Plumpton Park (Middleton by Wirksworth)

From International Robin Hood Bibliography
Locality
Coordinate 53.1004, -1.5917
Adm. div. Derbyshire
Vicinity Middleton by Wirksworth
Type Area
Interest Literary locale
Status Defunct?
First Record c. 1500
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Middleton by Wirksworth, in whose vicinity was situated a field called Plumpton Park
according to an 1841 Enclosure Award.
Middleton seen from a point on the Moor in or near the former Plumpton Park / Chris Wimbush, 16 June 2012; Creative Commons, via Geograph.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2016-08-19. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2022-05-17.

In the Gest, King Edward is exasperated at noticing the scarcity of deer in Plumpton Park after Robin and his men have been poaching there during their stay with the knight. We should almost certainly take this to be in Lancashire, but it is perhaps worth noting that Plumpton Park occurs as a field name in Middleton by Wirksworth, Derbyshire, in 1841.

The source is the tithe award for the 'Township of Middleton by Wirksworth in the Parish of Wirksworth' (1841), in which Plumpton Park figures with Gell Philips, executors of Edward Sacheverll [sic] Chandos Pole, Esq., and John Cruse, Esq., as landowners, Samuel Brooks, sen., as occupier, 'Meadow' as state of cultivation, and an area of 1 rood and 22 perches (1568.16 m2).[1] As is usually the case with field-names, this Plumpton Park is not found on the 6" O.S. maps of the area (see maps listed in Maps section below), but it is easily located on the basis of the tithe map. The former Plumpton Park is now the part of the Moor just behind the row of houses on the western side of the street named the Moor. The area is indicated in maroon on the adapted O.S. map included in the image gallery below.

Quotations

[Gest; c. 1500:]
All the passe of Lancasshyre
He went both ferre and nere
Tyll he came to Plomton Parke
He faylyd many of his dere.[2]

Gazetteers

MS sources

  • 1841 tithe award for the 'Township of Middleton by Wirksworth in the Parish of Wirksworth', online at the Genealogist, Piece 08, sub-piece 147, Image 018, #637 (£)
  • accompanying map, online at the Genealogist, Piece 08, sub-piece 147, Sub-Image 001, #637 (£).

Printed sources

Maps

Also see


Notes

  1. 1841 tithe award for the 'Township of Middleton by Wirksworth in the Parish of Wirksworth', online at the Genealogist, Piece 08, sub-piece 147, Image 018, #637 (£); accompanying map, online at the Genealogist, Piece 08, sub-piece 147, Sub-Image 001, #637 (£); also see Cameron, Kenneth. The Place-Names of Derbyshire (English Place-Name Society, vols. XXVII-XXIX) (Cambridge, 1959), pt. II (1959), p. 398.
  2. Gest, st. 357.


Image gallery

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