A significant settlement in the forest was the town Henley-in-Arden (in a valley of the River Alne, approximately 15 miles southeast of Birmingham), the site of an Iron Age hillfort.

Wide lands in this district were held in the time of Edward the Confessor by Alwin, whose son Thurkill of "of Arden," founded the family of this name.

[7] The Domesday book reveals that in 1086 the Forest of Arden was comparatively lightly settled, and poor in terms of agricultural wealth.

Thorkell of Arden, a descendant of the ruling family of Mercia, was one of the few major English landowners who retained extensive properties after the Norman conquest.

[18] From around 1162, until the suppression of their order in 1312, the Knights Templar owned a preceptory at Temple Balsall in the middle of the Forest of Arden.

[20][21][22][23] Shakespeare's Arden seems to have promulgated a vision of the forest that fits in with the English nostalgic autostereotype of Merry England, and inspired subsequent artists such as Pre-Raphaelite John Collier.

The status of Coventry as an isolated settlement surrounded by the thick Forest of Arden has been cited by some historians as a cause for the prospering of a cult of the pagan goddess Cofa after the rest of the country had been Christianised.

It is believed that in the 12th century, this localised cult had transferred its veneration from the goddess Cofa to Lady Godiva, an Anglo Saxon Countess of the area.

This is an exclusive archery club that takes its offices from the medieval Royal Forest court positions, such as Verderer and Warden.

[13] This may have been due to the density and size of the forest – which overlies a large area of clay resulting in natural vegetation of dense broad-leaved woodland like oak and lime – as well as the dangers within such as bears and wolves, which did not become extinct in Great Britain until the sixth and seventeenth centuries respectively.

In Tanworth in Arden the Earl of Warwick pursued a policy as overlord that unusually saw over 60 per cent of the income from this manor derived from free rents.

[30] The fauna is typical for the wider area, however before emparkment would have included traditional game species such as wild deer, boar and White Park cattle.

Wild boar were extinct in Great Britain in the 17th century, however they were accidentally reintroduced in the 1970s and sightings have been made in the Arden area.

The stone varies in colour from a muddy brown-red to a brighter orange or red ochre depending on factors such as how long it has been exposed.

[35] Most of the trees and woodland that made up the forest and still remain are today protected, and there are a number of listed buildings across the area, noted for their history.

The aim is part of a wider project seeking to plant a quarter of a million trees within ten years across the area.