ITS HISTORY.
5
Our business, however, lies chiefly with that
part known as Epping Forest, which, having been
divided by the Crown among many favoured per-
sons, descended from them, by patrimony or pur-
chase, to the eighteen lords of manors who held
them until they were recently acquired by the
Corporation of London.
For the proper understanding of the history of
the Forest it is desirable to divide it into three
periods, during which three distinct influences or
ideas prevailed as to the use to which it should
be put. During the first, which lasted at least
from pre-Norman times until the last century,
the maintenance of the sporting rights of the
sovereign was paramount, and to this every other
interest was subordinate. About the time that
this function of the Forest had lapsed by disuse,
though the right still existed, a new idea began to
lay hold of the public mind, and a very true one
within proper limits, that " he is a benefactor who
makes two blades of grass grow where one grew be-
fore," and that to bring waste land into cultivation
was a public duty. Subsequently the growth of
population forced upon the minds of far-sighted
people the new truth that fresh air and recreation
are not less necessary than food, and of peculiar
importance to those who live in great cities.
Each of these influences had a notable effect
on the Forest, and combined to make it what it
is. I propose to trace briefly the condition of
things during the three periods when these separate
currents of opinion prevailed.
The Norman kings, as well as their predecessors
and successors, were great hunters, and of one of
them—William the Conqueror—the Saxon Chron-