A cemetery purchase gave the City of London the legal key to save Epping Forest
In 1853 the City of London bought a farm near Epping Forest to build a cemetery. That quietly made the City a forest commoner, entitled to graze cattle there. When landowners fenced off the woods, the City sued on those grazing rights and won, rescuing the forest in what is called Europe's first major conservation victory.
Epping Forest covers about 2,400 hectares on a gravelly ridge between the Lea and Roding valleys, running from Epping down into east London. Its thin, glacier-laid soil made poor farmland, which helps explain why it has stayed wooded since Neolithic times. Henry II probably declared it royal forest in the 12th century, a legal label meaning only the king could hunt deer, not a description of dense trees. Local landowners held the ground, while commoners kept rights to graze animals, gather firewood and lop branches.
Pressure mounted in the 19th century. Around a third of the remaining forest was enclosed early in the century, and in 1851 neighbouring Hainault Forest was privatised and almost entirely grubbed up for farmland, a loss that shocked the public. Meanwhile railways brought East Enders out in huge numbers; a parliamentary committee reckoned up to 400,000 people visited on Whit Monday 1880. By 1870 only 3,500 acres remained unenclosed.
Resistance took many forms. A commoner named Thomas Willingale kept lopping trees in defiance of the Reverend John Maitland, who had fenced 1,100 acres, and his relatives went to prison for seven days rather than pay fines. In July 1871 roughly 30,000 protesters smashed new fences on Wanstead Flats. The City's lawsuit against 16 manorial lords ended in 1874 with the Master of the Rolls ruling every enclosure since 1851 illegal.
The outcome was stark: Epping lost only about 10 percent of its area to enclosure, against 92 percent at Hainault. The Epping Forest Act 1878 ended its royal status and bound the City to keep it open and unbuilt for public enjoyment. Lopping Hall in Loughton was built to compensate commoners for the rights they gave up.
Source: Epping Forest
