Epping Forest

The name "Epping Forest" was first recorded in the 17th century; prior to this it was part of the larger Waltham Forest (which gives its name to the present-day London Borough of Waltham Forest, which covers part of the modern forest).

The area that became known as Waltham and then as Epping Forest has been continuously forested since Neolithic times. Embankments of two Iron Age earthworks – Loughton Camp and Ambresbury Banks[5] – can be found in the woodland, but pollen profiles show that Iron Age occupation had no significant effect on the forest. The former lime/linden Tilia-dominated woodland was permanently altered during Saxon times by selective cutting of trees. Today's beech-birch and oak-hornbeam-dominated forest was the result of partial forest clearance in Saxon times.[6]

The forest is thought to have been given legal status as a royal forest by Henry II in the 12th century. This status allowed commoners to use the forest to gather firewood and foodstuffs, to graze livestock and turn out pigs for mast, but only the king was allowed to hunt there. "Forest" in the historical sense of royal forest meant an area of land reserved for royal hunting, where the forest laws applied, and did not imply that it was necessarily wooded.

Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, Chingford

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. There is another hunt standing, which now forms the core of the Forest HQ at the Warren, Loughton.[7]

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.[8]

The City of London maintained the ancient tradition of stag hunting in the forest, but the custom ended in 1807 when the office of Master of the City Hounds was abolished. In 1827, the huntsman of Sir William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley chased a forest stag as far as West Ham. Hunting thereafter continued only on Easter Monday, when a large crowd of ordinary tradesmen and working people gathered at Fairmead Oak to chase a previously captured stag, which was released from a cart and usually escaped unharmed.[9]

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, now part of the A104 was completed in 1834.[10]

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.[11]

In the first decades of the 19th century, the Lord Warden of Epping Forest, William Long-Wellesley, acquiesced to the the enclosure of 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) 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.[12] By 1870, the unenclosed forest had shrunk to only 3,500 acres (1,400 ha). One landowner, Reverend John Whitaker Maitland, who had enclosed 1,100 acres (450 ha) 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.[13]

In July 1871, a large crowd gathered on Wanstead Flats to protest about fences which had been erected there by Earl Cowley to enclose forest land; after the police had left, the fences were broken down and smashed. At this stage the City of London Corporation became involved, since in 1853, the City had purchased a farm at Manor Park for the construction of the City of London Cemetery; this made the City Corporation a forest commoner with the right to graze cattle in the forest.[14] In 1871, the City brought a suit against 16 of the lords of the forest manors, claiming that the enclosures impinged on their ancient grazing rights.[15] Following an appeal in 1874, a judgment by the Master of the Rolls, Sir George Jessel, ruled that all enclosures made since 1851 were illegal.[16] Subsequently, two acts of Parliament in 1871 and 1872 allowed the City to purchase the 19 forest manors.[17]

Under the terms of the Epping Forest Act 1878, the forest ceased to be a royal forest and was placed in the care of the City of London Corporation who act as Conservators. In addition, the Crown's right to venison was terminated, and pollarding was no longer allowed, although grazing rights continued. This act laid down a stipulation that the Conservators "shall at all times keep Epping Forest unenclosed and unbuilt on as an open space for the recreation and enjoyment of the people". In compensation for the loss of lopping rights, Lopping Hall in Loughton was built as a community building.[18]

Connaught Water, an ornamental lake of 8 acres (3.2 ha) named after the Duke of Connaught, the first forest ranger[19]

When Queen Victoria visited Chingford on 6 May 1882 she declared "It gives me the greatest satisfaction to dedicate this beautiful forest to the use and enjoyment of my people for all time" and it thus became "The People's Forest". The City of London Corporation still manages Epping Forest in strict conformity with the Epping Forest Act. This care is funded from 'City's Cash', the private funds of the Corporation rather than any money for its upkeep coming from local rates or taxes. The Conservators administer the forest from The Warren, modern offices built in the grounds of Grade II* listed Warren House, Loughton.[20] Warren House, formerly known as the Reindeer Inn, was built around a smaller hunt standing, known as the Little Standing. Its grounds were redesigned by Humphry Repton in the early 19th century.

Until the outbreak of BSE in 1996 commoners still exercised their right to graze cattle and every summer herds of cattle would roam freely in the southern part of the forest.[21][22] Cattle were reintroduced in 2001 but their movements are now more restricted to reduce conflict with traffic.[23] Commoners, who are people who live in a Forest parish and own 0.5 acres (0.20 ha) of land, can still register and graze cattle during the summer months.

