Loxley
Did Robin Hood exist? Perhaps he was just imagined or desired - the stuff of legends. A green man of the greenwood who behaved righteously, a true man of the people and of their hearts. If he did exist back in the mists of time, he would surely have begun his life in the area I walked in yesterday for he was Robin of Loxley or Locksley and I was in the Loxley Valley just west of Sheffield. Some say that he was born in 1160 in Little Haggas Croft at the top of Rodney Hill. Later it became the site of Normandale House. Though the afternoon was dry, the vibrant blue of the morning sky had been replaced with washed out greys rolling together in a heavenly eiderdown. I walked up the valleyside through what remains of Loxley Chase up to Hillsborough Golf Club's grounds. Then across Long Lane and through the woods up to Low Ash Farm. Close by, I met a most pleasant elderly woman who was out walking her sweet-smelling Scottish deerhound. She told me that he was a rescue dog and that...