Fig. A
boundary of the physical Forest. In the nearby Roding Valley at Loughton (Hanson, 1986), there is
still be to found an ancient landscape of flood meadows and hay meadows separated by their
species-rich hedgerows. In the not too distant past ancient coppiced woodland survived here too. A
look at a cross-section through the Epping Forest Ridge and Roding Valley area 200 years ago (Fig.
A) would have revealed an unbroken mosaic of habitats leading from the River Roding itself through
marsh, flood meadow, hay meadow, coppiced woodland, hedgerow, grassland, pollarded woodland
to heath, all intimately connected and most importantly, all managed.
Two hundred years on, all this has changed (Fig. B). Many of the meadows that once abutted the
Forest have been built on, creating a barrier between the wildlife habitats in the Roding Valley and
those in the Forest. Other meadows have been turned into species-poor, heavily mown grasslands.
Importantly, there is now relatively little management of the surviving Forest habitat, little grazing or
pollarding allowing dense, high Forest to develop and allowing trees to encroach the heath and grassy
plains. This vast inter-linked mosaic of habitats, each grading into the adjacent one, was important
for the diversity of plant and animal life in the Epping Forest area, the interface between habitats being
rich in plants and invertebrates.
Fig.B
The Epping Forest Act of 1878, Section 7 (3), states that 'The Conservators shall at all times as far
as possible preserve the natural aspect of the Forest ... and shall protect the timber and other trees,
pollards, shrubs, underwood, heather, gorse, turf and herbage growing on the Forest...' Guided by the
Epping Forest Committee, the Conservators have not always had this section of the Act at the heart
of their management policy. However, with time more positive management actions have taken place.
1991 has seen many of the Forest's grasslands cut and, more importantly, relatively large areas of
pollard trees re-cut (Plate 21).
Much of the conservation management that is undertaken in the Forest today is in isolated fragments.
The re-pollarding in Bury Woods is a classic example. It is an island of pollarded Hornbeams and
Oaks in a sea of unpollarded trees. There is a need for such areas, in particular where a single species
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