"In 1086...[the] Herringthorpe area was dominated by wood pasture. The word 'Greave' comes from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) word 'graefe' which means a small wood or grove. It is unclear what Gibbing means although it could be the name of a tenant. In the late Middle Ages, Gibbing Greave, then in the ownership of Rotherham College, was known as Gibbon Grove and this name persisted until at least 1676. In 1546 the ownership of Gibbing Greave was conveyed to a wealthy Rotherham family, the Swifts. By 1676 however, the wood had passed into the ownership of the Duke of Norfolk, being included in a list of the Duke's coppice woodlands. However, the wood has not been located in later accounts of the Duke of Norfolk's woodlands and may have been acquired in the 18th century by the Foljambe family, major landowners in the Dalton area at this time. When coppiced areas were well grown, tenant's animals were allowed access the woods for payment. This practice, which was recorded in Gibbing Greave in 1682 (Jones, 1995), would have taken place in clearly defined compartments in which coppice regrowth was fully established and where grazing could no longer damage the trees. It is some of these compartments that are marked by the wood banks. The first map showing the two woodlands dates from 1798 and shows each of them to have been split into two compartments and to have a shape almost identical to today. At this time, the northern Alder-dominated area of Herringthorpe Wood was separated from the main woodland block by open ground. After the middle of the 19th century, coppicing declined because of the replacement of charcoal as a fuel by coal, and the replacement of wood by iron and steel in building and manufacturing. " from Gibbing Greave and Herringthorpe Woods (Fuelling the Revolution website) Significant legibility of earlier management regimes.