Roman roads
The Roman Road Via Devana from Leicester to Huntingdon (part of which later became the Gartree Way) ran along the route of Corby Road, School Lane and Ashley Road. The Via Devana connected two major Roman roads, Fosse Way and Ermine Street.
Hundred Map, 1086
Since the Anglo Saxon era, the country’s parishes had been split into Shires, divided into administrative districts called Hundreds, so named because they contained 100 hides, which was a piece of land that could support a peasant family (roughly 120 acres). The map below shows the Hundreds in Northamptonshire at the time of the Domesday Survey, when Cotingeham lay within the Stoke (Stoche/Stoce/Stoc) Hundred.
In 1196, during the reign of Edward I, Stoke Hundred was absorbed into the Corby Hundred, where it remained in the Nomina Villarum, a survey carried out in 1316 for Edward II. The 1841 Census was the last to group parishes by Hundreds, but reference to Cottingham being in the Corby Hundred can be found as late as 1914, in Kelly’s Directory.
17th Century Map
Before the new A427 was built, it used to meander through Cottingham, Middleton, Stoke Albany and Wilbarston following the route of an old turnpike road, marked in yellow on the map opposite.
Turnpike roads, named after a gate or turnstile placed across the road, were created from around 1750 on major routes. Upkeep and repair were paid for from tolls, collected from traffic using the road from specially-built toll houses. The 1841 Census records a dwelling called toll gate in Cottingham and, in 1840, turnpike road repair costs for Cottingham were recorded at £14/2/-.
Middleton Lane, the road running across the top of the Dale, lies along the route of a medieval track.
Running south off Middleton Lane (towards Cattage field) was a track called Wood Lane, which had 8 houses on it in the 1841 Census. This still remains as a bridleway, joining Middleton Lane and the A427.
1887 OS Map
Rockingham Forest

(from Dr Peter Hill’s book ‘Rockingham Forest Revisited)

Cottingham lies within an area that’s still known as the Rockingham Forest, even though it no longer formally exists!
When it was created by William I in the 11th Century, Rockingham Forest covered a large area that stretched from Stamford to Northampton. The historical definition of a forest is ‘an area of land reserved for hunting by the King’, and that’s the definition that applies here.
A deer park was created in Rockingham around 1256 and was enlarged in 1485. Rockingham Forest dwindled in the 1660s under the reigns of Charles I and Charles II, before being disbanded by an Act of Parliament in 1832
Forest law
In William’s time, there would have been individual landowners within the forest area but, under forest law only the King was allowed to hunt for deer or boar. Landowners and peasants were allowed to collect fallen and dead wood, but couldn’t cut down trees. For a small fee, villagers were allowed to graze their animals in certain areas. Anyone caught committing offences ‘against Vert and Venison of the Forest’ was liable to punishment.
Forest law was administered at a local level by high ranking wardens, also known as stewards, constables or bailiffs, living at Rockingham Castle. Reporting to the wardens were gentlemen keepers, who would have been landowners of some importance and yeoman keepers (minor landowners). The keepers patrolled the forest and collected fees from peasants. They lived in lodges or farms provided by the warden.
In the 13th Century, Henry III relaxed the rules slightly, allowing major landowners to obtain, at a considerable price, a licence to fence off a piece of their land and receive a number of deer from the King for their own private hunting.