Lords Bushes throughout this period seems to have had a rather undistinguished
history, probably the people of Chigwell manor just getting on with their tasks of
pollarding and depasturing their animals as centuries old tradition demanded.
HISTORY 1700-1900
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were a period of mixed fortune for Lords
Bushes, as indeed they were for the rest of Epping Forest. The 19th century in particular
saw the declining interest of the Crown in the deer of Epping Forest, the red deer
disappeared and the fallow had declined almost to extinction by 1870 and illegal en-
closure, was widespread thoughout the Forest. Grazing and wood-cutting by the
commoners still continued and it was the attempted suppression of the commoners'
rights, through illegal enclosure, that caused the well-known events that led up to the
Epping Forest Act of 1878 (1).
Forest law during this period, particularly in the 19th century, seems to have been
rather slackly administered and illegal enclosure was not the only abuse recorded. In
1813 the Warden of the Forest, Mr Long Wellesley, consulted his forest officers as to the
nature of the prevailing abuses; they included illicit gravel extractions, turf removal,
felling of pollards, and deer poaching (26). When detected, these offences against the
vert and venison were presented before the court of attachment of the Royal Forest of
Waltham (held at the Kings Head, Chigwell until 1843) which was presided over by
verderers. Though having only extremely limited powers, its purpose was merely to
enquire of offences, but in a few cases it could order an enclosure to be taken down, or
confiscate weapons used in poaching. Conviction and sentence was left to the higher
courts (the swainmote and justice seat: the last justice seat appears to have been held for
Waltham Forest in 1670!) (26). The court records, the roll of the court of attachment,
record the presentments before the court and obliquely (through the minor offences and
occasional grant of a licence of one sort or another) tell us much about Lords Bushes at
this time (22).
From the mid-eighteenth century onwards a noticeable feature of the court records
is the number of licences granted, usually to the big landowners to "hunt, hawk, course,
sett and shoot" with of course the stipulation that the King's deer (red and fallow are
mentioned) were the excepted quarry. Remembering that Lords Bushes at this time were
situated in what was very much a rural area (see map 1.) it is certain that deer (probably
fallow deer) would have been present in Lords Bushes. In the mid-eighteenth century
Thomas North and his wife Mary, who resided at Monkham House, were presented
before the court of attachment for letting two brace of greyhounds chase the deer and for
"erecting a high pale round the said grove [Monkham] whereby the deer cannot have
free passage" (60). The Norths were also presented before the court on several occasions
between 1737 and 1757 for illicit felling in Monkham Grove (60), at that time and until
the end of the 18th century, licences were required even for such routine management of
woods that were outside but very close to the physical Forest (Rackham pers. comm.).
In 1809 and again in 1810 and 1813 George Bruhl (son of the Ambassador Ex-
traordinary of Saxony) who farmed Kings Place farm was presented before the court for
hedging and ditching across Kings Place Lane, near Lords Bushes, obstructing the then
well used lane. This lane in one direction connected with a route to Woodford and in the
other (via Squirrels Lane, over a ford on the Roding and up Luxborough Lane) led to
Chigwell and Woodford Bridge (2) and was then a main thoroughfare (the B170 Roding
Lane used today was not built until 1890) (71). The court roll states the lane had been
"free to passengers time out of mind" and the fact that neither horse nor cart could pass
the obstruction must have been a great inconvenience to local people, and as the court
pointed out was hindering the keepers in the execution of their duty, but they had to
agree that it was in no way infringing forest law, and reluctantly they could make no
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