Some assignments, at least, are known to have been created by agreement between the lords of the
manors and the owners of ancient copyhold tenements. Within each manor there could be many such
assignments. In Waltham Holy Cross there were 32; in Dagenham 39. The assignments became a
permanent feature of certain parts of the Forest, the boundaries of the assignments being cut or marked
on trees or by the erection of boundary posts (EFA II p.31 (540)). In the case of assignments, unlike
customary wood, the wood from an assignment could be sold off the Forest. Sometimes assignments
were sold to people outside the Forest who were found to be doing much damage to the vert of the
Forest. In about 1786 (CAII p. 157) the attachment roll relates the abuses being carried out by such
persons and the court ordered that in ' ... any future Assignment of Wood, no part thereof shall be
carried away until the whole of such Assignment be fallen, and that if any other wood than such as
shall be assigned shall be cut or lopped or any speers (i.e. maiden) or Timber trees primed (i.e. turned
into a pollard) or any Pollards or Bushes stubbed up (i.e. grubbed) to despoil the covert for the King's
Deer, the woodward shall stop the carting ... of the wood so cut ... and any person or persons who
shall be found cutting or carrying away any Lops, Tops or Bushes without the Boundary of such
assignment shall be prosecuted as common Wood-stealers'.
Assignments were originally cut at the same time as customary wood, but later it seems that they
were to be defined before 29th January and cut and carried from the Forest between 1 st February and
5th April (Fisher. 1887) probably because the abuses outlined above interfered with the cropping of
wood by those with customary wood rights. For example, the individual cutting an assignment might
move into an area of pollard trees outside the boundary of the assignment and take wood belonging
to those with customary rights. The owner of an assignment would often employ a labourer to cut the
wood. Assignments varied greatly in size. Mr. Peter Mills of Sewardstone (EFA II p.4(45)) owned
three designated by the letters H. JB and VS which varied in size from about 2 acres to just over 6
acres. Another assignment owned by Mr. Charles Webster (tenant of Warlies. Upshire) was of 53 acres
(EFA II P.75( 1489-90)). In manors such as Sewardstone there were no common wood rights (EFA II
p.31(534)), wood was only cut on assignments. In other manors such as Loughton assignments
coexisted with customary rights (EFA VI p.92-94).
Mr. Frederick Salmon of Sewardstone regularly supplied many thousands of 'pimps', small bundles
of wood, to the House of Commons between 1851 and 1875. The wood was cut from his assignment
and also purchased from other assignment owners (EFA II p.33(563-593) and p.43-48(719-799)).
Salmon's assignment was about 10 acres and he cut about two acres every year, producing about
12,000 pimps per acre. Mention is also made of assignment wood as faggots being cut and sold to
fuel a baker's ovens at Waltham Abbey (EFA II p.6(101)) and to fuel the kilns of a brick and tile maker
(EFA II p.76(1497)). Wood was also sold from assignments as pea-sticks, stakes for hedging and
fencing and as heathers (= ethers) which were used to run in and out the tops of hedging stakes (EFA
IIp.79(1575)). Some material was also used in thatching (EFA II p.4(45)), probably as spars.
The pollard trees within an assignment were cut on a cyclical basis. Common wood was cut at will
wherever it was available to be cut. Great Monk Wood (98 acres) and Loughton Piece (7 acres) were
two areas of assigned woodland where it was not permitted to exercise common wood rights in
Loughton Manor. Great Monk Wood was last pollarded in the 1840s. The wood was divided into 10
sections, each of which was pollarded in successive years (EN VIII p.54). giving an interval of 10
years between each pollarding.
The quantity of wood from an assignment varied with the acreage and the density of pollards per
acre. Some wooded parts of the Forest in Loughton had only 130 trees to the acre, others had more
than 500. It was estimated that a pollard tree after 7 years' growth would produce about 7 faggots,
each faggot consisting of 5 or 6 pieces of wood, about 20 faggots forming what was termed a slid.
In the Epping Forest Arbitration proceedings of 1879 and 1880 various estimates are given for the
value of wood from assignments which varied because of the different numbers of pollard trees on
each assignment. The average number of pollard trees was probably around 300 per acre. An
assignment of 14 acres with the pollard regrowth cropped every 7 years (hence two acres cut annually)
would produce, from 600 pollards, about 4,200 faggots equalling 210 slids valued at about 10 shillings
per slid (=£105) which, after deductions for labour, cartage and rates left around £80 per annum profit
to its owner.
Trees were pollarded for customary wood over the winter months. On Loughton manor at least the
pollarding was preceded by some celebration with draughts of beer being drunk prior to the lopping
commencing just after the hour of midnight on the prescribed date. It is said that each lopper would
mark out an area with his first lopped boughs and would keep to that area for the five months or so
of the lopping period. The last pollarding in the Forest was in 1877 on Staples Hill, although
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