The right to collect wood still exists but is rarely practised and is limited to "one faggot of dead or driftwood" per day per adult resident.[24]

Originally a barn built in the mid-19th century the Grade II listed building Butler's Retreat is one of the few remaining Victorian retreats within the forest. The building is adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge and takes its name from the 1891 occupier John Butler. Retreats originally served non-alcoholic refreshments as part of the Temperance movement. After closing in 2009 the building was refurbished by the City of London Corporation and re-opened as a café in 2012.[25]

On 12 July 2012 The Duke of Gloucester—the official Epping Forest Ranger—opened the View interpretation centre at Chingford. The building, a former Victorian coach house and stables,[26] together with Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge and Butler's Retreat form the Epping Forest Gateway.[27]

The fallow deer found in Epping Forest are of an unusual black colouration, perhaps descended from some black deer presented by King Christian IV of Denmark to James I in 1612, although there are earlier records of black deer in England before this date.[33] By 1878 when the Epping Forest Act gave the deer firm legal protection, poaching had reduced the herd to twelve does and one buck; however, numbers had recovered to around 200 by the start of the 20th century.[34] In 1954, it was noted that common lighter-brown fallow deer had begun to interbreed in the forest and some black examples were sent to Whipsnade Zoo to preserve this variety.[35] Subsequently, losses to traffic and dogs prompted the establishment of an enclosed deer sanctuary of 109 acres (44 ha) near Debden, to maintain a stock of deer which can be released back into the forest when the population levels become too low.[34]

Red deer were once found in Epping Forest, but the last survivors were rounded-up and taken to Windsor Great Park at the end of the 19th century. The last recorded sighting of roe deer in the forest was in 1920.[34] In recent decades, Reeves's muntjac have been reported in the southern part of the forest.[36] The announcement of licenced culling of fallow deer and muntjac in forest "buffer land" in 2016 was criticised by local residents but defended by environmentalists as necessary to prevent over-grazing of woodland undergrowth.[37]

Sculptor Jacob Epstein lived on the very edge of the forest for a quarter of a century at Baldwins Hill, Loughton. Epstein in his Autobiography (1955) says that he wanted his sculpture Visitation, now in the Tate Collection, to be sited overlooking the forest. In 1933, he exhibited 100 paintings of the forest, and continued to paint during the war. His gouache, an essay in green tints and textures, Pool – Epping Forest, of Baldwins Hill Pond, was exhibited in 1945. Many of his forest painting are in the Garman Ryan Collection at the New Art Gallery, Walsall

Elizabethan poets such as George Gascoigne and Thomas Lodge lived in and around the forest. The writer Lady Mary Wroth lived at Loughton Hall. Ben Jonson, best known for his satirical play The Alchemist, was a frequent visitor to the forest with George Chapman.[53]

In Daniel Defoe's novel A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), a group of Londoners try to escape the plague by settling in and around Epping Forest.

In the 18th century, Mary Wollstonecraft, writer, philosopher and feminist, spent the first five years of her life growing up in the forest.[54]

In the 19th century, the poet and humorist Thomas Hood published The Epping Hunt in 1829, about the rowdy annual Easter Monday deer hunt for Londoners which started at Buckhurst Hill. In 1832, Hood and his wife moved to the Lake House in Wanstead Park, which was later incorporated into the forest, and his 1838 novel Tylny Hall is set there.[55] Charles Dickens' novel Barnaby Rudge begins with a description of the forest in 1775.[56] Alfred, Lord Tennyson lived at Beech Hill House, High Beach, from 1837–1840, where he wrote parts of In Memoriam A.H.H.. Suffering from depression, he stayed as a guest at Dr. Martin Allen's asylum, where he would have encountered poet John Clare, whose behaviour became so erratic that he was removed to the asylum in 1837.[53] William Morris, artist, writer and socialist, was born in Walthamstow in 1834, and spent his early years in what was then rural Essex, close to the outlying sections of the forest.[57] Arthur Morrison, "the English Zola", lived successively at Chingford, Loughton, and High Beach in the forest, and – particularly in To London Town – the forest is used as a contrast to the East London deprivation he wrote about. Horace Newte, his contemporary and friend, lived at Loughton and Theydon Bois.

The poet Edward Thomas was posted to a temporary army camp at High Beach when he enlisted in the Artists' Rifles in 1915.[58] Although the conditions in the camp were squalid, Thomas enjoyed the forest and the following year moved with his wife to a cottage at Paul's Nursery,[59] close to High Beach.[60] One of his last poems, Out in the dark, was written at High Beach at Christmas 1916, shortly before he was killed in France.[61]

During the 20th century, several writers used the forest as a setting for their novels, including R. Austin Freeman's Jacob Street Mystery (1940), partly set at Loughton Camp. Dorothy L. Sayers' 1928 mystery Unnatural Death includes the discovery, in Epping Forest, of the body of a young woman possessing knowledge that could incriminate a murderer. The horror writer James Herbert used Epping Forest as the setting for his novel Lair (1979). In the book, a horde of Giant Black Rats establish a colony in the forest and embark on a murderous campaign against humans. Herbert mentions a now obscure legend attached to the forest – the legend of the white stag. Supposedly, the sighting of this animal is an omen of trouble and death. Natural historian and author Fred J Speakman lived at the Epping Forest Field Studies Centre, High Beach.[62] He wrote several books about the area, including A Poacher's Tale with Alfred T Curtis, a Waltham Abbey-born poacher,[63] and A Keeper's Tale, describing the life of forest keeper Sidney Butt.[64]

