The woodland flora of the Forest of Writtle and surrounding area
further 1340 swine, from which evidence Oliver Rackham has deduced that there were around
three thousand acres of continuous woodland in this area, the fourth or fifth largest concentration in
the county at that time. It is the surviving woodlands in these four ancient parishes that form the
principal subject of this flora.
The History of the Forest and adjoining woodlands
Writtle Forest was probably created in the late eleventh or early twelfth centuries as the first reference
to it is around 1150 when King Stephen made a grant of a hermitage "in my Forest of Writela." The
grant was to one Robert the Monk (who later became Prior of St John's Abbey, Colchester) and the
hermitage was situated in a clearing between Dccrsladc and Barrow Woods. At first known as
Bedemannesberg, the site was later renamed Monks-at-Barrow and has since been corrupted to
Monks and Barrows (Farm). In its heyday it was the residence of two monks who were paid four
pence a day pocket-money in return for which they had to "beseech the mercy of God for the
salvation of the King and the souls of past kings." Monarchs were often in need of such services in
those days, some of the things they got up to! (Newton 1970, p. 7). The Forest is the twin sister to
Hatfield Forest, both being compartmental Forests with a similar landscape of coppice-woods,
plains, pollards, and adjacent parks, purlieu woods, village greens and wood-pasture commons and
both had the same social fabric of Forestal, landowning and common-rights. Hatfield, though, is
situated on the chalky boulder clay while the principal woods at Writtle occupy a ridge of acidic
sands and gravels overlaying the London Clay (Rackham 1989).
The Great Park of Writtle is thought to have been founded some time prior to 1230. It is situated in
the midst of the eight springs (or compartments) which form the wooded part of the Forest; Great
and Little Edney Woods (plus Edney Common) laying to the east and Dccrsladc and Barrow Woods,
Ellis (formerly Hilly), Coppice (Copy), Birch and Parson's Springs (plus Highwood Common) to
the west. The two sets of woodland were once separate but are now linked by three coppices
planted in either the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries, namely, Park Pond Spring, Hockley
Shaw (see Plate 16) and Writtle Park Wood. Its 420 acres seem to have consisted largely of wood
pasture and may have been used as a device for corralling deer. Both it and the rest of the Forest
remained in royal hands until 1230 when Henry III leased the estate to the Bishop of Chichester.
Eight years later he bestowed the landowning rights of the Forest on Isabel the Bruce as a sop for
depriving her of half an earldom which her father had bequeathed her. Her son, Richard the Bruce
VI, created a second park of 334 acres around Horsfrith, in the northwest corner of Writtle Parish,
centred on a wood whose pedigree dates back to at least 1242. In 1306 Isabel's grandson, the
illustrious Robert The Bruce Vill, was crowned King of Scotland. This did not go down too well in
England (it was high treason) and his family were promptly deprived of their estates. The new
owner of the Forest, Edward II, bestowed it on his brother-in-law, Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of
Hereford and Essex in 1310 and the estate remained in the hands of this powerful and turbulent
family, with intermissions, (they also had a habit of committing high treason) until 1521, when
Henry VIII lost his patience and the third Duke of Buckingham lost both his estates and his head -
at more or less the same time (Newton 1970, p. 29-41). Impatience seems to have been Henry's
defining characteristic and when he finally lost his patience in 1539 - on this occasion with the
Catholic Church - the dissolution of the religious houses was the result. One of his ministers, Sir
William Petre, purchased most of the parish of Ingatestone at this time; an estate which had been in
the hands of Barking Abbey since 950, when King Edgar granted it to them, a remarkably precocious
act considering that he was only four years old at the time! In 1554 he added the Forest to his list of
properties and it has remained in the family until the present day (Wilde 1913 p. 10).
178
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 20 (2003)