Flora, Fauna and the Changing Ecology of the Forest

It can be easy to imagine a great forest as static and permanent, but the rich history of Epping Forest is one of constant cycles of change.

Humans, animals and plants interact and coexist in a delicate balance, with shifts sometimes only revealing their impact many decades later. And understanding the value and complexity of these ecosystems helps us plan for the future.

Epping Forest has Europe’s largest single population of ancient beech pollarded trees 

Ancient pollards as vital habitats

At the end of the nineteenth century, there was the great public discussion and controversy about how the Forest should be managed. Some thinning and clearance of scrub occurred during the second half of the twentieth century, but management was comparatively light and intended to encourage a ‘natural-looking’ appearance.

This has meant that for over 100 years, in much of the Forest, the ancient pollarded trees that had been regularly cut every 12 to 18 years have been allowed to grow on unlopped and so eventually formed the familiar and characteristic high woodland we know today. Most of these veteran trees with their 50–60 feet high branches are now becoming weak and decayed. Disease and windstorms have reduced their numbers even more. The ecological value of these old pollards, and ancient woodland in general, has not always been fully recognised but they play a huge role in conserving little noticed but important forms of life, including fungi, mosses, lichens, insects and other invertebrates. These flora and fauna form a fundamental part of the interdependent communities of wildlife that exist in ancient woodland such as Epping Forest.

Ageing trees and changing climate

As the ancient custom of pollarding in Epping Forest mostly stopped around the same time, between 130 and 160 years ago, many of the trees are now of a similar age or condition and reaching the end of a woodland cycle together. This lack of age diversity and a changing climate may mean that quite a marked change is beginning to take place in the appearance of the Forest as so many trees all reach ‘old age’.

Considerable changes have already occurred. The particularly hot dry summers of 1975 and 1976 resulted in severe drought conditions that were followed in the next two decades by further years of high temperatures. In 1976, the drought resulted in severe and widespread fires that changed many areas dramatically. Two great windstorms, in 1987 and 1991, felled many trees creating further changes in the appearance of the woodland and the pattern of footpaths, glades and clearings.

A drawing by Henry Cole (1890s), probably illustrating the Fox Burrows badger sett soon after badgers were reintroduced there by Edward North Buxton in 1886.

Badger burrows

On the wooded hillside north of the open slope where the Green Ride crosses as it climbs out of Hangboy Slade, the sandy ground is honeycombed with burrows. This is often marked on maps as ‘Fox Burrows’, perhaps due to the foxes who also made use of the area. The extent of the network suggests there was a large colony of badgers here prior to the nineteenth century. According to Edward North Buxton, a prominent member of the Commons Preservation Society and once Verderer of the Forest, there were no badgers recorded in the Forest during much of the nineteenth century, but Buxton introduced several pairs in 1886 and a community of badgers occupied the site until the 1960s.

Rabbit netting in Epping Forest. London Illustrated News, 1850

Mysterious mounds

On the top of the slope in front of the car park at High Beach, there are around twenty long mounds of varying length. Some flints and odd pieces of pottery have been found there and so, for a long time, it was thought that they were perhaps Iron Age burial barrows. However, it is now generally accepted that they were constructed as rabbit warrens. There have been warrens in several places in Epping Forest from at least the late sixteenth century, constructed for rabbits that were valued for their meat and fur. The origin of the Iron Age pottery shards unearthed by the rabbits remains a mystery.

Landscaping by rabbits

In the second half of the twentieth century, the loss of grazing animals has contributed to major changes in the Forest. Rabbits were once very numerous in Epping Forest. At dusk and in the early morning, every plain or clearing, large or small, would be dotted with grazing rabbits that would quickly disappear into the bushy woodland edge as someone approached. These grassy clearings were comparatively stable features of the Forest.

The rabbit, almost wiped out in the Forest by myxomatosis during the late 1950s and early 1960s, is now reappearing in some places

From the late 1950s onwards that the rabbit population was devastated by the disease myxomatosis. From that time, seedling trees, shrubs and brambles began to rapidly invade the grasslands. Besides bramble and blackthorn, the grasslands were colonised by birch and oak trees. Without the rabbit population, the balance between trees and grass became destabilised. Rabbits are now beginning to return in quite large numbers and are creating closely nibbled ‘lawns’ that can be seen in several places.

Peartree Plain in April 1963. Loss of grazing by rabbits and deer has allowed a carpet of young birch seedlings to grow comparatively suddenly on a long established clearing

Peartree Plain in 1997. The birch trees are nearly 30 years old and the Plain has disappeared

Peartree Plain in May 2002. After restorative clearance work, rushes and brambles have now returned

Cattle in the Forest

The ‘right of pasture’ was one of the original common rights allowing cattle to graze in the large plains of Epping Forest. This was regulated by local people using a system of brand marks for each parish and each individual commoner. Unmarked animals were impounded an any other marking was illegal.

A cow on Yardley Hill in 1966, branded with the mark of the parish of Waltham Holy Cross

Commoner’s cattle drinking from Butler’s Pond in March 1965

There was conflict in the 1890s when regulations required a commoner to be a person who owned half an acre of open land, disqualifying most from access to grazing land. In the later part of the century, the danger of cattle on the roads and damage to gardens was a cause of public complaint. And in 1996, regulations were introduced at the outbreak of BSE disease and it ceased to be a viable proposition to graze cattle in the Forest.

Bearing in mind the historic role played by grazing rights in saving the Forest, and the ecological value of grazing as a means of management and vegetation control, conservators have since decided to positively encourage grazing again. In June 2002, a small herd of 12 English Longhorn cattle began grazing the woods and plains of the Forest between Chingford and High Beach.

It is planned to increase the grazed area and the number of animals. However, the large area on the west side of the B1393, between the Robin Hood and Wake Arms roundabouts is to be grazed and it is consequently considered necessary to fence the area and provide gates and cattle grids.

 Longhorn cattle now are wearing no fence collars that are controlled virtually to tell them where to go (or stay)

Nowadays, these free-ranging longhorn cattle are turned out to graze in the summer months at various grassland sites in Epping Forest, including Chingford Plain, Fairmead and the pollarded glades of Bury Wood. Small numbers of cattle are used to ‘spot graze’ other areas of grassland and heathland for a few weeks at a time. These cattle wear NoFence collars, a new technology enables the creation of virtual ‘compounds’, and the collars are informed by a computer in the office to tell the cattle where to go (or stay)!

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This article is based on material from Ken Hoy’s book Getting to Know Epping Forest, first published in 2002 with a new edition forthcoming edited by Judith Adams.

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