Was 'Arbour' a harbour?

Apart from finding their way, the principal difficulty for long-distance travellers in the past was finding a safe place to spend the night - before the advent of inns. It seems likely that they used a series of fortified, hilltop enclosures, similar to the caravanserai found in the Middle East up to the nineteenth century.

Along the route of the Derbyshire Portway there is a chain of likely sites for such enclosures, such as Harborough Rocks west of Wirksworth and Arbour Hill west of Dale. (The well-known prehistoric complex at Arbor Low may be another example on the old road from Wirksworth to Buxton).

After publishing The Derbyshire Portway in 2008 I discovered another Arbour Hill, this one in the grounds of Wollaton Hall, shown above. Only a couple of miles from the Hemlock Stone in Bramcote (where I had finished my earlier research) this suggests an eastward route along the Bramcote Hills and then along the line of the present Derby Road towards a crossing of the River Leen at Lenton, probably close to the site of Lenton Priory.

Although close to the private golf course, this Arbour Hill is easily accessible. If you enter Wollaton park by the lodge gate opposite Nottingham University's northern flank, turn right and walk uphill you soon come to a magnificent ancient oak tree, and just beyond this is the hilltop, covered now in rhododendron and Scots pine.