a large decaying stool in total spreading about 16 ft. across the boundary bank lying between a
small Ash pollard and a Butchers Broom. A shell of part of this stool was just managing to
produce a small shoot. There was a much smaller elm stool nearby still alive
I suspect trees in the Gilwell Lane area are also members of this group, although there are
numbers of small trees here which are possibly derived from suckers.
Lineage Elm?, Epping Forest 1989
Woodredon TQ 418997 Gilwell Lane TQ 383961
Epping Forest Elm Site Profiles
a) Gilwell Lane, Yardley Hill (TQ 384962)
Yardley Hill was added to the Forest by Edward North Buxton in 1899. Elm is abundant in
numbers and types at this, the most complex elm site in Epping Forest. I have already mentioned
the vast numbers of English Elm suckers in the nearby hedgerows of Yates Meadow and along
the margin of Gilwell Lane itself. In 1989 there are still the remains, huge trunks, of English
Elms in hedgerows in the vicinity. Probable East Anglian Elm occurs as suckers on the crown
of Yardley Hill and those of a possible Hybrid Elm. Another group of elms occurs on the margin
of Gilwell Lane (TQ 384962), an intermediate between Ulmus glabra and Ulmus minor: some
leaves are lightly scabrid, others are not. All the leaves have the glossy upper surface typical
of Lineage Elm. They may, however, be ordinary U. glabra x U. minor hybrids.
The most interesting feature of the whole complex is an ancient boundary bank with an
unusual array of trees, shrubs and plants of different kinds, most associated with ancient
woodland, including two types of elm. The boundary bank is hidden in a dense growth of
hawthorn scrub and other small maiden trees. In 1988/89 I plotted the trees and shrubs along
part of its length (see Fig.4 ).
The boundary bank is traceable, but it is difficult to do so because of the dense scrub. Not
on the diagram, but about fifty yards away, a Wych Elm occurs near a huge ivy-clad Ash pollard.
The boundary was obviously important at some time, but due to lack of management and
probably lack of browsing has become encroached with scrub, which has spread onto the
privately owned land to the north as well. The original boundary may be indicated by the barbed
wire nailed to the hollow Maple.
The trees and shrubs all occur on the one boundary bank. There is evidence a trackway
developed at some stage by the side of the boundary bank: it may originally have connected in
some way with the green lane at TQ 378961, which may have been a driftway for livestock.
The trees, I imagine including the elms, were either planted or were deliberately 'promoted'
from existing trees to define the boundary. Wild Service particularly, seems to be a feature of
boundary banks in the Epping Forest area; perhaps the presence of these trees has a meaning,
now lost. I have seen Service in Lords Bushes (Squirrels Lane), Lippitts Hill (Blind Lane),
Upshire (Rugged Lane) on boundary banks and on the boundary banks of Hatch Grove,
Chingford; Birch Grove, Theydon Bois and at Linders Field, Buckhurst Hill (the woodbank of
a now destroyed coppice wood). The history of the boundary bank would probably repay further
investigation.
b) Hatch Grove, Western Sewage Farm Site TQ 397934
The former sewage farm site now covered in nettles and coarse grasses is situated between Hatch
Grove, an old coppiced hornbeam woodland, and Woodford golf course. The sewage farm,
operated by Woodford Urban District Council, is not shown on the 1880 O.S. map, but appears
on the 1897 map with filter beds. It is shown, enlarged, on a 1914 revision (published 1920).
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