’, which is actually the name of a village in Swaledale. It would not be hard to imagine the Dales folk connecting such a placename with Robin Hood when his stories became widely known in the 1600’s, but even this Hud name might have originally been a reference to the supernatural, and faerie magic. The old language once spoken in the Yorkshire Dales was known as Cumbric, which was closely related to Old Welsh. In this language ‘Hud’ had the meaning of magic, charms, enchantment, and witchcraft etc. So a ‘Hud Well’ may have been regarded as having otherworldly powers, which elsewhere in the country might have been called a holy well or a fairy well.
In the late 1700’s, Thomas Dixon noted the belief that fairies danced around a holy well in Clapham village, which is located only 5 miles to the west of Stainforth.
References
Brome, J. (1700) Travels over England, Scotland, and Wales
Dixon, T. (1781) A Description of the Environs of Ingleborough, and Principal Places etc..
Otley, J. (1842) A Descriptive guide to English lakes and Adjacent Mountains.
