ARCHAEOLOGY
Although neither of the woodlands is of great archaeological interest, Gibbing Greave does have several well-preserved woodbanks, which relate to its past management as a coppice woodland. The most easily seen of these, on the western boundary of the wood, has a strongly marked bank with a shallow external ditch. One of the internal banks relates to a small enclosure shown on an Enclosure Award map dating from 1798. In addition, a broad, low bank with a shallow external ditch just inside the southern boundary of the wood appears to mark an earlier woodland boundary.

The only similar feature in Herringthorpe Wood shows only weakly and may be modern in date (Jones, 1990).

ANCIENT WOODLAND STATUS
Gibbing Greave is known from documentary evidence to have been in existence in 1546 which clearly makes it an ancient woodland, that is, one that has existed for at least 400 years.

The word 'Greave' comes from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) word 'graefe' which means a small wood or grove. It is unclear what Gibbing means although it could be the name of a tenant. In the late Middle Ages, Gibbing Greave, then in the ownership of Rotherham College, was known as Gibbon Grove and this name persisted until at least 1676.

For Herringthorpe Wood on the other hand, no documentary evidence has been found that shows the wood to have existed before 1600. The name of the wood has been in use for at least 200 years, the hamlet of Herringthorpe having been first mentioned in a document written in the late 12th century.

There are a number of other lines of evidence that suggest that both woods are of ancient origin.

The location of a wood is one such clue, ancient woodlands often being located on the edge of a parish, other areas closer to the village having been cleared for building or agriculture. Herringthorpe Wood conforms to this rule as Herringthorpe Beck, which forms the western boundary of the wood, is also the boundary between the parishes of Dalton and Whiston.

Both woods are on steep valley sides, again a common feature of ancient woodlands, areas of flatter land having been cleared for agriculture. The shape of both woodlands is also suggestive of an ancient origin, with the woodlands' irregular outlines likely to have come about as a result of adjacent areas of land being cleared and taken into agricultural use. In addition, Herringthorpe Wood shares with many known ancient woodlands, a name taken from a nearby settlement.

Another way by which ancient woodlands can be distinguished from more recently established woodlands is their diverse flora and fauna. Indeed, certain plant species, usually those that spread relatively slowly, are known to be either entirely restricted to, or only rarely found outside, ancient woodlands. These are known as 'indicator species'. Where a number of these species are found together, there is a high likelihood that the wood in which they occur is of ancient origin. Sixteen of these ancient woodland indicators have been recorded in the two woods, including Ramsons, Wood Anemone, Remote Sedge, Bluebell, Yellow Archangel, Great Woodrush, Wood Melick and Dog's Mercury. Further information on ancient woodland indicator species is given elsewhere on this website.

All of these lines of evidence taken together, strongly suggest an ancient origin for both of the woodlands.

 

The semi-natural woodland area in Gibbing Greave

WOODLAND MANAGEMENT
In comparison to some of the other Heritage Woodlands, the histories of both Gibbing Greave and Herringthorpe Wood are relatively poorly understood. There is however, sufficient documentary and other evidence to piece together at least some of the history of the woodlands, particularly that of Gibbing Greave for which a greater amount of documentary evidence exists.

In 1086, at the time of the Domesday Book, the Dalton and Herringthorpe area was, in common with large areas of Rotherham and Sheffield, dominated by wood pasture, a now largely extinct method of woodland management in which animals (such as pigs) grazed the woodland floor whilst the upper layers of the woodland were exploited for timber. This type of management was common where woods were widespread and the population sparse and scattered.

As populations grew and as demand for timber increased, woods became scarce and valuable resources that had to be fenced to prevent animals entering them and preventing regeneration. At the same time, coppicing, a type of management which gave a continuous and self-renewing supply of trees had to be introduced. In 1546, shortly after the dissolution of the monasteries, the ownership of Gibbing Greave was conveyed to a wealthy Rotherham family, the Swifts. By 1676 however, the wood had passed into the ownership of the Duke of Norfolk, being included in a list of the Duke's coppice woodlands. However, the wood has not been located in later accounts of the Duke of Norfolk's woodlands and may have been acquired in the 18th century by the Foljambe family, major landowners in the Dalton area at this time.

When coppiced areas were well grown, tenant's animals were allowed access the woods for payment. This practice, which was recorded in Gibbing Greave in 1682 (Jones, 1995), would have taken place in clearly defined compartments in which coppice regrowth was fully established and where grazing could no longer damage the trees. It is some of these compartments that are marked by the woodbanks mentioned above.

The first map showing the two woodlands dates from 1798 and shows each of them to have been split into two compartments and to have a shape almost identical to today. At this time, the northern Alder-dominated area of Herringthorpe Wood was separated from the main woodland block by open ground.

After the middle of the 19th century, coppicing declined because of the replacement of charcoal as a fuel by coal, and the replacement of wood by iron and steel in building and manufacturing. How Gibbing Greave was managed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is unknown but around the turn of the century, like many other woods in the area, large parts of both woods were felled and replanted, largely with non-native trees such as Beech and Sweet Chestnut.

The great majority of both woodlands were acquired by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council from the Foljambe family in 1940.

The absence of active management for several decades has resulted in badly structured woodlands, characterised by a maturing even-aged canopy, with neither a shrub layer or any substantial regeneration. The ground flora, including that typical of ancient woodlands, has been virtually obliterated over significant areas by the dense shady canopy. It is such features that woodland management work under the Fuelling a Revolution programme seeks to address.