 The Minister's of Bailiffs Account of the Chauntry of St Nicholas show that an annual rent of 33 shillings and four pence was paid on the land between 1442–1483; this is the earliest recorded reference to the area.The road at the time ran through an ancient woodland known as the North Wood (the origin of the modern place name Norwood).The area was cleared for farmland in the 16th and 17th centuries.