local field hedges, line much of the old boundaries of the three Forests. Despite
their power of suckering, they have not invaded the Forests to the extent that
they often do in woodland (39), although there are seven carpinifolia pollards
just inside Wintry. The contrast between the farmland full of elms and the
Forests with hardly any is a convincing demonstration of the unintended in-
fluence of management on vegetation.
Plains
The earliest reference to a plain is in 1199, when the monks of Stratford
were allowed to send 960 sheep into "the pasture in the heath (bruerio) which
extends in length between the said Frith and Wlcomestoue" (5). The Frith is
Ham Frith, a private wood adjoining the Forest, which disappeared about 1700;
it was near the site of Forest Gate station (21). The heath between the Frith and
Walthamstow is therefore Leyton and Wanstead Flats, which are still with us;
later documents show them to have been almost treeless ever since.
A little later, at the other end of the Forest, Epping town was founded on
Epping Heath (61). In 1256 a hind was unlawfully killed on Ham Heath (6). In
1372 there was a fire on 40 acres of heath at Goudhursthulle in Hainault, near
the present Little Heath Hospital (10).
The sixteenth-century surveys of Hainault refer to at least 1000 modern
acres as lacking trees. In Epping Forest, the 1582 account of the Monk Woods
says that more than a quarter of their area "beareth no woode". The c.1590
view clearly shows "Honylane greene" and "fayrmeade" (i.e. Loughton
Fairmead). The 1212 Loughton survey divides the Forest, probably on a
misinterpretation of the local place-names, into 2000 acres of "Fairmead",
grazing land with only scattered trees, and 3000 acres of "High Wood" with
little grazing.
Chapman & Andre depict plains as covering about a fifth of Epping Forest,
a quarter of Hainault, and a third of Wintry.
Stability and change in vegetation
The Forests turn out to have been a remarkably stable ecosystem. As far as
we can tell they altered very little in 700 years. Plains and tree-land have been
present throughout history. In the middle ages there was probably rather less
tree-land than in later centuries, but the change was not great. Some individual
plains — Wanstead, Honeylane, the Fairmeads — are of great antiquity. There
was not a cycle of plains turning into tree-land and vice-versa which has been
suggested as the '' natural'' pattern of the Forest.
The Forests are a poor site for tree growth. Oaks, especially, grow slowly
and — particularly if pollarded — live long. Although it has few giant trees,
Epping has many pollards of great age: I have seen oak boilings only 50 in. in
girth with at least 350 annual rings. Despite its intensive management, the
Forest had the opportunity to provide (at least until modern air-pollution) the
continuity of ancient trees, with their dry bark and red-rotted heartwood, that
some lichens and many invertebrates require.
51