A Hunting Lodge at Sandygate, Sheffield. Higher up the road and overlooking Loxley the Lord of the Manor had a hunting lodge. He was the Earl of Huntingdon.

During the Ice Age at nearby Castleton there were sabre-toothed tigers, grizzly bears and bison and their bones can be seen in the British Museum in London and at Manchester. At nearby Loxley was Rivelin Firth which was a vast pasturage forest, abounding with trees of fine growth and some of the finest timber in England was to be found there. It is said that a squirrel could travel from tree to tree for seven miles in a straight line without going to ground. The trees were so large that on one occasion two men on horseback, one on either side of a felled tree could not see the top hat of the other man, the trunk was so huge. The spread of one mighty oak provided shade for two hundred and fifty one cattle, which was quite a gift for the ship builders.

The hunting was excellent and as the seasons came round, the Lord of the Manor invited his many high-ranking friends both English and Scots, to join him for the hunting and hawking. At this time, Hallam Head was thronged with men of rank who came to enjoy the sport with their host and his neighbouring squires.

Thornseat Lodge, a Game Keepers House.

There were red and black grouse, partridges, herons, curlews, hares, red deer, fallow deer, roe, the wild boar, the wolf, the fox, the badger and perhaps the otter. There were bears, wild bulls, as well as wild duck, pheasants, and partridges. All these animals and birds were hunted with horse, hound, falcon, and hawk, which was the most ancient of sports in which kings, princes, nobles, squires, yeomen, and retainers were permitted to join. The manor of Hallam had a strong appeal to the sporting instincts of the Saxon noble who was devoted to the pleasures of the chase.

It is unlikely that in any other part of his vast estates in England, could the Lord of the manor get such variety of accessible sport, and in Saxon times there were few manors south of Hallam that could boast a grouse-moor of similar size except perhaps on the Welsh border extending into Milbank Forest and also in Devon. The hunting was so good in this part of England that William the Conqueror created for himself the “Royal Forest of the Peak” which covered 180 square miles from Longdale to the Wye Valley. It included Bakewell, Tideswell, Buxton, Chapel-En-Le-Frith, Castleton, Brough, Hope, Hayfield, Glossop, and north over the Dark Peak into the Yorkshire Dales, with Edale Cross (near Winn Hill) being at its centre. This cross also marks the boundary of the land given to the Abbey of Basingwerke near Holywell, Flintshire in 1157.

To illustrate the fierceness with which the nobility protected their hunting rights, the Forest Laws sacrificed the interests of all classes of subjects in order that the King should have an abundance of red deer. But it had always been possible for the yeoman freeholder to kill, upon his own farm, the game that wandered over it from the surrounding estates of game preservers, except in the Royal Forests where the laws were much stricter. To prevent the taking of grouse etc. a law was introduced that prevented the yeoman farmer from killing game that had strayed onto his own land thus robbing numerous poor families of many good meals that were theirs by right and for countless generations grave social consequences flowed from the excessive eagerness of the nobility regarding the preservation of the game.

Crawshaw Head Hunting Lodge.

Legend has it that Robin Hood fought injustice and we can expect the forest officials took a dim view of his activities. When he became a fugitive it was inevitable that he would be outlawed. In those days of poverty there was bound to be a conflict of interest between the villagers on the one side and the Lord of the Manor on the other and Little Haggas Croft near Loxley Chase was surrounded by land belonging to the Lord of the Manor. Any strays on Robins land would legally belong to the Lord, but as Robin Hood became an outlaw it is debatable if he obeyed these "laws."

The capture of wolves was a very important matter, for though doubtless the breed was not wholly discouraged, on account of the good sport of hunting it offered, the wolves might become too numerous in the neighbourhood of the deer and it was therefore necessary to keep them down within certain limits. Thomas Foljambe and his friend and partner John de Wolfehunt hunted the wolves, usually during March and September when they went through the Forest setting traps. They were armed with a hatchet, a spear, a mastiff trained for the purpose and a knife at their belts.

