On Tuesday we completed our walk. 15 miles in 6.5 hours (7.5 if you count lunch hour). It was brisk and muddier than we ever expected it would be, but thoroughly enjoyable. We started at Manor Park station at 9am, with somewhat drizzly weather as we made our way through Wanstead Flats, originally a part of the Forest (at least its administration area), misty and with a few dog walkers, it felt as though John Clare could have been there, feeling melancholic.
The Centenary Walk, it turns out, is not signposted, and we were surprised at this. Apparently the locals want the Forest to remain as open and "wild" as possible, as some parts of the Forest have been made quite park-like. As someone who treads the nature/culture line I found this very interesting, as people don't always realise how much we construct our environment. It remained quite urban, and flat and open, for some time: houses, flats, roads (you can always hear traffic, wherever you are) being visible from our route. We took our timings from the Friends of Epping Forest website as they do the Centenary Walk every year and were chuffed that we were on time so far.
The Forest is very narrow in the south and although would have been more expansive in the past felt like it was trying to fit in amongst the houses and roads rather than the other way around. We made our way to Leyton Flats, still very open but with a few more trees about and some pathways had been created, officially/unofficially we weren't sure. There were white-topped signposts on our route which our companion, Stephen Pewsey, told us marked horse riding routes. If you weren't a local you would never have known. Tree coverage created archways over our pathways, creating avenues and occasionally shelter from the rain. The trees here were more expansive, having not to compete with others for light.
The Forest is very narrow in the south and although would have been more expansive in the past felt like it was trying to fit in amongst the houses and roads rather than the other way around. We made our way to Leyton Flats, still very open but with a few more trees about and some pathways had been created, officially/unofficially we weren't sure. There were white-topped signposts on our route which our companion, Stephen Pewsey, told us marked horse riding routes. If you weren't a local you would never have known. Tree coverage created archways over our pathways, creating avenues and occasionally shelter from the rain. The trees here were more expansive, having not to compete with others for light.
At 11am(ish) we arrived at Oak Hill and the Forest started to open up, trees were dotted about in clusters and last year leaves were underfoot. It was getting increasingly muddy, accompanied by satisfying squelching noises, and my shiny new walking boots were no longer. Another hour of negotiating muddy tracks (and a couple of falls!) and our aching limbs reached Whitehall Plain, where we meandered along the Ching (a stream pretending to be a river) and flagging headed for lunch at Butler's Retreat, next the the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge (which, apparently, has nothing to do with Queen Elizabeth I).
After lunch and much needed fuel the path got a lot drier. We were joined for a while by Peter Adams, one of the verderers of Epping Forest, a post from forest administration that William the Conqueror brought over form France. He had a wealth of knowledge about the Forest, as did Stephen, and we were so lucky to have this inside perspective as neither of us are from here. Cara got all these insights on the dictaphone and we plan on using them somehow. Again, we talked about how there is a disagreement in how the Forest should look, between the "wild" and the "park." Coincidently, the park-like areas around Butler's Retreat and Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge was where we saw most people.
Walking up behind Loughton you can see the evidence of "lopping," or pollarding, a practice where commoners would cut the trees just about head height to use the wood for timber, kindling and furniture making. It was mostly practised around Loughton and as the commoners didn't want to travel far (or carry the wood too far back) it is quite evident here, as you can see from the picture below. The Forest is full of oak, beech and hornbeam, as well as holly and the occasional silver birch. We saw green woodpeckers (or as it is uncommonly known as a yaffle because of the sound it makes) and robins, and talked about Jacob Epstein who painted 100 pictures of the tree of Epping Forest and lived at Loughton for some time.
Because the Forest hasn't been pollarded since the Epping Forest Act was passed in 1878, saving the Forest from enclosure, some of the trees have become, or are becoming, top-heavy as multiple branches grow from the trunk. This means that quite a lot of the trees are succumbing to this weight and falling down. Not good for the trees but great for insect life and fungus. To combat this pollarding has been reintroduced in some areas, not for the original reasons, but to save the trees and encourage re-growth around the Forest as the biodiversity can shrink in a worked forest. This was in evidence as we passed west of Theydon Bois. This became the norm for this part of the Forest, seeing more signs of human activity the closer we got to the M25. Bizarrely, the M25 runs underneath the Forest, to preserve a traditional cricket ground! I was surprised as my map told me we were on top of the motorway, but the only evidence was the traffic noise, on the other side it looked like we were in a quiet village in the middle of nowhere. At 4.30pm we reached Bell Common, Epping, thoroughly exhausted but proud of our achievement, especially me as the fall I took put my hips out! I would like to do it again someday, walking more along the west side of the Forest, skirting around High Beach. But for now we have plenty to think about, hundreds of photos, stories, ecologies and histories to ponder over as we prepare to move into Loughton Arts Centre.
Hannah
Hannah