MORE EPPING FOREST.
143
Esq for inclosing and stubbing up part of the Sale adjoining to his Fields also
for securing or making up the remainder of the fence round the cover called the
Sale so as to prevent the Deer passing the said cover."
Notwithstanding the efforts of the verderers to enforce the law
and prevent these encroachments on the open forest, money or Court
influence appears to have prevailed, and at a Court held on July 24th,
1797, a licence was entered on the Rolls to permit John Harman, of
Higham, in the parish of Walthamstow, to enclose the Sale, but not
so as to prevent the deer leaping over the fences, and with no rights
of building on the enclosed lands. The record is interesting, because
it shows that the lake forming part of the recent purchase is in reality
the Ching stream, artificially widened out, and also that the acquired
land is, in a sense, a restoration, it having been formerly land under
forestal rights. The record also determines the date of the forma-
tion of the "Driftway" :
The Licence gives power to John Harman, as Lord of the Manor of Higham
Hills or Higham Benstead, "to enclose and continue enclosed a piece of Ground
at the North Corner of the said Wood called Little Sale Wood containing about
sixty yards and no more one way and fifty yards and no more the other way lying
adjoining to and at the Head of a piece of Water made by the said John Harman
by widening an Old Brooke at or on the West side of his Lands called Hill Mead
and Flatt Mead for the purpose of planting only . . . (provided that no Cottage or
other Erection or Building was erected or built thereon or any part thereof). And
to make put or place down a Ditch or other sunken Fence in the long slip of
Ground situate on the West side of the said piece of Water such Ditch or
sunken Fence to run parallel and coextensive with the said piece of Water on the
West or outward side thereof leaving a passage on the outside of such fence One
Hundred feet in width at the least for the Deer and all persons having right
thereto to pass and repass through the said long slip of land. . . (Provided that
such last mentioned Fence was not made or constructed so as to hinder his
Majesty's Deer from passing and repassing to and from the said piece of Water
and to the said lands adjoining thereto called the Hill Mead and Flat Mead on
the East side thereof in such manner as they were before the granting the said
Licence by Law entitled to do but no farther or otherwise or was in any other
manner to the hindrance or prejudice of such Deer)." The Licence contained
other clauses sanctioning further enclosures, but always providing that "his
Majesty's Vert and Venison of the said Forest received no prejudice by the said
enclosures." [To the Licence there were attached plans showing the extent of the
enclosures ; it would be very interesting to examine these, if now in existence].
The Rolls contain no further reference to the Sale, and we can-
not therefore tell when the Lord of the Manor assumed full rights
over the property, but it must have been some time between 1848
and the sittings of the Epping Forest Commission.
The dedication of the land and water by the Duke of Connaught
(as Ranger of the forest), was made the occasion of a festival by the