Epping Forest is a area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the London built-up area. South of Chingford, the forest narrows and becomes a green corridor extending deep into east London, as far as Forest Gate; the forest's position gives rise to its nickname, the Cockney Paradise.Brewer's Dictionary of London Phrase and Fable, Russ Willey, Chambers 2009 It is the largest forest in London.
It lies on a ridge between the valleys of the rivers Lea and Roding. It contains areas of woodland, grassland, heath, streams, bogs, and ponds, and its elevation and thin gravelly soil (the result of glaciation) historically made it less suitable for agriculture. The forest was historically managed as a common; the land was held by a number of local landowners who exercised economic rights over aspects such as timber, while local commoners had grazing and other rights. It was designated a royal forest, meaning that only the monarch had the right to hunt deer.
The extensive urban areas on the forest's edges bring many visitors to the forest, and cause a strain on the forest's ecology; however, local recreational users of the forest were crucial in saving the forest when it was threatened with enclosure and destruction in the late 19th century. The huge public outcry led the City of London Corporation to buy and so save the site in what was the first major success of the environmental movement in Europe – the corporation still owns the forest.
The forest gives its name to the Epping Forest local government district, which covers part of it, and to Forest School, a private school in Walthamstow towards the south of it.
History Early history
The area that became Epping Forest has been continuously wooded since Neolithic times. Embankments of two Iron Age hill forts – Loughton Camp and Ambresbury BanksELLIS, Peter Berresford 'A Guide to Early Celtic Remains in Britain.' London. Constable. 1991 – can be found in the woodland, but pollen profiles show that Iron Age occupation had no significant effect on woodland cover. The former small leaved lime (also known as pry or linden) dominated woodland permanently changed during the Anglo-Saxon period, possibly as a result of the selective cutting of trees. Today's beech-birch and oak-hornbeam-dominated forest may be the result of partial forest clearance in Saxon times.Baker, Moxey, Oxford 1978.
Management of the forest The area is thought to have been given legal status as a royal forest by Henry II in the 12th century. At the time, it was part of the much larger Forest of Essex, which covered nearly all of the county. The term "forest" was a legal term, meaning that Forest Law applied, so only the king had the right to hunt deer. The term did not mean the land was well wooded; the large majority of the Forest of Essex was agricultural land.
The Forest of Essex gradually shrank in size as land was removed from Forest Law, and it was replaced by a number of much smaller forests, including Waltham Forest (which gives its name to the modern London Borough of Waltham Forest. Waltham Forest was a legally defined area which included the areas later known as Epping Forest and Hainault Forest; the rest of the Waltham Forest area was only lightly wooded.
In physical terms (rather than legal terms), the forest is thought to have declined to something like its modern extent in the early 14th century (possibly long before).Woodlands, The New Naturalist Library, Oliver Rackham, p416 The Black Death reached England in 1348, leading to a huge decline in population, perhaps between a third and a half, which took away the pressure on woods and commons, leading to a very long period of stability in the area of these land uses in England.Woodlands, The New Naturalist Library, Oliver Rackham, p66 At that time, the forest extended slightly further south to the Romford Road in the Forest Gate area of West Ham; that is, the original Roman A118 road from Aldgate on the City of London wall to Stratford, Romford, and Colchester (and also known as the Great Essex Road). On the Romford Road lay a coppiced woodland called Hamfrith Wood (meaning the woodland belonging to the Ham area) until around 1700, as well as an area of plain called Hamfrith Waste, which lasted into the mid-1800s.The London Encyclopaedia, Weinreb and Hibbert, 1983
Most of Waltham Forest was later legally deforested (removed from Forest Law), leaving two smaller forests, Epping Forest and Hainault Forest, both of which continued to be very heavily wooded; no reduction in the physical area of woods and commons occurred. The name "Epping Forest" was first recorded in the 17th century.
Although the monarch held hunting and associated rights, the land was owned by a number of local landowners. It was managed as a common, where landowners benefitted from certain rights, while local commoners benefitted from common rights allowing them to gather firewood and foodstuffs, to graze livestock, and turn out pigs for mast. The landscape was primarily a mixture of wood pasture and open plains, rather than thick woodland, and both of these land-use types were grazed by cattle.
Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge In Tudor times, Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I may have hunted in the forest, though no documentary evidence has survived to prove it. In 1543, Henry commissioned a building, known as Great Standing, from which to view the chase at Chingford. The building was renovated in 1589 for Queen Elizabeth I and can still be seen today in Chingford. The building is now known as Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, and is open to the public. Another hunt standing now forms the core of the forest headquarters at The Warren, Loughton.British listed buildings – The Warren, Loughton Retrieved 10 September 2012
17th to 19th centuries
Following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, although the deer herd was restocked, royal hunting in the forest never recommenced. The forest was principally used as a source of shipbuilding timber for the Royal Navy, which was taken overland to Barking Creek and then floated in rafts to the Royal Dockyards at Woolwich and Deptford. This exploitation continued until about 1725, when all the suitable oak trees had been felled.Addison 1945, p. 110
The City of London maintained the ancient tradition of an Easter Monday stag hunt in the forest, but official participation ended in 1807, when the office of Master of the City Hounds was abolished. In 1827, huntsman of Sir William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley chased a forest stag as far as West Ham. The customary Easter Monday hunt was repeated annually by a large and rowdy crowd of ordinary London tradesmen and working people, who gathered at Fairmead Oak to chase a previously captured stag, which was released from a cart and usually escaped unharmed.Ramsey 1986, p. 70 The last of these hunts was in 1882, when it descended into a riot and had to be dispersed by the police.Layton 1985, p. 271
In the 1830s, the forest took its first significant harm in centuries when a new road, the Epping New Road, was built through the forest, to supplement pre-existing ancient roads. In 1830, civil engineer James Nicoll McAdam, the son of John Loudon McAdam, was engaged by a turnpike trust, the Epping and Ongar Highway Trust, to construct a road from Woodford Green to Epping through the heart of the forest, to avoid Goldings Hill on the old road through Loughton and shorten the distance by one mile. The Epping New Road, once part of the A11 and now part of the A104, was completed in 1834.Ramsey 1986, p. 112
With the arrival of railway stations in towns close to the forest from the 1850s, the working class people of East London began to use the forest for recreation on Sundays and public holidays, in ever increasing numbers.Haggar 2012, p. 83 Others arrived by horse-drawn omnibus, which could drive directly to popular spots like High Beach. On Whit Monday 1880, a parliamentary committee estimated that up to 400,000 people had visited Epping Forest on that day.Layton 1985, p. 272
Fighting enclosure
In the first decades of the 19th century, the Lord Warden of Epping Forest, William Long-Wellesley, acquiesced to the enclosure of of forest land, about a third of the remaining total, by the lords of the manors who held freeholds in the forest. The government was keen to enclose land for farming and building development and allowed the Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues to sell off further freeholds in the forest.Haggar 2012, pp. 83-84
In 1851 nearby Hainault Forest, where the Crown owned most of the land, was privatised (enclosed) and nearly all of the trees grubbed out to turn the area into poor-quality farmland. The modern conservation movement grew out of public disgust at the destruction of Hainault Forest and the need to protect its sister forest, Epping Forest.Woodlands, The New Naturalist Library, Oliver Rackham, p526 Epping Forest had fragmented ownership, which made enclosing it in the same way difficult, though individual landowners began to make encroachments.Woodlands, The New Naturalist Library, Oliver Rackham, p417 The urbanisation of nearby areas increased the forest's importance as an area of public recreation helped lead to the establishment of the Open Spaces Society in 1865, whose aim was to protect commons in and around London. The Mile End branch, founded in the February of that year, was particularly important in mobilising East End environmentalism.Spitalfields Life article https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/07/08/the-anniversary-of-saving-epping-forest/
By 1870, the unenclosed forest had shrunk to only . One landowner, Reverend John Whitaker Maitland, who had enclosed in his manor of Loughton, was engaged in a long running dispute with a commoner called Thomas Willingale and his family, who insisted on maintaining his right to lop trees in the forest, despite inducements offered for him to stop. The matter came to the public attention in 1866, when Willingale's son and two nephews were fined for damaging Maitland's trees, and were sent to prison for seven days when they refused to pay. Willingale was encouraged to continue the dispute by Edward Buxton and other members of the Commons Preservation Society, however a court action against Maitland lapsed in 1870 when Willingale died.Haggar 2012, pp. 85-90