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the fur being made into felt for hats.
In Epping Forest there is evidence of at least
five warrens. The best known of these are the
warren at High Beach (the very visible remains
of which are the pillow mounds apposite the
King's Oak public house), the warren (now the
Superintendent's office) at Loughton, and the
largest, the Aldersbrook Warren, in the
Wanstead area.
The High Beach warren was excavated by the
appropriately named S. Hazzledine Warren in the
Autumn of 1925, the results of this survey
being published in the Essex Naturalist, Vol.
21. He noted the mounds were honeycombed
with rabbit burrows which renders exact
archaeological investigation peculiarly
difficult'. He found no objects of medieval
date in the mounds and found difficulty in
believing them to be merely a structure for the
keeping of rabbits, and preferred rather
romantically to think that they represented the
sites of ancient funeral pyres:
The second warren at Loughton, now the Super-
intendent's office, was formerly a public house
called "The Reindeer". In 1804 John Allen,
the innkeeper, applied to Anne Whitaker, the
Lady of the Manor of Loughton, for an extension
of an existing lease on the grounds of the
public house including two hoppits (enclosures)
of ground, each of two acres containing
rabbits. The document is of interest since it
also mentions a warren house. The warren
house (or lodge) was the building from which a
warren was administered. By 1816 the tavern
and warren were in a very run— down state and