ONGAR HUNDRED 



LOUGHTON 



It was with these views that Maitland proceeded to 

 inclose the forest within the manor of Loughton. He 

 owned the forest rights formerly held by the Crown 

 and there were ancient precedents in the court rolls of 

 the manor for the inclosure of forest waste." His 

 principal tenants welcomed inclosure. In 1864 they 

 agreed that the lord should have two-thirds of the 

 inclosed land and the commoners one-third.'^ Grants 

 of land or money were subsequently made to a number 

 of tenants of the manor in order to extinguish their 

 common rights. Maitland then inclosed some 1,000 

 acres of forest, started to drive roads through it and 

 sold some plots for building and other purposes. '^ 



The opposition to these inclosures will always be 

 associated with the Willingale family. The story has, 

 however, gathered some accretions of legend and the 

 whole truth is difficult to determine. The inhabitants 

 of Loughton had an ancient right of lopping wood from 

 the forest from 12 November each year until 23 April 

 following.'* They seem to have thought it necessary 

 for the preservation of their rights that lopping should 

 begin as the clock struck midnight on 1 1-12 November. 

 They met in the woods for the purposes, usually at 

 Staples Hill, and celebrated with a bonfire and beer- 

 drinking.' 5 The other forest parishes had also pos- 

 sessed lopping rights.'* At Theydon Bois there was a 

 lopping custom similar to that at Loughton. At 

 Waltham Abbey and Sewardstone the lopping rights 

 had been converted into fuel assignments attached to 

 certain tenements in those manors." A polemical tract 

 published in i860, at the beginning of the inclosure 

 controversy, claimed that the people of Waltham Abbey 

 had been deprived of their ancient lopping rights by 

 means of a 'general drunk and supper', on 1 1 November 

 1641 '. . . which was a snare' and caused them to forget 

 and so to lose those rights.' * The writer of the tract 

 stated that the same scheme was tried without success 

 at Loughton: 'although many accepted the supper 

 there given, an old man gave the signal, when he with 

 others at once proceeded to the forest and duly secured 

 their charter.'" These stories may have some value as 

 traditions explaining the different arrangements as to 

 lopping at Loughton and Waltham Abbey. Their 

 publication in i860 must have increased the suspicion 

 of the cottagers of Loughton that their rights were in 

 danger. It is significant that it is from the i86o's that 

 there comes the story that Thomas Willingale saved 

 the lopping rights in Loughton in a manner similar to 

 that described in the tract.^" Willingale is supposed to 

 have been one of the loppers who were entertained by 

 the lord of the manor to a supper on 1 1 November 1 860. 

 As midnight approached he 'rose up hastily from the 

 table, shouldered his axe, called to his fellows and went 

 out to lop as usual', thus 'defeating the lawyers'. There 

 is good evidence that he did something of this kind, in 

 the belief that the continued existence of the lopping 

 rights depended upon his action. But he has a more 



" Ibid. 54.7-8. 



" Ibid. 558. 



'3 Ibid. 561; Waller, Loughton, i, 107; 

 W. R. Fisher, Forest of Essex, 357. 



'♦ Fisher, Forest of Essex, 249 f. Rep, 

 of Eppiug Forest Com. H.C. 187, p. 4 

 (1877), xxvi. By the original custom 

 lopping began on All Saints Day (r 

 November) and ended on St. George's 

 Day (23 Apr.). In 1753 the opening date 

 was moved to 12 Nov. following the 

 national adjustment of the calendar. For 

 this custom see also below. Parish Govern- 

 ment and Poor Relief. 



249-50. 



." Fisher, Forest of Essex^ 



I' Ibid. 



" Ibid. 248, 251. 



'8 T. Maynard, Concise Hist, of Epping 

 Forest, 45. 



'» Ibid. 46. 



" E.R. xHii, 120, 182; xlii, 192. 



2' Essex Naturalist, xxi, 163. 



22 Ibid. " Ibid. 166. 



2"* Fisher, Forest of Essex, 358. 



" 34&35 Vict. c. 93 (1871). 



2^ The legal pretext for the intervention 

 of the City was its ownership of a small 

 area of land within the bounds of the 



serious claim to fame as one of the preservers of Epping 

 Forest. 



In December 1865 Thomas Willingale {c. 1793- 

 1870), a woodman by trade, was summoned by J. W. 

 Maitland before the Epping bench for injuring forest 

 trees in Loughton.^' The case was dismissed. In 

 March 1 866 Thomas's son Samuel Willingale ( 1 840— 

 191 1) with Samuel's cousins Alfred Willingale (1843- 

 1934) and William Higgins (1842-70) were sum- 

 moned at Waltham Abbey for a similar offence, and 

 fined. All three refused to pay the fines and took the 

 option of seven days' imprisonment.^^ In October 

 1866 old Thomas Willingale filed a suit in Chancery 

 against J. W. Maitland and others in support of the 

 lopping rights.^3 He was advised and financed by the 

 newly formed Commons Preservation Society, of which 

 the leading spirit was E. N. Buxton (1840-1924).^* 

 The case was never brought to a final hearing and lapsed 

 on WilHngale's death in 1870. Soon after this the first 

 Epping Forest Act^s set up a Royal Commission to 

 investigate the whole problem of the forest, and about 

 the same time the City of London started legal pro- 

 ceedings in defence of common rights throughout the 

 forest.^* In 1875 the Epping Forest Commissioners 

 made their preliminary report. They found that 

 inclosures made within the 20 years before 1871 were 

 illegal, since they contravened the rights of the com- 

 moners living in the forest parishes, and in some cases 

 also the rights of the Crown.^'^ In their final report 

 (1877) the commissioners specifically recognized the 

 lopping rights of the inhabitants of Loughton. ^^ Mean- 

 while, in 1876 the City of London had purchased from 

 J. W. Maitland the soil and the forest rights formerly 

 held by the Crown in 992 acres of the open waste of 

 the manor of Loughton.^' This was the whole area 

 inclosed in the i86o's within Loughton parish except 

 for land actually built upon. In their final report the 

 Forest Commissioners recommended that all the illegal 

 inclosures should be retained by their occupants on 

 payment of rent charges, but there was strong opposi- 

 tion to this proposal, led by George Burney, owner of 

 a small estate in Loughton. so The objectors removed 

 the fences of some of the inclosures and were largely 

 responsible for causing the government to disregard 

 the recommendation that the inclosures should remain. 



The forest question was finally settled by the Epping 

 Forest Act of 1 878. 3' This Act appointed the Corpora- 

 tion of the City of London to be Conservators of the 

 Forest, with the duty of keeping the forest as an open . 

 space for public recreation. All illegally inclosed lands, 

 except those actually built on, were to be thrown open. 

 The owners of waste lands not thrown open were to 

 pay for the quieting of their titles. The Conservators 

 were to buy up the lopping rights of Loughton. 



The forest was thus saved. The City of London paid 

 j^7,ooo for the extinction of the lopping rights and 

 with this money the Lopping Hall was built.^^ The 



forest near Ilford. 



2' Fisher, Forest of Essex, 366. 



2' Rep. of Epping Forest Com. (1877), 

 p. 4. 



^« Fisher, Forest of Essex, 367. Mait- 

 land received ^30,000: Speech of City 

 Solicitor before Epping Forest Com. Nov. 

 1876, p. 60. 



3° The 'Queen's Park' estate, which 

 was broken up for building in 1886: see 

 above, p. 112. 



" 41 & 42 Vict. c. 213 (priv. act); 

 Fisher, op. cit. 368—70. 



32 See'Social Life. 



115 



