142 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
The Trees and Woodlands of Essex
BY C. H. A. ROBSON, Tree Warden, Essex County Council.
[Read 28 February, 1963]
The present-day woods and forests of Essex are all that
remain of the vast forest which at one time covered most
of the county, and it would certainly appear that all the
rich agricultural land was high forest in which oak and elm
predominated, whilst beech, hornbeam, ash, willow, poplar,
alder, sycamore, maple and birch grew in isolated groups or
large areas, dependent on the soil and elevation. Hardwood
trees today predominate, and before Man commenced
afforestation, there would be only hardwoods over most of
the county. Yew, occurring chiefly on calcareous soils,
would be the only softwood or conifer to be found, and the
only other evergreen tree would be holly. This complete
absence of conifers such as Scots pine and larch in the
natural flora has done much to strengthen the hand of the
planners and others who decry the planting of conifers in
this area, where they are not considered by them to be in
keeping with the landscape.
In Essex, with a total of over 1,000,000 acres, there are
today only between 30,000 and 40,000 acres of woodlands
and forests of all types, so that the tree-cover is about 3 per
cent, which is very low. When one considers that Epping
Forest alone, at the beginning of the 19th century, probably
extended to over 30,000 acres, the, magnitude of the
deforestation that has taken place during this period is
brought home very forcibly.
Woodlands of over five acres in extent, including forests,
today have an area of 31,000 acres. Of this total, 13,000
acres are forests such as Epping, Hainault, Hatfield, etc.,
3,000 acres consist of devastated woodland, 9,000 acres are
described as scrub, whilst only 4,000 acres of woodlands
exist as coppice-grown trees in a reasonable state of health.
The acreage of woods under five acres in extent might add