with Holly and Crab Apple, was designated 'special vert' and was usually kept for the deer and hence
usually not pollarded for customary wood. There is also at least one Crab pollard in the Forest.
However, it is a recent pollard created during conservation work on the margin of the Furze Ground.
Pollard Willows are also found in the Forest. I have seen old photographs of Wanstead Park
(RL.YW302 and 12675) with Crack Willows (Salix fragilis) thus treated. The trees were apparently
on the River Roding side of the Park. Other photographs in a book by Houghton Townley (facing page
206) published in 1910 show Willow Pollards in Epping Forest. A Crack Willow pollard still survives
by the little pond next to the Woodbine Public House on the Waltham Abbey Road.
White Willow (Salix alba) pollards occur in the Hatch Forest area. I suspect they are of
comparatively recent origin as are the 'municipal pollards' of Horse Chestnut (Aesculus
hippocastanum) that line the roadside green at Buckhurst Hill and Woodford planted about 1890-1900
and the London Plane (Platanus x hybrida) that border the roads in the Wanstead Flats area. In the
latter place a few rather nice Lime (Tilia x europaea) pollards also occur, bordering the northern part
of Centre Road. These are planted trees, perhaps originating at the same time as the Limes planted in
avenues across Bush Wood. The Centre Road Limes, however, seem to be very much larger specimens.
Pollard trees can turn up in the most unexpected places, mainly as the result of pre-1878 enclosures.
Surviving trees can indicate the former extent of the physical Forest. In St. John's Churchyard in
Buckhurst Hill there are some half dozen pollard trees (Oak and Hornbeam) dotted amongst the
headstones (Plate 24). An examination of the Chapman and Andre map of 1777 reveals that the land
was Forest at this time. Similarly Hornbeam and Oak pollards protrude from the pavement in Knighton
Lane, Buckhurst Hill for the same reason. Occasionally pollards are still to be seen in gardens. There
is a large Oak pollard in the garden of the 'Dragons' in Nursery Road in Loughton and just around
the corner near the bottom of Upper Park is an immense Oak pollard in front of some houses set back
from the road. Both these isolated trees are probably the results of pre-1777 enclosures from the Forest.
However, not all pollards are indicators of former ancient woodland. Some, such as a few fine trees
at Debden near the junction of Pyrles Lane with Rectory Lane, are remnants of a very ancient boundary
hedgerow as are other trees on the Debden estate.
The Importance of Pollard Trees to Nature Conservation
The woodland component of a wood-pasture system is of outstanding importance to wildlife
conservation in Britain. Areas such as Epping Forest, the New Forest and Windsor Forest may even
be important in a West European context (Harding and Rose, 1986). There appear to be few other
areas like these. They are important because of the organisms associated with the large, old, partly
decaying trees. Old pollard trees support various types of micro-habitat - among them rot-holes of
differing types, sap runs, peeling bark and decaying wood (found in the cavities of hollow pollards,
dead branches still attached to the tree, prostrate trunks of fallen trees and branches on the ground
beneath the tree). The foliage of the tree is also of great importance for many invertebrates. The trunk
of a pollard tree in a low pollution area provides home to numerous mosses, liverworts and particularly
lichens and even plants such as the Polypody Fern. Other important factors to be taken into account
are the long-established nature of the Forest: Epping Forest has enjoyed tree cover of one sort or
another for probably 7,000 years. Also there has been a healthy population of a variety of tree species
of all ages, although varying with the ebb and flow of differing intensities of pollarding and grazing
regimes. At times the aged but long-lived pollard trees must have dominated the tree age structure
with grazing checking regeneration, but there have always been trees in the Forest, the lack of
regenerating trees being made up for by the longevity of the pollards. The existence of numerous
pollard trees of different ages may explain the survival of a diversity of the rarer wood-feeding insects.
Beech trees are said to have the richest saproxylic Diptera fauna associated with them. It is somewhat
puzzling that Lime (Tilia cordata) which is thought to have dominated the Forest up to the
middle-Saxon period, is said to have a very poor associated fauna (Harding and Rose, 1986). Only
relatively recently has Beech come to dominate the Forest tree species.
Pollution has unfortunately removed the majority of lichen species from the old pollard trees in the
Forest, although with reduced levels of sulphur dioxide some species are making a come back. Many
mosses, too, have suffered, but Epping Forest still supports a good population of the moss Zygodon
forsteri (see p. 87), which seems to prefer the knobbly and gnarled exposed roots of the old pollard
Beeches in Great Monk Wood. Invertebrates have been less affected by pollution, but could well suffer
if the old pollard trees continue to be thinned or die naturally and are replaced by less ecologically
interesting standard trees. Mention has already been made of the diversity of micro-habitats found on
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