CHINGFORD, THE FOREST AND THE LODGE
The wooded landscape and its difficult heavy soils have
naturally been the dominating factors of Chingford's environment.
From the earliest times human settlement has been retarded and
Chingford thus remained a small rural community until the early
years of this century. But the forest attracted to the area the
special interest of the English monarchy, particularly the Tudors
and Stuarts, and it was this royal patronage which led to the
construction of the lodge. The Forest of Essex was a favoured
hunting-ground of England's sovereigns from at least the time of
Edward the Confessor and several lodges including the one at
Chingford were built within its bounds to service the royal sport.
We must not, in considering the forest in those days think entirely
in terms of close woodland or even the natural landscape as it is
today. The concept of the term 'forest' was legal and technical.
It applied to areas which were subject to the Forest Laws. The
object of these being to preserve such areas, in Manwood's defini-
tion1, as 'a certain territory of woody grounds and fruitful pastures
privileged for wild beasts and fowls of forest chase and warren to
rest and abide there in the safe protection of the King for his
delight and pleasure'. It is hardly necessary to improve on that
as a summary of the position which flowed directly from and
contributed to the social organisation of the realm. Such purposes
were enforced in the Forest Courts ; the Court of Attachments
(Woodmote), the Court of Swainmote and the Court of the Chief
Justice in Eyre.
Queen Elizabeth's Lodge played its full part in the life of
the forest area and was no doubt so named because of that
capricious royal lady's close associations with it though it was
certainly built by one of her Tudor predecessors. The Queen
herself, reputedly no mean shot with the crossbow, was passion-
ately fond of stag hunting which is believed to have been
introduced into England in the style of 'hunting at force'
by the Normans. This mode of the chase was practised by horse-
men with an accompanying pack of hounds and was not superceded
in popularity by fox-hunting until the beginning of the 19th
century. In Elizabeth's day there are accounts of a different
form of the hunt in which the forest lodges played a positive role.
This style of hunting involved driving the deer towards the
1Treatise of the Forest Laws—Manwood—1717.
2