In 2003, the Trust acquired the Ring Haw area (39 hectares / 96 acres) covering a significant area of woodland and fields.

However, the site has been forest since at least the 13th century, and was held by members of the Yarwell (or de Jarewell) family who resided at Old Sulehay Lodge. The Yarwells were head foresters of the Bailiwick of Clive or Cliffe (now Kings Cliffe). The Lodge and surroundings were part of Rockingham Forest, the royal hunting forest which extended from Wansford to Kettering.

The land and office of forester passed to Sir Guy Wolston in the fifteenth century, and thereafter Sulehay was long held by the owners of Apethorpe.

The main rides through the wood may have been made in the 17th Century with perhaps some realignment at later dates. Straight rides were commonly made in woodlands when firearms became widely used for game shooting. The Earl of Westmoreland, a 19th century MP, used the east-west ride to travel to Wansford station from Apethorpe to get to London. The ride has narrowed, but the old ditches and wood banks can still be clearly seen, with a circular bank at the crossroads made by the two main rides. Management by the Trust will clear the rides back to the wood banks. Different sections of the rides will be widened in turn starting in 2002.

There are signs of more ancient tracks in the northwest and easterly parts of the wood. There is also evidence of Stone Age, Roman, Danish and Civil War activity in or near Sulehay.

In the late 19th century about one third of the northerly part of Sulehay seems to have been cleared, probably by Joseph Lock of Manor Farm, Yarwell, to make way for crops and pasture. The timber was dragged down to a Yarwell saw pit by teams of horses. Some of the pastures created were available to Yarwell cottagers who took their beasts up the ride to Cow Wood. The south-western sector of Sulehay is called Kings Oaks, where the trees were formerly reserved for the Royal Navy. The timber was taken via the Nene to Wisbech and on to Chatham shipbuilding yards. Large trees were again removed during the First World War.

During the Second World War, servicemen and women were stationed in huts in and around the northern part of Sulehay. Afterwards, some of the buildings were used as housing by local people, and there was even a school in the forest. Since that time stone quarrying has encroached right up to the northern boundary of the forest leaving a steep cliff on the forest edge. The forest itself was saved at a late stage as a result of local protest in the 1970s.

The site was known as Stonepit Close in the 19th Century. It seems to have been an arable field owned by the Earl of Westmoreland with a small stone quarry by the roadside, where stone could be gathered by local people. The whole area was developed into a quarry in the early part of the 20th Century, and was abandoned in the 1970’s.

Running parallel to the wood and marking the boundary of the reserve, there is a deep ironstone gullet, leading towards the site of old railway sidings, used to transport iron ore by steam until 1970. (The steam locomotive called ‘Ring Haw’ can now be seen pulling passenger carriages on the North Norfolk Steam Railway). The Ring Haw reserve includes the site of the old sidings, office and nearby limestone grassland. The whole site covers about 95 acres.

Part of the grassland area was calcining banks where the iron ore was heated with coal to remove impurities before being transported. Beneath the turf the ground is still composed of powdery brown material high in iron oxide. This turf now supports a wonderful display of cowslips which have seeded into the area from nearby fields.

The reserve also encompasses two former arable fields which are being allowed to revert to limestone grassland.

A public byway passing north to south through the reserve is the route of an ancient road from Oundle to Stamford.

[Report Author. This report was written by Nick Owens (reserve volunteer warden) in December 2001, with the section covering Ring Haw added in January 2003. Nick would like to hear from anybody who may have further historical information of the area. See the 'Contacts and Links' page for details on how to contact Nick.]

[Credits. The historical notes are based partly on the recorded accounts of Lucy Adela Lock of the Manor Farm, Yarwell in 1958, ‘Memories of a Villager’].