Robin Hood in popular culture the anonymous "Robin Hood: A Tale of the Olden Time" (1819), and a few months later "Ivanhoe" by Walter Scott, 1819. "Ivanhoe" was Scott's first novel where history and romance is combined. Robin Hood in this book is the saviour of the nation. The Upper classes need the working classes as much as the working classes rely on their 'betters'. Scott's tale is significant because it is the first time that Robin is presented as an Anglo-Saxon freedom fighter, a theme which many later Victorian Robin Hood novels would utilise. The next novel following Scott was Thomas Love Peacock's novella
Robin Hood locally referred to by the name of Barnsdale because it was the predominant settlement in the forest. Wentbridge is mentioned in an early Robin Hood ballad, entitled, "Robin Hood and the Potter", which reads, "Y mete hem bot at Went breg,' syde Lyttyl John". And, while Wentbridge is not directly named in "A Gest of Robyn Hode", the poem does appear to make a cryptic reference to the locality by depicting a poor knight explaining to Robin Hood that he 'went at a bridge' where there was wrestling'. A commemorative Blue Plaque has been placed on the bridge that crosses