32 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



' Mr Longland, our chiefe Carpenter, will be sent down 

 this season to take care of this concerne, & the timber 

 brought down to Bawtrey, whom I desire you to converse 

 with in particulars w ch at this distance I can hardly deter- 

 mine, and beseech you to present with all advantage our 

 utmost sence of his Grace's Favour, of w ch also I am very 

 sensible, as becomes 



1 Your humble servant, 



O WREN."' 



B. Epping Forest. 



Of Epping Forest, the information immediately follow- 

 ing, as supplied by a chapter entitled The Forests of 

 Epping and Hainault, in the anonymous volume entitled 

 English Forests and Forest Trees, Historical, Legendary, 

 and Descriptive, published in 1853, already cited. 



" The once very extensive Forest of Epping was formerly 

 called the Forest of Essex, being the only forest in that 

 county, the whole of which was anciently comprehended 

 in it. By a charter of King John, confirmed by Edward 

 IV., all that part of the forest which lay to the north of 

 the highway from Stortford to Colchester (very distant 

 from the present boundaries) was disafforested. The 

 forest was further reduced by perambulation made in 

 the year 1640. The boundaries then settled include the 

 whole of eleven parishes, and parts of ten other parishes. 

 The extent of the forest is estimated at 60,000 acres, of 

 which 48,000 acres are calculated to be enclosed and 

 private property ; the remaining 12,000 acres are the 

 unenclosed wastes and woods. 



" As the extent of the forest became abridged, it was at 

 first called Waltham Forest ; but as the distance between 

 that town and its outskirts was gradually increased by the 

 forest-felling hatchet, it borrowed a name of a town more 

 immediately in its thick recesses, and called itself Epping. 



" As is common in ancient forests in the neighbourhood 

 of man's wants, the trees in many parts of this forest are 



