104 EPPING FOREST. 
there are open spaces of heath or grass. The trees 
are for the most part of hornbeam, beech, and oak, 
which have from early times been pollarded, and 
which were lopped for firewood during the winter 
months, for the benefit either of the Commoners or 
of the inhabitants of certain districts, in a manner 
greatly interfering with their growth and beauty. 
But there are several groves of fine beech trees to 
which this process has fortunately not been applied, 
and some well-grown oaks near to Queen Elizabeth’s 
Lodge. 
The Forest was in olden times a part of the much 
wider range of Waltham Forest, a district which ex- 
tended over 60,000 acres in Essex, to which Manwood’s 
definition of a royal forest applied: “a territory of woody 
grounds and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts, 
and fowls of forest chase and warren, to rest and abide 
there in the safe protection of the King, for his delight 
and pleasure.” This wide district was not all un- 
inclosed land or waste. Probably not more than one- 
fourth or one-fifth of its area, even in very early times, 
was in this condition. The remainder was either 
cultivated land or inclosed woodlands, and was forest 
only in the sense that the forest laws applied to the 
whole of its area. These laws were framed with a view 
to sustain the exclusive right of the Sovereign to sport 
over a wide district. No fences within it could be 
maintained high enough to keep out a doe with her 
fawn; the farmers were not allowed to drive the deer 
from their crops, on which they fattened ; no buildings 
