Fig. 3 Sight-lines from New Lodge (N), superimposed on the Ordnance Survey of 1870-1. Loughton
Fairmead is the area covered by the sight-lines; its eastern boundary, destroyed by recent
encroachments, is shown by a broken line. L: Little Standing. G: Great Standing. The fields to the
north of the Great Standing are on the site of Chingford Fairmead, now Chingford Plain. The
north-south road between L and N is modern.
Timber for the construction was to come from oaks out of the Forest, and the work was to be financed
from selling more oaks. W.C. Waller, publishing this document in 1901, thought it referred to a lodge
in Epping Forest, but that is not what it says. The text merely mentions the 'Forest of Essex'; the name
of the particular Essex Forest has inadvertently been omitted. The king did not own the oaks in Epping
Forest. The Forest would have to be one in which (1) there were timber oaks, (2) the king owned them,
(3) there was not a lodge already. Colchester Forest fulfils these conditions; Hainault is possible but
less likely. (The original document cannot now be traced.)
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