Sherwood Forest Boundary: An Exploration of Medieval Land Surveying Through Modern Methods

When I first received Sophie Durbin’s invitation to contribute to the Medieval Line Project, I immediately knew I could use the lens of my profession to inform my approach to the project. As a land surveyor, we fundamentally think in lines: Boundary lines, lines of occupation, centerlines of roads or paths, and others to make sense of the earth and man made improvements upon land. With my profession as a framework, I started to define my line.

I began by researching medieval surveying techniques. I found that while surveying has been around since ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire, there was a gap from then and when modern surveying techniques started to develop. The medieval period marked a stagnation in technological innovation in surveying, but was nonetheless widely considered just as vital to medieval societies as it was to societies from before then and to the present. Surveying was primarily used for defining land parcel boundaries for taxation purposes.

The medieval period in Europe continued to employ surveying techniques developed and used during the Roman Empire. The ‘groma’ was a Roman survey instrument used to lay out roads and property boundaries, and its use continued until the Renaissance and Enlightenment, where modern surveying equipment started to be created. This consisted of a wooden rod with a symmetrical cross atop it. This means only 90 degree angles were able to be measured, and distances were limited to the eyesight of the surveyor. 

In medieval England, the ‘rod’ or ‘perch’ was a unit of measurement used to measure distances. I am familiar with this unit, because it continued to be used all the way up to the Public Land Survey of the United States, established in 1785. A rod is equal to 16.5 US Survey Feet. Four rods equals one chain, the standard piece of equipment used to survey the non-colonial United States.

While researching medieval surveying, I stumbled upon a link to the definition of the boundary of Sherwood Forest. This was a vast piece of forested land, most known as the supposed home of the legendary figure Robin Hood, that existed in medieval times. It was important enough to be mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, one of the most important maps in medieval English history.

This piqued my curiosity. I found that the boundary was defined by natural land boundaries such as rivers and a man-made one; King’s Highway, as it was known. No mathematical information about distances and angles were given. The description of the boundary was not totally foreign to me; natural watercourses and geographic features are still used as boundary definitions to this day. It was defined as “...from the River Trent in the south to the River Meden in the north, and from the Doverbeck and the King's highway (now the A614 roughly see the Road to York entry) in the east to River Leen in the West”.

With the knowledge that medieval surveying was imprecise and used antiquated equipment, I decided to define that line as best I could as a 21st century surveyor.

I began with the raw description: Mainly waterways. Those rivers still exist in the UK. After familiarizing myself with modern UK coordinate systems,  I was able to find free geospatial data provided by Great Britain’s Ordinance Survey to begin my journey. Using modern CAD (Computer Assisted Drafting) software, I was able to bring in the free data. That defined three of the four boundaries (or so I thought; more on that later).

Next, I defined King’s Highway (named after King Henry III). This was an important thoroughfare at the time. I found it roughly follows the modern route A614. With this knowledge in mind, I traced the rivers and the modern roadway, based on currently available aerial imagery. The boundary did not close; it was incomplete. I continued to explore.

I found a source that confirmed my suspicions. This description changed my approach to defining the boundary: “Any attempt to trace on a modern map the boundaries of the forest is bound to be hampered by changes which have taken place through new roads being constructed, old names being changed or lost, and boundary marks of trees, ditches and boulders either being destroyed or removed. Even the courses of the rivers have altered or changed, as for example where the perambulation speaks of following the old course of the Trent and the old course of the Leen”.

With this in mind, I knew I could not fully trust the free, modern data on rivers I had downloaded. An image of the historic boundary was embedded, so I imported that into my CAD software and made a best-fit approximation of scaling it to the aerial imagery I was using. Some of the rivers generally followed what I traced from modern information; others were wildly different. 

At first this was troubling- I had gotten this far, but how accurate was my line? After much deliberation, I remembered what I found out when researching medieval surveying practice: It was imprecise at best, and relied on the written word to define what the intent of the land owner was. With this in mind, I went against all my modern surveying principles and approximated the closing of the boundary with intuition and comparing my boundary line to the scaled, historic image.

While my line is probably wildly inaccurate to what it was at the time, it was a good exercise to see how surveying has modernized. We often deal with vague and cryptic boundary descriptions to this day, so in a way this was not that different than what I do in my day to day work life. I was able to create a map of my imprecise boundary using the tools I use every day, but in a way it proved what I found out early in my research: Medieval surveying was archaic by today’s standards, defined by agreed upon natural boundaries, yet still held legal precedence at the time, as it does today with vague boundaries. 

I chose to create a map of my findings using the tools I know: Modern CAD software, current legal standards for written boundary descriptions, and historic units of measurement. My map includes a scale in chainage (four rods to a chain), fonts that approximate medieval times (definitely not historically accurate, but freely available in the software I use), and a synthesization of my research and the tools of today. I also included boundary stones as a graphic element to further approximate the techniques of the time. Boundary stones have been used since time immortal, and are even mentioned in the bible. Today, monuments are still placed on earth to establish boundary lines. The tradition of “beating of the bounds” used in England is still relevant to today. Today in America, we place physical monuments in the ground along waterways to establish a “survey” line for a retraceable line along the ever changing waterways. I employed this on my map to highlight the historic ‘beating of the bounds’ that may have occurred at the time with what I know today.

Thanks to Sophie for including me on this endeavor, and I hope both that this is informative and not held to historic accuracy. The main lesson I learned through this process is while viewing through a modern lens, the boundary is imprecise. Nonetheless, it held the same legal and political weight as boundary lines do today.


Sherwood Forest Boundary Line (Jeff Cornell, 2025)

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