T E Lawrence owned an estate at Pole Hill, Chingford; this was added to the Forest in 1929 and Lawrence's hut re-erected in the Forest Headquarters at the Warren, Loughton, where it remains, largely forgotten, today.[65]

Actor and playwright Ken Campbell (1941–2008) lived in Loughton, adjacent to Epping Forest; his funeral took the form of a woodland burial in the forest.[66]

The song "The White Buck of Epping" by Sydney Carter (1957) refers to a sighting of (and subsequent hunt for) a white buck in the forest.[67]

A track on Genesis' 1973 album Selling England by the Pound is entitled "The Battle of Epping Forest", and refers to a real-life East End gang-fight.[68]

The interior of the gatefold sleeve of the progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer's third studio album Trilogy[69] features a photomontage showing multiple images of the band in the forest carpeted with autumn leaves.

The Paul McCartney and Wings album, London Town, includes the song, "Famous Groupies" (Paul McCartney) with the lyrics, "There was a lead guitarist / Who lived in Epping Forest / And all he ever wanted was to blow".[70]

The forest featured heavily in an episode of Living TV's Most Haunted Live over New Year 2003/2004 as the team, made up of Yvette Fielding and Derek Acorah, investigated the forest in the hope of discovering the spirit of Dick Turpin. The team got lost in the forest live on air, and a ranger was required to find them.[71]

In the British BBC soap opera screened in February 1999, EastEnders, fictional character Steve Owen (Martin Kemp) accidentally killed his stalker Saskia Duncan (Deborah-Sheridin Taylor). He later panicked and buried her body in the forest. It was discovered 10 months later.[72]

An episode of the BBC series New Tricks which was set in the forest was broadcast on 3 September 2013.[73]

In the episode "Day Trippers" of the Thames Television sitcom Robins's Nest, first broadcast on 27 November 1978, the main characters picnic in the forest.[74]

The forest was featured in the BBC programme Countryfile broadcast on 21 June 2020 presented by Anita Rani.[75]

Currently (2013) the forest has been used as a location in fourteen films[76] including the Black Knight sequence in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.[77]

• 1966 – Marian Hartley, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, was killed by Joseph Kiely, 20. Kiely dragged Hartley into the forest late at night, in the Chingford area, where he sexually assaulted her and strangled her, after she had been to a school dance.[81]
• 1970 – The bodies of Susan Blatchford (eleven years old) and Gary Hanlon (twelve years old) were discovered in a copse on Lippitts Hill, after they went missing from their homes in Enfield, north London, in March 1970. The case was to be known as the 'Babes in the Wood' murders. Thirty years later, Ronald Jebson, already serving a life sentence for the 1974 murder of eight-year-old Rosemary Papper, confessed to the murders.[82]
• 1981 – The thin decomposed 6 ft body of a white European man aged 30–40 was found in the undergrowth in the forest. He had a money belt containing English and Spanish money and wore a watch, costing approximately £40. The body remains unidentified[83]
• 1989 – Terence Gooderham, an accountant, and his girlfriend, Maxine Arnold, were both killed in a hit-man-style slaying whereby they were both shot with a double-barrelled shotgun.[84] Although unsolved, it has been reported in the press that James Moody, described as "Britain's most notorious hitman",[85] may have been responsible for the killings,[86] although he was also murdered a few years later. It has been further suggested in the press that Gooderham was targeted because he creamed off £250,000 in drugs money that he was involved in laundering and that the hit was ordered by the Adams Family criminal organisation,[87] which is also known as the Clerkenwell crime syndicate.[88]
• 1990 – Patricia Parsons, who ran a massage parlour, was found dead in her car having been shot in the head with a cross-bow. It was suggested that she had a 'black book' of clients and was subject to a contract killing following the possibility that she was going to sell details to a newspaper. The murder remains unsolved.[89][90][91]
• 2000 – Wendy Woodhouse, 31, was taken to forest in Essex, stripped, tortured and beaten to death with a snooker cue by two men who thought she had cheated them in a drugs deal. Courtney Peters, 28, an illegal immigrant from Jamaica, and Ewing Thomas, 25, of Stoke Newington, north London, were jailed for life for her murder at the Old Bailey.[92][93]
• 2004 – The remains of Ivor Willis, who had been missing for two years, were found on Wanstead Flats.[94]
• 2004 – The body of a person aged 40 years or more was found in the forest. Experts could not identify the person's sex as the body was believed to have been there for up to 20 years. The body remains unidentified.[95]
• 2005 – Shah Afruj Ali, 40, was lured to the forest and stabbed, before his body was burnt by his younger lover Joygun Nessa, 27, and her brother Azhor Khan, 18, in 2005.[96]
• 2005 – Rafal Czapczyk was found, after passers-by heard gunshots, with ballistic wounds to his head at Wake Arms. He died later in hospital. The body remained unidentified for several months until his family in Poland recognised mortuary pictures that had been released by police. It is not believed that his killers have been found.[97]
• 2015 – Scotland Yard launched a murder inquiry after the body of Hidir Aksakal was found close to Hollow Ponds, Leytonstone, on 9 September 2015.[98]