Waltham Forest was a royal forest that existed from around the time the Forest of Essex was disestablished in the 13th century. [1] After that Forest Law was focused on areas with higher concentrations of woodland than the sparsely wooded Forest of Essex ever had.
Forests were legal institutions introduced by the Normans to denote an area where the King or another magnate had the right to keep and hunt deer and make Forest Law. Initially there was a very weak correlation between the extent of the legal forest and what might be termed the 'physical forest', the often wooded Common Land areas where the deer lived. In later centuries there was a much stronger correlation – with Forest areas decreasing in extent to more closely align with wooded area. Eventually the word forest became synonymous with woodland.
The first known use of the name Waltham Forest is 1205 (in Medieval Latin) as foresta nostra prope Waltham, and the use of the name persisted, together with names for various parts of the forest, until the end of the seventeenth century. [2]
Waltham Forest was focused on the heavily wooded areas subsequently known as Epping Forest and Hainault Forest. Outside those areas woodland cover would have been modest, particularly near the Roding and Lea rivers.
Waltham Forest was bounded by the River Lea in the west and the originally Roman Romford Road (A118) in the south. It stretched north with boundaries in the Harlow area.
The modern London Borough of Waltham Forest, formed in 1965, was named after this institution.
The London Borough of Waltham Forest is an outer London borough formed in 1965 from the merger of the municipal boroughs of Leyton, Walthamstow and Chingford.
Epping Forest is a 2,400-hectare (5,900-acre) area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the London built-up area. South of Chingford the forest narrows, and forms a green corridor that extends deep into East London, as far as Forest Gate; the Forest's position gives rise to its nickname, the Cockney Paradise. It is the largest forest in London.
A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood, is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term forest in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the original medieval sense was closer to the modern idea of a "preserve" – i.e. land legally set aside for specific purposes such as royal hunting – with less emphasis on its composition. There are also differing and contextual interpretations in Continental Europe derived from the Carolingian and Merovingian legal systems.
Waltham Abbey is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest District of Essex, within the metropolitan and urban area of London, England, 13.5 miles (21.7 km) north-east of Charing Cross. It lies on the Greenwich Meridian, between the River Lea in the west and Epping Forest in the east, with large sections forming part of the Metropolitan Green Belt.
East London is the northeastern part of London, England, east of the ancient City of London and north of the River Thames as it begins to widen. East London developed as London's docklands and the primary industrial centre. The expansion of railways in the 19th century encouraged the eastward expansion of the East End of London and a proliferation of new suburbs. The industrial lands of East London are today an area of regeneration, which are well advanced in places such as Canary Wharf and ongoing elsewhere.
Leyton was a local government district in southwest Essex, England, from 1873 to 1965. It included the neighbourhoods of Leyton, Leytonstone and Cann Hall. It was suburban to London, forming part of the London postal district and Metropolitan Police District. It now forms the southernmost part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest in Greater London.
Hainault Forest was a large wooded area in the English counties of Essex and Greater London which was mostly destroyed after 1851. Popular outrage at the destruction of most of the forest was an important catalyst for the creation of the modern environmental movement.
Walthamstow Marshes, is a 36.7-hectare (91-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Walthamstow in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It was once an area of lammas land – common land used for growing crops and grazing cattle.
The River Ching is a tributary of the River Lea, flowing from Epping Forest, in southeast England.
Hatfield Forest is a 403.2-hectare (996-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Essex, three miles east of Bishop's Stortford. It is also a National Nature Reserve and a Nature Conservation Review site. It is owned and managed by the National Trust. A medieval warren in the forest is a Scheduled Monument.
Lea Bridge Road is a major through route in east London, across the Lea Valley from Clapton to Whipps Cross in Leyton. It forms part of the A104 road.
The A104 is an A road which runs from Islington Green in London to Epping in Essex, England.
Dagenham Brook is a minor tributary of the River Lea located in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, and the traditional eastern limit of Leyton Marshes.
Leyton Marsh is an open space in the Lower Lea Valley, located in Leyton in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.
The Cornmill Stream is a minor tributary of the River Lea in the English county of Essex.
The Forests of Mara and Mondrem were adjacent medieval forests in Cheshire, England, which in the 11th century extended to over 60 square miles (160 km2), stretching from the Mersey in the north almost to Nantwich in the south, and from the Gowy in the west to the Weaver in the east. Mara and Mondrem were a hunting forest of the Norman Earls of Chester, established soon after 1071 by the first earl, Hugh d'Avranches. They might earlier have been an Anglo-Saxon hunting forest. Game included wild boar, and red, fallow and roe deer.
Feckenham Forest was a royal forest, centred on the village of Feckenham, covering large parts of Worcestershire and west Warwickshire. It was not entirely wooded, nor entirely the property of the King. Rather, the King had legal rights over game, wood and grazing within the forest, and special courts imposed harsh penalties when these rights were violated. Courts and the forest gaol were located at Feckenham and executions took place at Gallows Green near Hanbury.
Essex is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the south, Greater London to the south-west, and Hertfordshire to the west. The largest settlement is Southend-on-Sea, and the county town is Chelmsford.
The Forest of Essex was a royal forest that existed from around 1100 and was disestablished in the 13th century.
Hawkwood is a 25-acre estate in North Chingford, London Borough of Waltham Forest, North East London, England. It is about nine miles from central London, in the fertile Lea Valley on the western edge of Epping Forest. In the 19th century it formed the grounds of a large Elizabethan-style Victorian mansion, seat of Richard Hodgson, lord of Chingford St. Pauls. The mansion became derelict after bomb damage in 1944 and was demolished in 1951. Part of the site is now a nature reserve, a special school has been built on another part, and a large part of the site is being used by OrganicLea, a workers' cooperative growing and selling food and providing horticultural training.
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