EPPING FOREST. 109 



into the Forest to feed upon acorns and beech-mast. 

 They had in many cases also the right of lopping 

 and pollarding the trees in the waste in the winter 

 months, for the supply of wood for fuel for their houses. 

 In some Manors these rights of cutting wood were 

 strictly regulated, and were called " assignments." In 

 the Manor of Loughton, it will be seen later that the 

 inhabitants generally claimed and exercised the custom 

 and right of lopping the trees for firewood. It is 

 probable that in early times similar customs had been 

 enjoj^ed by the inhabitants of other Manors, and that the 

 " assignments " were in some manner a substitute for 

 them. In most of these Manors there were also, till a 

 comparatively recent period, common fields, or common- 

 able land, such as have already been described. But 

 these were all inclosed early in the present century.* 



The origin of the Forest is lost in antiquity. It 

 was probably afforested long before the Norman 

 Conquest, for though no mention is made of it in 

 Domesday Book, yet the paucity of inhabitants in 

 these parts, as shown in that survey, tends to prove 

 that the district was uncultivated and covered with 

 timber. There are a few references to it in very early 

 charters, but the earliest description of it is the record 

 of a perambulation made immediately after the Charter 

 de Foresta, in the ninth year of Henry III., by which 



* Seven hundi-ed acres were inclosed in Cliigwell Manor ; 340 in 

 Chingford ; 534 in Epping ; 360 in Leyton ; 833 in Walthani and its 

 dependent Manors. These must all have been common fields, and 

 not wastes of Manors or Commons. 



