MANSFIELD-WOODHOUSE, a parish in the
northern division of the wapentake of BROXTOW, county
of NOTTINGHAM, 1 mile (N.) from Mansfield, containing
1598 inhabitants. The living is a perpetual curacy,
in the peculiar jurisdiction of the court of the Lord o
the Manor of Mansfield, endowed with £200 private
benefaction, £200 royal bounty, and £1200 parliamenr
tary grant, and in the patronage of the Duke of Portland.
The church, dedicated to St. Edmund, is a large
structure, with a spire-steeple one hundred and eight
feet high, which was rebuilt in 1304, together with one
of the aisles, after having been -injured by a fire, which
also destroyed part of the village. There are places of
worship for Independents and Wesleyan Methodists. It
anciently formed part of the adjoining parish of Mansfield,
but it is not known at what period the separation
took place. The village is large, and contains several
very respectable houses. The free school was founded
by Faith Clarkson, in 1725, and endowed with certain
lands for a master and a mistress. Charles Thompson
also, in 1784, bequeathed £1300, and Richard
Radford, by deed dated May 10th, 1827, gave £800, the
interest of both to be applied in educating children.
There are lime-kilns and quarries of excellent freestone
in the parish. Several hundred acres of land, formerly
barren, have lately been converted into rich arable land,
by means of irrigation, the Duke of Portland having
dug a canal through this and the adjoining parish of
Qipstone, communicating with the river Man, the waters
of which are used for that purpose. In this parish
are thirteen hundred acres of land, which, with some
in the parish of Mansfield, is the only unenclosed part
of the ancient Forest of Sherwood. In 1786, Major
Rooke, distinguished for his fondness for antiquarian
research, discovered two Roman villa in the parish, one
of which he called Villa Urbana, and the other Villa
Rustica: the former contained nine rooms and a hypocaust,
part of a very elegant mosaic pavement having
been found in the centre room; and the latter comprised
thirteen rooms, two hypocausts, and a cold bath:
the walls of the rooms were plastered and jpainted, and
the floors stuccoed. About one hundred yards to the
south-east were two Roman sepulchres, in one of which
was an urn containing ashes, with fragments of bones
lying near it: coins and various other Roman relics
were also found. Major Rooke enclosed the villa with
a stone wall, erected a square building over the room
containing the mosaic pavement, and planted a variety
of shrubs around them j but the whole, since his death,
has suffered from neglect. Dr. Mason, Bishop of Sodor
and Man, was bom in this parish.