Epping Forest

While our wonderful carers do all the hard and vital work your editor is locked down in leafy Chingford and ‘working’ from home.

It’s certainly a very trying experience and although I’m very good at occupying myself, and I’m comfortable with my own company, I am missing social contact. But in one way I’m very lucky.

If I go through my neighbours back garden I’m right in Epping Forest. So I can enjoy my daily exercise in this beautiful and fascinating part of the country without having to worry too much about social distancing.

I have got to know the forest quite well in the twelve years that I have lived here so I thought that if you wouldn’t mind indulging me I’ll do a little piece each week on a feature of the forest.

But for this week I’ll give you a little overview and a brief history of this glorious green space located only eleven miles northeast of central London.

Epping Forest is a 5,900 acre area of ancient woodland between Epping in Essex to the north, and Forest Gate in Greater London to the south. It straddles the border between London and Essex. It is a former royal forest and is managed by the City of London Corporation.

Much of it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation. The forest is approximately 12 miles long in the north-south direction, but no more than 2.5 miles from east to west at its widest point. It lies on a ridge between the valleys of the rivers Lea and Roding.

It contains areas of woodland, grassland, heath, rivers, bogs and ponds. The forest was given legal status as a royal forest by Henry the Second in the 12th century. This status allowed commoners to use the forest to gather wood and foodstuffs and to graze livestock but only the king was allowed to hunt there.

In Tudor times Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I probably hunted in the forest and Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge is open to the public these days (we will have a look at this next week). Over the centuries rich landowners gradually enclosed forest land and deprived the commoners of their grazing rights. Much of the original Forest was lost and there was a danger that it would disappear completely.

But in 1879 the Epping Forest Act was passed saving the forest from enclosure and halting the shrinkage this had caused. In 1882 Queen Victoria visited Chingford and declared “it gives me the greatest satisfaction to dedicate this beautiful forest to the use and enjoyment of my people for all time”.

Thus it became known as ‘the People’s Forest’. There are countless fascinating parts of the forest and hundreds of stories associated with it.

We will have a look at some of these in more detail over the coming weeks. My nephews particularly enjoy the ghostly tales!