The establishment shares its name with HMS "Sherwood", the former USS "Rodgers", a transferred from the US Navy to the Royal Navy as part of the destroyers-for-bases deal in 1940. During the Second World War "Sherwood" served on convoy escort duty, in the hunt for the German cruiser "Admiral Scheer" following the attack on convoy HX 84 and in the hunt for the battleship "Bismarck". She was scrapped in 1945. The first naval reserve unit in Nottingham, a signals unit, was established in 1949 in the city centre; the unit relocated to Carrington Street in 1961.