small-scale, illicit lopping went on in the Forest well beyond 1878. Pictures of the pollarding in action
indicate that the loppers actually climbed on to the boiling of the tree (sometimes by ladder) and cut
the boughs from here. However, some trees were probably cut from ground-level with the
long-handled 'axe' traditionally associated with the Forest loppers. In 1880 one John Spicer, aged 78
years, on being asked if he still lopped replied. "1 cannot get my arms high enough to lop" (EFA VI
p.26). Trees were also cut in different ways. Beech trees were left with a leading shoot: Oak and
Hornbeam apparently not. The leaving of a leading shoot on Beech trees was apparently a necessary
practice (EN VIII p.54). Even today it is noticeable that re-pollarded Beeches in the Forest which have
had all their branches removed do not have a very good survival rate, in contrast to Oak and Hornbeam.
Trees were cut at differing intervals. Firewood would be cut at any time after about five years. On
assignments where the wood could be sold, it was cut after various intervals depending on the product
wanted - pea-sticks would be cut very early, wood required for stakes was left to grow on the trees
for several years. It always seems to have been taken care that very young sprouts of growth were not
cut off trees, only the larger regrowth.
Mention has so far been made of the lopped boughs as small items of use. There are many other
uses to which pollard trees were put. In 1673 an assessment was requested by the Crown of the pollard
trees in the Forest useful for ship timber. It was found that at least 500 loads were available 'in
Wallwood 300 loades, the trees beinge all pollards: in Kinges and Queens Grove 100 loades in spier
trees and Pollards: and 100 loades more in the pollardes in Hennalt (Hainault) to be carefully chosen,
because we suspect they may prove faulty' (Sharpe, 1986). The assessment is particularly interesting
because it states that the timber was to come from only Crown Woods within the legal Forest or from
the Hainault division of Waltham Forest because here the Crown owned the manorial as well as the
Forestal rights. In the Epping division the Crown only owned the Forestal rights. It also mentions
three Crown woods outside the physical forest of which Wallwood at Leytonstone appeared to have
a great number of pollard trees and not as one would have expected large numbers of coppice stools
with standard trees. In 1253 Henry III permitted the monks of Stratford to enclose and make a park
of their wood at Leyton called 'carpetune', later to become known as Wallwood (Fisher. 1887). This
direct enclosure from the Forest explains the presence of the pollard trees. In 1794 of 470 loads of
timber from Hainault Forest, 442 were accepted by Mr. Slade, the purveyor of the Navy for ship
building. The residue, about 28 loads, and the bark and lops and tops (the branches of the felled trees)
were sold, the proceeds of the sale being received by the Crown. The sale realised at least £312 for
the bark and £139 16s. Od. for the lops and tops (CA III p. 10). Such a quantity of oak bark was almost
certainly sold to leather tanners for curing hides.
Trees required for naval use were marked with a broad arrow; in 1715 there was a complaint by the
King's woodward that several spire trees (maidens) had been headed (topped) by local inhabitants
despite being marked with the broad arrow, such an action not destroying the tree but making it
substantially less useful as a timber tree and ultimately creating a pollard tree. The malefactors were
brought before the court and most were fined 4d. Some were excused in the words of the court roll
'excused being very poore' (CA I p.21).
In 1794 Joseph Carter (CA III p.7) of Sewardstone was presented before the Court of Attachments
for illicitly felling almost one hundred oak pollards on his assignment near Berry Lane End (Bury
Lane) and converting the wood to stack wood and spoke wood. There are other entries on the court
roll of pollards being felled and simply removed: 15 pollard trees from Hainault in 1728 being carted
off the Forest with a team of horses; 70 pollards being removed in the Walthamstow area of the Forest
in 1831 'on the west side of the new Road' in order to build a house. In 1834 a complaint was received
from the lord of the manor of Chigwell. Mr. Abdy. that excessive lopping had been carried out within
his manor (presumably Lords Bushes, part of Chigwell manor within the Epping division of the Forest)
by authority of the surveyor. Mr. Macadam for use in the construction of the Epping New Road. Mr.
Abdy was awarded £14 for 2.000 bundles of wood. Macadam was also required to desist from lopping
trees without the consent of the owner and to pay Mr. Abdy the sum of 6d. for each tree thus lopped
(Winstone, 1891).
Occasionally the removal of pollards was sanctioned by the Forest courts. In 1813 the Rector of
Loughton petitioned the Court of Attachments to permit the opening up of some Forest land in
Loughton to provide a potato ground for the relief of the poor in Loughton. The result was the potato
ground on Baldwins Hill. An entry in the attachment roll lists the following trees removed and sold
from the site.
20