The history of Epping Forest, except as a legal entity, is not well recorded.  Until relatively recent
times the vast majority of those who lived in the area had very limited literacy. When reading the small
number of documents available one needs to be aware of the perhaps prejudiced views of the authors and the
context within which they were written. These circumstances are fertile grounds for myths to arise and be
steadily modified over time. They can bear little if any connection with reality.

For example, while Dick Turpin undoubtedly lived in the area his exploits have been greatly embroidered and
many locations have been claimed for his 'cave'. On the other hand it is extremely doubtful that Queen Boudicca
ever came to Ambresbury Banks let alone the Forest. Other than to an historian these two colourful stories are
really quite harmless. Old myths can be reinforced and new ones started when people of a perceived status make
unguarded or wrong statements. A situation occurred recently when such a person said that "cattle are opening
up areas of thickened forest that had become inaccessible to walkers, riders and cyclists". The statement is
wrong in almost every respect, but it creates a myth that the Forest would become an impenetrable thicket if
it were not for the cattle and all the paraphernalia that would have to go with them in the 21st century. Let
us examine the situation.

There is a tendency to pigeon-hole or label things so that people can better understand them. This can be
dangerously misleading and one must appreciate that the Epping Forest is a special place and does not fit any
one hole. The Forest is not a Country Park or wood-pasture and, despite the huge importance of its natural history,
it is not a Nature Reserve. Neither should we consider it a collection of golf courses, football pitches,
woodland, etc. The whole is very much more than the sum of the various parts.

We cannot know what the Forest area was like in prehistoric times or even in the middle ages. If we could it
would be interesting in itself but not relevant to the situation in which we now find ourselves. There are some,
who ought to know better, who say that the Epping Forest is a royal hunting forest and has been managed as such
since the middle ages. To all intents and purposes it ceased to be one more than 400 years ago and as the Forest
Laws lapsed such management as there was became a case of partially controlling the amount of exploitation by
commoners and local landowners.

The amount of devastation caused by this reached its peak in the century before the passing of the Epping Forest
Act 1878 and in a strange way led to the Forest being saved. No doubt it was this that stimulated the draughtsmen
of the Act to require the Conservators to "maintain the natural aspect".

Discussion of these deceivingly simple words deserves more space than is available here and now.
Such areas as remained open, as grasslands or heaths, were predominantly those close to farms on the Forest's
edges where the grazing was intensive and where the cattle where often taken off the Forest each day. Graziers
had to have substantial acreages of land outside the Forest to feed their animals during the long autumn and
winter months. The cattle would have to vie with horses and deer for food at this time. Before the advent of
mined coal the principal use of the Forest for local people was probably as a source of fuel to provide warmth
and cook food. 

Grazing for what small number of cattle the locals had was of some value but the King's deer
were a confounded nuisance. Even when the population began to increase in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
the clearance of trees was done by a process of active felling. The urbanisation of the Forest boundaries
continued apace and the number of farms and cattle steadily declined. Clearly despite the many hundreds of
cattle that the commoners were putting out they continued to have very little if any impact on the density
of the woodlands.

In the early years of their tenure, following the passing of the Epping Forest Act in 1878, the Conservators
concentrated on drainage schemes, the thinning of large area of woodland and the removal of what were seen as
unsightly pollarded trees. Then, after the Second World War a more naturalistic approach was developed.
In the last 30 years the level of intervention has dramatically increased to recreate someone's perception of
what it was like in the middle ages. 

Regrettably there are fashions in countryside management as in all things and the Forest takes a very long time
to recover from each of them. 

There was no golden age in terms of management that we should try to copy even if we could. Perhaps the most
important thing that a Conservator needs to understand is that the Foresthas been subject to very substantial
changes in climate and economic and social pressures. Changes for the better in the Forest take place over a
very long timescale and attempts to ignore these pressures will be seen in the future as negative rather
than positive.

The opening up of so-called 'inaccessible' areas is being done with Conservators chainsaws and stump grinders
not with the small number of cattle that are now on the Forest or are proposed in the foreseeable future.
It is questionable whether cattle ever went into or spent much time in the woodland, and yet there are large
areas that are easily accessible without the wood-gang's and the cattle's intervention. In living memory cattle
rarely went into the wooded areas and sightings of them in the High Beach area were both rare and usually after
very dry summers. On these occasions the quality of the grass further south had deteriorated so much that they
were desperately searching for palatable food. Even so they found nothing to attract them and moved on. Commoners'
cattle have been one small element of the Forest for many hundreds of years. The benefits in terms of controlling
scrub and free grazing was directly related to the numbers involved, but until the 20th century it has for the
most part only been apparent to those with the keenest eye... or a vested interest. 

More recently most local people found the free ranging cattle at worst a nuisance, but one that they would
tolerate for the benefits to them of living close to the Forest. However, with the pressures of large amounts
of fast moving vehicular traffic the costs have been significantly increased in recent years and it is now
proposed that there should be more cattle grids and miles of fencing. The fact that there will be plenty of gates
and places to squeeze through the fences entirely misses the point. The unique wild and unconstrained character
of the Forest will be very substantially changed for the worse.

This is a very high price to pay and one that might only be accepted if there were commensurate benefits. Apart
from the rather shallow "isn't it lovely to see cows in the Forest" argument, can we really say that we can see
any benefits of substance?
Verderer Peter Adams



So please... Stop and Think... and if Peter's argument persuades you, then BEFORE July 13, 2007,
Follow this link to learn how YOU can let the Forest Authorities know that you
believe even more fencing would be a BAD idea for the Forest.