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THE PAST HISTORY OF THE FOREST OF
ESSEX.
By RUPERT COLES, B.A.
[Read 25th November, 1933.]
THE History of the Forest of Essex has been dealt with
from a legal aspect by Fisher, whilst many papers con-
cerned with the ecology of the Forest have appeared from
time to time in the Naturalist and kindred works. So far,
however, there seems to have been no reasoned discussion of the
extent of the Forest during the various historical periods. The
following account is intended to give some idea of its early boun-
daries and its shrinking extent during historical times; such an
attempt necessarily involving many suppositions, and, owing
to the lack of early documentary evidence, certainly containing
many errors. Nevertheless, this essay may provoke members
of the club whose practical knowledge of the Forest is un-
doubtedly considerable to give voice to theories which may
eradicate many of these errors.
Previous to Neolithic Times (c. 2500 b.c.), the very much
changed landscape, the difference in climate, and the paucity
of Pre-Neolithic finds make any statements regarding the
Forest so hypothetical as to be worthless. With the advent
of Neolithic Times, however, and the later Bronze Ages, Essex,
or the land later to be Essex, must have increasingly resembled
its present configuration. At this early period also, the climate
begins to approximate to conditions obtaining within the
county to-day. Furthermore, it was by these Neolithic and
Bronze Age peoples that the first primitive experiments in
agriculture were made in Essex. This great advance in the
history of the county provides us with some means of checking
any hypothetical woodland distribution. Agriculture would,
of course, imply permanent settlements of some kind; the
distribution of the settlement sites giving some information
regarding the lightness or otherwise of the early woodland cover-
ing of the county. We may fairly assume that prehistoric
settlement sites within an area denote a very light woodland
covering or its complete absence there in early times, since
the work required to clear forest of a sensible heaviness would
have been greatly beyond the means of a primitive people.
H