118 EPPING FOREST. 
Epping and Hainault Forests. It recommended the 
inclosure of the latter, where the Crown was the 
Lord of the Manor, and with respect to Epping Forest 
advised that it should be disafforested, and that the 
Crown should sell its forestal rights to the Lords of 
Manors. It accompanied this, however, with a recom- 
mendation that something should be done to preserve a 
portion of the Forest for the enjoyment and recreation 
of the public. In the following year a Royal Com- 
mission on the subject of the Crown Lands, presided 
over by the late Lord Portman, took a different view 
from that of Lord Duncan’s Committee. It emphatic- 
ally recommended that the Crown rights over Epping 
Forest should be defended, observing that no injustice 
would result from such a course to private owners, 
inasmuch as they held their lands under original 
grants from the Crown, with the full knowledge of the 
existence of such rights. 
Two years later the Legislature sanctioned a course in 
pursuance of the recommendations of Lord Duncan’s 
Committee, and opposed to those of Lord Portman’s Com- 
mission, by agreeing to a measure for the disafforesting of 
Hainault Forest. This Forest, like that of Epping, had 
been divided among several distinct Manors, some of 
which in very early times had been granted by the 
Crown to the Abbey of Barking. On the dissolution of 
the Abbey by Henry VIII., these Manors were re- 
tained by the Crown, and were not re-granted to private 
owners. A large part of Hainault Forest, therefore, 
was practically the property of the Crown, subject to 
