Woodborough’s Heritage

Woodborough, a Sherwood Forest Village, recorded in Domesday



Ancient woodlands surrounding Woodborough



Fox Wood in 1941:

In April 1941 the Nottinghamshire Countryside magazine contained a most interesting article by R.C.S. Ross on “Ancient Earthworks”. This described earthworks found in Fox Wood – “a solitary place, a patch of dark trees on the evening skyline”.

The Vallum and Fosse had long overgrown the works, and they were overshadowed also by tall trees, yet these did not hide the old lines of rampart and ditch which stood clear after at least 2000 years of weathering frost and rain. The eastern side of the earthworks had been levelled off by generations of farming, where the plough had destroyed all traces of outline. An oval ditch around complicated inner works passed from west to south, but was difficult to follow due to the undergrowth. It was estimated though, that the old fort was some six hundred feet across at its widest point. To the south there were pre-Roman entrenchments at Lambley, to the east others at Thurgarton and Lowdham.

Another set of earthworks was Oldox Camp – ‘Old Works’ – which could be approached by a sunken road from Oxton. This stood high up with a double wall and ditch on one side, and a triple wall and double ditch defending the east. Other earthworks were found south of the Trent at Barton, there being six or seven lines of prehistoric tracing. Mr Ross informed readers that England is full of such places, there being a varying opinion as to exactly when the work was done, yet most credit is given to ‘those terrific doggers and engineers, the megalithic colonists of England’. Such earthworks, with evidence of primitive man and his tools, prove that there has been human life in Nottinghamshire for over 1000 years.


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