So successful were they that in 1167-8 so great a value was set on the skill and experience of the Peak wolf trappers that Henry II paid 10shillings for their travelling expenses to take wolves in Normandy but they were not allowed to use bows and arrows which were the preferred weapons of the barons and their followers. In a Roll of 13 Edward I., there is a charge against- Thomas de Furnival, Lord of Sheffield, to whom, in the 48th year of Henry III. was entrusted the Castle of Peak, that he with his familiars, Ivo de Heriz, Rad Barry, Rad de Ecclesall, a certain. Knight Stout of Stuteville, all of Nottingham, and others, killed no less than twelve beasts. They were all severely punished.

In the same year there is a great presentment against Robert, Earl Ferrars, then Earl of Derby, who, with a great many Knights and high personages, his familiars (Knights) came into the Forest of the Peak, on the day of St. Thomas the Martyr (48 Hen. III.) and took forty beasts and drove away other forty, and at the Feast of St. Peter ad Vincula (Aug. 1st) took fifty beasts and drove away seventy, and at St. Mich. took forty and drove away another forty. (Presentment: A criminal charge brought by a grand jury.)

Deer were counted by the thousand in this massive Deer Park not far from Sheffield City Centre where all that remains of this large hunting lodge is the Gate House that connected to Sheffield Castle through a mile long avenue of magnificent oak trees. Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned here for fourteen years spending the summer months in the Lodge and the winter months in Sheffield Castle. Its location ensured Mary was kept in comparative isolation, although she was able to visit other places under escort. The same remoteness of Sheffield provided protection to outlaws who would find ample food and shelter in the surrounding forests.

But worse than that was when William Ferrars, Earl of Derby, Ralf Beaufoi of Trusley, William May, the Earl's hunter, and Robert Curzon of Chaddesden, with Henry de Eiton, in six years during the reign of Henry II took over 2,000 beasts. It probably resulted in the ruin of Robert, Earl of Derby, who was outlawed shortly afterwards and his possessions were given to the king's son, Edmund Crouchback; and his son, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster who also called himself Earl Ferrers. Nearly all the chief men of the counties of York and Derby, and many of Nottingham, were convicted at this inquest. The Veseys of Fulbec, Warner Engayne, Thomas Gresley, Thomas de Furnival, Ralf Bagot (brother of the Earl), William, the then Earl of Derby, the Saviles, Albinis, and very many clerical magnates, the Bishop of Chester, his Archdeacons and Canons and many of the secular clergy, some of them for hunting and others for receiving the hunters and consuming the venison at a wedding. These grave charges probably formed another link in the chain of events which culminated in the ruin of this great nobleman.

Tradition tell us that RobinHood poached the King’s deer and that he was an excellent marksman which is the hallmark of a good hunter. The title “Earl of Huntingdon” was an accolade given to those who excelled in hunting. But later in the Stewart epoch the title "Earl of Huntingdon" became a derogatory term with the introduction of the shotgun, when shooting gradually superseded hawking and “gentlemen” took to taking pot-shots at the pheasants and grouse from horseback but because that was too difficult they took to laying in wait till they landed in the trees shooting them as they perched there, or if on the ground they used pointer dogs. Then the pastime of "hunting" wild duck, pheasants, and thrushes became popular and for this they used lures and netting. During the Civil War deer parks were broken open and the deer destroyed, foxes were hunted with dogs and dug out of their earths, they were bagged and baited like a badger, or massacred as vermin by the peasantry.

A Hunting Lodge at Hollow Meadows

Coming up to date, in the 19th century the Duke of Norfolk’s game association preserved between seven to eight thousand acres of moorland on Broomhead Moors above Loxley specifically for the grouse shooting and on a single day in 1913 AD nine guns achieved a record bag of 1,421.5 brace (2,843 birds). On the “Glorious” 12th August the annual shoot was so spectacular that thousands of Sheffielders came to watch and coaches were hired out especially for the occasion.