Hood Avenue, BR5

Place Name

This is one of a dozen streets whose name is inspired by the legend of Robin Hood, who was said to have been born in the unlocated Nottinghamshire village of Locksley. Before the development of St Mary’s Cray in the 1940s, this area had woodlands called Robin Hood Shaw and Covert Wood. The outlaw who stole from the rich and gave to the poor became a popular folk figure in the Late Middle Ages with the earliest known ballads featuring him from the 15thCentury. Although there is a clear reference to him in the alliterative poem Piers Plowman, thought to have been composed in the 1370s. The passing reference suggests that the poems were already well known in the oral tradition. Other roads in the cluster include Archer Road, Barnesdale Crescent, Hood Avenue, Marion Crescent and Sherwood Road.

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