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 forms a green corridor that extends deep into East London, as far as Forest Gate; the Forest's position gives rise to its nickname, the Cockney Paradise. 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 doorstep 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. This environmental milestone came at a cost, as the City of London's early conservators did not understand the human processes that shaped the forest and its ecosystems, and discontinued the practice of pollarding trees while allowing grazing to decline. This changed the character of the Forest and has led to reduced biodiversity. The modern Conservators are mindful of these historic errors but it is probably not possible to reverse the effects of this long interruption of historic management methods.
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.
The history of Epping Forest
Early history
The area that became Epping Forest has been continuously wooded since Neolithic times. Embankments of two Iron Age earthworks – Loughton Camp and Ambresbury Banks – 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.
Management of 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, meaning that 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 fourteenth century (possibly long before), 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. At that time the Forest extended slightly further south to the Romford Road in the Forest Gate area of West Ham; this is the originally Roman A118 road from Aldgate on the City of London wall to Stratford, Romford and Colchester (and also known as the Great Essex Road). There was a coppice woodland on the Romford Road called Hamfrith Wood (meaning the woodland belonging to the Ham area) until around 1700, and an area of plain called Hamfrith Waste which lasted into the mid-1800s.