There are still many large old pollard trees left in the Forest, although their numbers decrease yearly.
Only recently an immense Beech pollard at High Beach with a girth of over 20 ft. was felled by
storm-force winds. Fortunately one nearby with a girth of 21 ft. 6 in. still stands (TQ 414986). Another
immense Beech occurs near Fairmead Bottom (Plate 20) at TQ 407964. This tree has a girth of just
over 24 ft. at 3 ft. above ground level. The tree is very gnarled and full of rot-holes - a fine habitat for
many invertebrates. I would guess such a tree could be in excess of 500 years old. Another interesting
group of Beech trees is to be found near the Wake Arms (TQ 427993). Here there is a group of 23
pollarded trunks, in all forming an oval 33 ft. across at its widest point. I suspect it is a Beech stool
that has grown outwards over many centuries of management. Other large Beech stools can be found
on the ramparts of Loughton Camp.
Secondary Woodland
The woodland component of Epping Forest can be considered to have gone through four phases.
1. A post-glacial phase following the retreat of the glaciers
2. The wildwood phase, a woodland thought to have been dominated by Small-leaved Lime, which
lasted for well over 3,000 years before the postulated rise of the wood-pasture.
3. The wood-pasture phase, thought to have arisen during the Saxon period. The wood-pasture phase
lasted until the passing of the Epping Forest Act of 1878 which effectively terminated the pollarding
of trees in the Forest.
4. The fourth, post-1878. phase has been characterised by much reduced levels of grazing and browsing
livestock in the Forest and tree growth unchecked by pollarding.
Epping Forest is regarded as principally an ancient woodland site. However, an increasingly
substantial part of the Forest's area is recognised by naturalists as being secondary woodland, a feature
which has important implications for many plant and animal species. Secondary woodland is an area
of woodland that has grown up relatively recently on ground that formerly supported another habitat.
In Epping Forest secondary woodland has arisen for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the main one is that
since the late 19th century the Conservators have removed many thousands of the old pollard trees
and thinned areas of woodland to create 'false high forest', an area of standard trees with no pollards.
Today these areas particularly where Beech is involved have the monotonous and floristically poor
quality of commercial Beech plantations. The second reason for the occurrence of secondary woodland
is due to 19th century enclosures. When an enclosure was made, sometimes the existing tree cover
(i.e. pollards) was removed and the land cultivated, but with the arbitrators' award was returned to
the Forest. In the intervening century trees have either colonised these sites or on some occasions have
been deliberately planted. An example of this is enclosure 369 on Warren Hill, which seems to have
a mixture of planted and naturally regenerating trees growing on ridge and furrow Another old
enclosure is that around the Little Goldings Hill Pond (enclosure 237) which is now a dense stand of
Sycamore trees with hundreds of small saplings beneath. Ivy carpets much of the ground here.
Sycamore and Ivy are good indicators of secondary woodland. Fairmead Bottom between Earls Path
and Manor Road is a mosaic of rectangular enclosures, many of which were returned to the Forest by
the arbitrators award or have, in the case of parts of Warren Hill, been bought back by the City of
London and returned to the Forest. On the map reproduced on page 49, enclosure 319, as an example,
today is without pollard trees but has numerous small Oaks with girths of 20-30 in., some Beech,
Common Hawthorn, a few large Sycamore with many saplings, and single large trees of Horse
Chestnut and Norway Maple (A. platanoides), the latter with a girth of just over 6 ft. A single Service
occurs in enclosure 318. It seems likely that many of the trees in these enclosures were planted as
they were in enclosure 369 on Warren Hill. A report to the Court of Common Council by the Epping
Forest Committee, dated 22nd January, 1885, mentions the experimental planting of large patches of
bare land at Piercing Hill, Theydon Bois and in 1892 a similar report mentions the trenching and
planting of ground near the Napier Arms at Woodford and at Strawberry Hill, Loughton.
Another source of secondary woodland is the large-scale clearance of woodland. The best recent
example of this is Lords Bushes in Buckhurst Hill, which suffered from fires during the drought year
of 1976. and as a result, much of the central part of the woodland was cleared of its Beech, Hornbeam.
Oak and Holly trees and this area is now covered by dense stands of Birch, some now 35 ft. high, and
Goat Willow.
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