Wentbridge sits in the heart of the Went Valley, on the northernmost edge of the medieval vale of Barnsdale, seen by many medievalists as the official home of Robin Hood.

Earlier historians had assumed that this district was heavily wooded but aerial photography and excavation have shown that the region has always been a largely pastoral landscape dotted with occasional settlements.

[2] The village of Wentbridge straddles the River Went, from which it takes its name, along a north–south axis and sits less than a mile from the county boundary with North Yorkshire to the east.

The earliest-known Robin Hood place-name reference - in Yorkshire or anywhere else - occurs in a deed of 1322 from the two cartularies of Monk Bretton Priory, near Barnsley.

[15] English Heritage has placed a blue plaque on the bridge that crosses the River Went, recognising Wentbridge's (and Barnsdale's) strong claim to be the original home of Robin Hood.

[16] The Gest of Robyn Hode makes specific references to 'the Saylis' and 'the Sayles', and a landmark by that name was certainly located near Wentbridge.

[19] Such evidence of continuity makes it virtually certain that the Saylis or Sayles which was so well known to the Robin Hood of the "Gest" survived into modern times as the 'Sayles Plantation' near Wentbridge.

[20] The historians Richard Barrie Dobson and John Taylor indicate that this location provides a specific clue to Robin Hood's Wentbridge heritage.

A medieval chronicler speaks of an outlaw named Swein-son-of-Sicga who robbed Abbot Benedict of Selby and "constantly prowled around Yorkshire's woods with his band on perpetual raids".

Green indicates that Hugh fitzBaldric, the late-eleventh-century Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, held responsibility for bringing Swein-son-of-Sicga to justice.

[23] Historians indicate that the deeds of Yorkshire's outlaws, men such as Swein-son-of-Siccga, and their battles against the Sheriff of Nottingham, gave birth to the legend of Robin Hood.