The town of Barnsley lies slightly to the east of a line joining Leeds and Sheffield; Barnsdale itself is east and north of Barnsley, where the high backbone of the Pennines drops towards the flats surrounding the river Humber. The great North Road (‘Watling Street,’ Gest, 18.2) between Doncaster and Pontefract, crosses the small slow river Went at Wentbridge (probably referred to in st. 135 of the Gest), which may be taken as the northern boundary of Barnsdale. That this part of the North Road was considered unsafe for travellers as early as Edward I.’s reign is shown by the fact that a party going from Scotland to Winchester, and for most of the journey guarded by a dozen archers, saw fit to increase their number of guards to twenty between Pontefract and Tickhill, the latter being on the border of Yorkshire and Nottingham, south of Doncaster.
The remaining places, except those explained in the footnotes, may be dealt with here.
‘Blyth’ (Gest, 27.4, 259.4), twice mentioned as a place at which to dine, is a dozen miles south of Doncaster, and in Nottingham; it is almost exactly half-way between Barnsdale and Sherwood.
‘Verysdale’ (Gest, 126.4) may be Wyersdale, a wild tract of the old Forest of Lancashire, near Lancaster.
‘Holderness’ (Gest, 149.1) is the nose of Yorkshire; between the south-easterly turn of the Humber below Hull and the North Sea.
‘Kyrkesly’ (Gest, 451.3, 454.3), or ‘Churchlees’ (Robin Hood’s Death, 1.3). Kirklees Priory is on the left or north bank of the river Calder, a few miles north of Huddersfield.
‘St. Mary Abbey’ is ‘here besyde’ (Gest, 54.4) and in York (84.4).
Sherwood
The name of Sherwood is not mentioned in the Gest, though that of Nottingham is frequent. The old forest was a district about twenty-five miles square, lying to the north of Nottingham, between that town and Worksop, including Mansfield and, to the north, the district now known as ‘the Dukeries,’ i.e. the parks of Welbeck, Clumber and Rufford. There is a village of Sherwood, a northern suburb of Nottingham, and a Sherwood Hall near Mansfield; between the two may be found Friar Tuck’s Well, Robin Hood’s Well, Robin Hood’s Stable, and a Robin Hood Hill. But, as has been pointed out above, these names have little significance in view of the fact that similarly-named objects can be found in other counties.