Robin Hood’s Bed: Erosion, Myths, and Grouse Shooters’ Wine

Our return journey across the M62 was, unsurprisingly, rather more foggy than the outward. This, coupled with a smidgen of common sense, deterred any whim to revisit Blackstone Edge. Thus, I here is instead another photograph from yesterday’s wander, of the rock formation bearing the pretentious title of “Robin Hood’s Bed” or, to vary the absurdity, “Robin Hood’s Chair.” The Ordnance Survey has dignified it with the former, and so that is now it’s name.¹Northampton Mercury – 07 March 1846

The entire summit is known to the locals as “Pots and Pans,” a name derived from the abundance of millstone grit boulders strewn about. The largest of these stones sits near the trig point and boasts the so-called “Robin Hood’s Bed,” a hollowed-out cavity apparently measuring seven feet in length—though one would require a heroic sense of self-worth, not to mention some rock climbing, to verify.²Huddersfield Chronicle – 19 June 1852

One need hardly say that the tale of Robin Hood’s supposed bivouac here is scarcely more plausible than the notion that he was sheltering in every other cleft, crag, and foxhole from Yorkshire to Sherwood. The hollow itself—better suited to an ill-shaped bath than any self-respecting bed—is, by sober accounts, the work of natural erosion. However, local tradition, with that characteristic blend of whimsy and inaccuracy, claims it was gouged out by grouse-shooters to hold wine, while another, equally fanciful story tells that the sick of the area were once laid here to be cured by sacred waters.³Country Life – 24 March 1983

Lastly, in the grand tradition of English superstition, “Robin Hood’s Bed” serves as a weather oracle. The people of Littleborough assert that if the formation can be seen, it will not rain. Should it vanish in the mist, rain is imminent. Or, more accurately, if one cannot see “Robin Hood’s Bed,” it is already raining.⁴Rochdale Observer – 14 July 1965

• 1
  Northampton Mercury – 07 March 1846
• 2
  Huddersfield Chronicle – 19 June 1852
• 3
  Country Life – 24 March 1983
• 4
  Rochdale Observer – 14 July 1965