THE PAST HISTORY OF THE FOREST OF ESSEX. 133
occurring near Hatfield and Broxted, whilst other parks and
woods are recorded in the district of Mistley and Bradfield.
Mention of both woods and heaths occurred in several parishes
surrounding the old Forest core to the south-west, where Royal
Forest existed until near the end of the last century.
These scattered parks and woodlands of the seventeenth
century were by then the only remains of the once widespread
Forest of Essex. In the following three hundred years the
scanty woodland of Essex underwent little change, many of the
parks and woodlands mentioned in 1638 being visible on the
present-day landscape. By 1866 well over 65 per cent. of the
acreage of the county was under arable farming, the major
part of the remaining land being given over to pasture land.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century the shrunken wood-
land area of Hainault and Epping Forest only accounts for 6,000
acres out of the County's total acreage of almost 1,000,000 acres.
And so the Forest of Essex has disappeared, yet its shadow
can still be seen on the face of the countryside. In 1866 the
bulk of the county, as we have previously mentioned, was
taken up by arable farming, but the fall of the wheat prices
in the seventies resulted in a great shrinkage of the arable area,
and by 1933 the outline of the old Forest may be traced on the
Land Utilisation map.9 The heavy London Clay of the south-
west appears as a region of copse, heath and pasture, whilst the
dryer eastern London Clay is almost entirely pasture. The
Boulder Clay to the north and west contains the bulk of the
arable land of the county, still fulfilling the function for which
it was sought for by early Saxon and Norman. The light soil
areas show a peculiar vegetation which is already evident in
1638. On these areas are to be found the bulk of the orchards
and some arable land, but the coarser, rougher parts are given
over to copse and plantation.
Thus the once scantily wooded areas of prehistoric times
now contain the largest proportion of woodland in the county,
and history has witnessed a complete inversion of the forested
areas.
9. Surveyed 1933 by the author. To be published 1934 by Ordnance Survey.