The forest was named after the village of
Rockingham, where
the castle was a royal retreat. The boundaries were marked by the
River Nene on the eastern side and on the western side what is now the
A508 road from
Market Harborough to
Northampton. Over the years the forest shrank, and today only a patchwork of the north-eastern forest remains. The bulk of the remaining forest is located within a square, of which the corners are
Corby,
Kettering,
Thrapston and
Oundle. The area became a royal hunting ground for
King William I after the
Norman conquest. The term
forest represented an area of legal jurisdiction and remained so until the 19th century. A
Cistercian abbey was established in 1143 which became known as
Pipewell Abbey. In 1298 the
de Lacys were granted permission to inclose pertaining to the manor of
Wadenhoe, lying within the forest, in order to make a park. The forest boundaries were set in 1299, although the boundaries returned to a smaller area as a result of
King Charles I's actions.
King Charles II took little interest in the forest and gave away or sold much of it. By 1792 there was no significant royal ownership of the forest area. Parliamentary enclosure of the bailiwicks and disafforestation of Rockingham bailiwick in 1832 resulted in a much smaller forest area with much of the land turned over to agriculture. The
Forestry Commission took over the remnants of public woodland in 1923. ==Geology==