Believed to be derived from a Brythonic word ardu- "high", by extension "highland", the area was formerly thickly forested and known as the Forest of Arden. Located near the geographical centre of England, the Forest of Arden, through which no Roman roads were built, was bounded by the Roman roads Icknield Street, Watling Street, Fosse Way, and a prehistoric salt track leading from Droitwich. It encompassed an area corresponding to the north-western half of the traditional county of Warwick, stretching from Stratford-on-Avon in the south to Tamworth in the north, and included what are now the large cities of Birmingham and Coventry, in addition to areas that are still largely rural with numerous areas of woodland. The most important and largest settlement in the forest was the townHenley-in-Arden, the site of an Iron Age hillfort. An ancient mark stone known as "Coughton Cross" is still present at the south western corner of the forest, at the junction of Icknield Street and the salt track. It is located at the southern end of the frontage of Coughton Court and is owned by the National Trust. According to local tradition, travellers prayed here for safe passage through the forest. From around 1162, until the suppression of the order in 1312, the Knights Templar owned a preceptory at Temple Balsall in the middle of the Forest of Arden. The property then passed to the Knights Hospitaller, who held it until the Reformation during the 16th century. Robert Catesby, leader of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, was a native of Lapworth, a village in Arden. It is believed that many local families had resisted the Reformation and retained Catholic sympathies, possibly including the family of Shakespeare, whose paternal ancestors were from Temple Balsall. 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, and his progeny, the Arden family, remained prominent in the area for centuries. Mary Arden, mother ofWilliam Shakespeare, was a member. 's As You Like It, by Walter Howell Deverell Shakespeare's play As You Like It is set in the Forest of Arden, however it is an imaginary version incorporating elements from the Ardennes forest in Thomas Lodge's prose romance Rosalynde and the real forest. Towns in the area include Hampton-in-Arden, Henley-in-Arden, and Tanworth-in-Arden.
The Countryside Commission considered creating a new national forest in the area in 1989, but the proposal was not taken up. A national forest has since been established between Leicester and Swadlincote in the East Midlands, however.
Publisher Felix Dennis planted substantial areas of woodland in the area, known as the Heart of England Forest and on his death in 2014 left most of his fortune to be used for this purpose. 3000 acres have been planted in Spernall, Dorsington and Honeybourne.
