Fig. 3 Birch Grove - a detail from the Chapman and Andre map of 1777. The two woods to the
right are Red Oak and Gaunts Wood in the deer sanctuary at Theydon Bois
owner of nearby Birch Grove access to crop his wood. The 'ghost' of Birch Wood still survives: its
coppice stools have been destroyed, but the boundary bank still survives. The boundary bank that
exists today extends further than the outline of the Birch Grove shown on the Chapman and Andre
map and I suspect the wood was much more extensive at some time prior to 1777 (Fig. 3). The interior
of the wood lacks coppice stools and there is much secondary growth within the old boundary bank
of Hawthorn, Oak and Hornbeam. There are, however, some very large standard Beech trees with
girths in excess of 11 ft. Also of note is a single Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea) and also a single
Service tree. The woodbank has three large Ash pollards on it, Oak pollards, the stumps from some
huge English Elms at the eastern end (now with hundreds of suckers), a single Dogwood (Swida
sanguinea) and at the far western end of the boundary bank Midland Thorn and Service. Herbaceous
plants include Slender False-brome (Brachypodium sylvaticum). Hairy Brome (Bromus ramosus)
Giant Fescue (Festuca gigantea), Wood Melick (Melica uniflora) and Dog's Mercury; all typical
plants of coppiced woodland. Wood Millet (Milium effusum) and Three-nerved Sandwort (Moehringia
trinervia) are also to be found nearby.
Hatch Grove and Bluehouse Grove at Chingford are the two best preserved coppiced woodlands
currently under the jurisdiction of the conservators. Both these woods are marked on the 1735 Jared
Hill map of the Boothbys' (Friday Hill) Estate at Chingford. The two woods are shown separated by
a field called Hogg's Coate Field. This may refer to a pigshed, but elsewhere in Britain (i.e. Cumbria)
a hogg is a young sheep and it may have been a shelter for such animals (Blunden & Turner, 1985).
The separation of the woods (Fig 4) appears not to have been always the case, because the
woodbanks of the two woods are in fact one. The woodbank on the eastern edges of the two woods
is continuous across what was Hogg's Coate Field, which is now a playing field. The middle part of
the wood was obviously grubbed out at some stage prior to 1735. Other features of Hatch Grove
include Service Trees and a Hornbeam stub (small pollard) on the woodbank itself. The stools are
predominantly of Hornbeam in both woods, none of which have been cut recently and there is very
little ground vegetation beneath their dense canopy, with a very few standard Oaks. Some timber trees
were removed in the 1940s as part of the war effort. The plants found in and around the two woods
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