After visiting my baby Giant Sequoia in Epping Upland, I headed off to explore Epping Forest for the first time. I didn’t feel like this was the official launch of my project, rather just a little delve into my local surroundings. Therefore, I didn’t use the ATI to seek out a specific tree, but I did mark some of the trees I visited with What3words, in case I want to return.
Epping Forest is really fascinating because it’s the largest forest in London. The 5,900-acre ancient woodland extends from Epping in the North to Chingford, narrowing down into Forest Gate in East London. Designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, the forest contains areas of woodland, grassland, heath, streams, bogs and ponds and is managed by the City of London.
The forest has 55,000 ancient trees, more than any other single site in the United Kingdom and one of its unique features is that it’s home to over 50,000 ancient pollarded trees. Pollarding is a pruning system which involves removing of the upper branches of a tree to promote the growth of a dense head of foliage and branches. The pollarded trees in Epping Forest were cut back to the bolling, or permanent base of the pollard, every 13 years or so. However, they have not been cut since the passing of the Epping Forest Act in 1878, and have now grown massive crowns of thick, trunk-like branches with correspondingly large boles. This gives the trees an unusual appearance, not often found in other forests and often the weight of the branches cannot be supported by the parent tree, creating large amount of dead wood in the forest which in turn supports a number of rare species of fungi and invertebrates.
Another interesting thing about this forest is its set of byelaws; specifically that you are not allowed to forage. According to a guide I met on a recent foraging trip in Birmingham, he said that the forest became depleted of fungi due to ‘commercial foraging’ by London-based restaurants. It was actually quite lovely to see the undisturbed fungi flourishing across the forest floor.
Epping Forest is also rich in Beech trees and according to their website, 85% of the UK’s veteran beech pollards are found here. I managed to do some sketching but was surely not going to attempt to gather beech nut husks. I will have to keep an eye out on my walks through London.
