A NEW FOREST OF WALTHAM. 25 



has been made by the Urban Council by permission of the Con- 

 servators. Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, Bart.,M.P., has erected 

 a handsome granite drinking-fountain near tlie Lodge at Ching- 

 ford. Finally, the old Tapestry in Queen Elizabeth's Lodge, 

 has been restored by the expert, M. Brignolas, at a cost of 

 ^132 3s., and the renovated pieces have been placed in prominent 

 positions in the Museum. 



The Forest is evidently making rapid progress, and a new 

 official map will soon be necessary to register the valuable 

 accretions and improvements of recent years. 



A NE^A^ FOREST OF WALTHAM. 



PRELIMINARY NOTICE. 

 (With Plates I., II., mid III.) 



POLITICAL Economy has been called the " dismal 

 science," and the pseudo-" scientific " views which 

 prevailed on social subjects in the dark ages of the middle of the 

 last century well justified the phrase. To sacrifice the nation's 

 most precious heritage of shady woods and breezy commons for 

 the sake of a few thousand pounds added to the Queen's 

 Exchequer, or to satisfy the restless craving for unallotted acres 

 of avaricious neighbouring landowners, were proceedings lauded 

 by professors of economics as gains worthy of long years of 

 Enclosure Acts and landlord-created Commissions. To these 

 erroneous views of a people's true wealth and happiness, we owe 

 the most regretful of all the 19th Century enclosures, that of the 

 beautiful division of Waltham Forest known as Hainhault. 



The disafforestation of Hainhault was accomplished by an Act 

 of Parliament passed in 1851. The legal " forest" then consisted 

 of 17,450 acres, of which about 4,000 acres were unenclosed and 

 subjects to rights of common ; 2,900 acres of the said 4,000 were 

 called King's Woods, in which the Crown had the right of the 

 soil and timber. Under a subsequent Act (1858) the Assistant 

 Commissioner allotted 1,877 acres ^^ form commons for the 

 parishes of Barking, Dagenham, Stapleford ^Abbots, Lambourne, 

 Chigwell, Woodford, and Navestock. 



It will be thus seen that although the action of the ill- 

 advisers of the Crown was bad enough, they had some saving 



