Medieval Woodland, Agriculture and Industry in Rockingham Forest, Northamptonshire

Abstract

Rockingham Forest is the most intensively studied of Northamptonshire's medieval forests. It saw extensive clearance for agriculture in the medieval period but large tracts of woodland survived and these were increasingly intensively managed. Though primarily nucleated, a dispersed component to the settlement pattern did develop in the forest which was not seen in the champion landscapes of the county. The area supported a range if industrial production, in particular an important iron industry, based upon the local ores, and fuelled, at least in the medieval period, by a substantial charcoal industry. Geology was the primary determinant of the distribution of woodland in the Saxon period, but at the local level survival of woodland in the post-Conquest period was influenced by a range of tenurial and other factors, including management for deer and the presence of large scale iron and charcoal production.