3. Uterysdale identified as Yrewysdale [Ywerys] in the vale of Erewash-between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire². According to Bellamy there were only four castles which fitted the description in the 1300's found in the "Gest" near Nottingham. Annesley Woodhouse castle was the only one which appeared to be within Sherwood at this time, closer to Mansfield than Nottingham.
4. Some have associated the ballad knight with a family living at Middleton, West Yorkshire.
5. Also with Sir Richard Foliot a knight of Nottinghamshire⁴.
6. A Richard Lee of the mid 1300's
7. Sir John de la Lee, a vicar, whose nephew was a steward in the king's household.

A West Yorkshire solution has:
1. Uterysdale could be "Huddersfield-dale", [Huddersdale], usually pronounced without the "H".
2. Sir Richard of the Lee was Sir Richard de Thornhill who lived at Thornhill Lees near Huddersfield.
3. Sir Richard de Thornhill was a real knight who appears in the Court Rolls for Wakefield as a person who transgressed the laws of Lord Warrene's hunting forest of Sowerby in 1274.
He was the eldest son of Sir John de Thornhill [b. abt. 1180].  [Sir] Richard de Thornhill was born ca. 1228 at Thornhill and died 1287 at Fixby. He married first Margaret [Maud] de Bedall [Bedale- North of Ripon] and secondly about 1228, Matilda de Fixby [b. ca. 1240 Thornhill] The first marriage led to a large line of de Thornhills who intermarried with such luminous names as de Laci, de Eland and later Saviles.
4. A Richard of the Lee appears in the Court Rolls for Wakefield in 1317¹ as suing William Waterhouse. The Lee here according to Phillips and Keatman could be Kirklees.
5. The knight had to sell his goods to pay the abbott of St. Mary's in York 400 pounds which might indicate that there is a Yorkshire connection. Robin gives the payment to the knight who repays the abbott. Later Robin according to the ballad steals 800 pounds from the monks of St. Mary's. Robin according to the ballads had an uncle as a prior at York.
6. There is a place called Le Leghes in the graveship of Alverthorpe mentioned in the Wakefield Court Rolls for 1332⁶. Leghe is a common name occuring in the W.C.R.'s.
7. After the archery contest at Nottingham in the "Geste" the band flee to Sir Richard at The Lee's castle which is interpreted as being at Thornhill, West Yorkshire.
8. The Greenwode or Greenwood is an area in Calderdale between Heptonstall and Widdop. It is also a  surname popular in the area Greenwood - first recorded in 1275 possibly from Wyomarus de Greenwod who established his home at what is now Greenwood Lee in 1154 AD. A William of Grenewode is mentioned as holding land and tenements called Leyrynge - or Learings - at Heptonstall in 1439. The name is later recorded as Grenewod and Grenewodde.
See Midgley-Greenwood Arms combined 
A more recent South Yorkshire solution has emerged for the origin of the character, Sir Richard atte Lee, and seems more in keeping with what we know historically.
This person was Richard Foliot, d.1299, of Norton, Cowesby, Fenwick [Yorks.], Grimston & Wellow [Notts.] who at the beginning of Edward I's reign in 1272, sheltered Roger Godberd and Walter Ewyas from the Sheriff of Yorkshire. In 1263 he was granted permission to restock his Grimston Park property and a year later was permitted to crenellate the manor house here. In 1264, Richard had sided with Henry III serving in the king's army at the seige of Kenilworth [1266] and he helped to restore order in Nottighamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Richard Foliot held lands as a tenant of the De Laci family of Pontefract [Holt p98]. He was also a patron to St. Peter's Church at Kirk Smeaton, Yorkshire in 1238-9, 1270-1 and 1289. By 1268, he had been rewarded with a charter to hold a fair at Wellow [Wellhaugh] by Henry III. and during this time was granted arms of  "de goulz ung bend d'argent" [Roll of Arms Henry III] i.e. gules a bend argent.
Above the village of Wellow lies the site of Jordan Castle where a 'motte and bailey' manor house was once extant from the 1200's. The right to fortify the manor house was granted by  king Henry III to 'Richard Foliat' (father of Jordan after whom the castle was named) in 1263.
Molyneux-Smith  suggests that Foliot means 'greenleaf'* the name Little John gave as an alias and could well be the Geste author's attempt at using his knowledge of latin to 'create a name' for the ballad, A Lyttel Geste of Robyn Hode. *Feuille verte, from phyllo [leaf] and vert, a common  medieval word for standing [vertical] green trees.
J.C. Holt sees it as significant that the Foliots who held Fenwick, [Walden] Stubbs and Norton [Went Valley] before the Hastings family had other holdings on the eastern margin of Sherwood Forest [Grimston & Wellow Notts.] thus linking Sherwood with Barnsdale [if we recognise Barnsdale as that area west of the fenland between Doncaster and Pontefract].

The Foliots married into the Hastings and thereby Fenwick came into the hands of Sir Hugh Hastings d.1347. Sir Hugh was the son of a Competitor for the Scottish Crown, John I Hastings, the great-great grandson of Ada Ceann mhor De Huntingdon, third and youngest daughter of Earl David De Huntingdon and sister to Isabella De Huntingdon.

However, despite all these possible inspirations for the poor knight, there is a far better solution to the likely inspiration for Sir Richard of the Geste. He was a knight, he did reside in Yorkshire and he was a strong supporter,  'merry man' of the person who inspired the Robin Hood ballads, he has yet to be announced.