History of Epping Forest and Wanstead Flats |
Epping Forest and Wanstead Flats at Wikipedia.
History of Wanstead Flats at Wanstead Wildlife.
The Epping Forest Act of 1878, which the Home Office intend casually to amend as an inconvenience to plans for policing during the Olympics, was the product of local resistance to enclosure during the 1850s and again in the early 1870s, including huge demonstrations on the Flats in 1871 that demolished illegally erected fencing and legal action in 1874. That resistance re-emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War, with the successful campaign by the Wanstead Flats Defence Committee against plans by West Ham Corporation to build new housing on the Flats.
This history is important, for it marks out Epping Forest and Wanstead Flats at its southernmost tip as far more than “waste land”. The special status of the forest as open space protected by Act of Parliament is widely recognised as an important part of London’s green space and has been designated as “heritage land” by Redbridge council, which has planning responsibilities for Wanstead Flats. This alone should have immediately ruled out the Flats as an option for the Metropolitan police’s “Briefing, Muster and Deployment Centre”. The Act of 1878, which places responsibility on the City of London Corporation as Conservators to manage the forest, including Wanstead Flats, as “unenclosed and unbuilt on as an open space for the recreation and enjoyment of the public”, did not include the words “unless this is inconvenient” and was intended to protect the environs of the forest from all — and any — attempt to treat it as little more than “empty space”.
In 1817 it had been proposed to remove the entire forest! In 1864, J. W. Maitland wanted to enclose some of his land. This was resisted by local people such as Thomas Willingale (1799–1870), who had traditional rights to “lop” branches of trees for winter firewood. In the 1870s the Corporation of London acquired enough land to give it rights under the then prevailing medieval law. This led to their being put in charge of protecting the forest under the Epping Forest Act.
Loughton and the preservation of Epping Forest in W. R. Powell (ed.), A History of the County of Essex, Volume 4: Ongar Hundred, 1956, pp. 114-116.
This area was subject to major housing development in the 1860s and 1870s. This may be seen as part the historical process of inclosure that happened in the 18th and 19th centuries, ie when landowners deprived common people of their traditional rights of grazing animals and collecting firewood in order to develop the land for agriculture and housing.
The 1865 and 1895 Ordinance Survey maps (which are included as appendices to the archaeological survey in the planning application for this muster site) demonstrate very clearly why this Act was needed. During this period the land between Leytonstone, Forest Gate and Wanstead went from being open fields to the street layout that we see today. Nowadays, the influx of people into London and the tendency to live in smaller households create relentless pressure to build houses on greenfield sites. The protection that the Epping Forest Act affords is therefore needed even more today than it was when it was passed.
The 1878 Act put the Corporation of the City of London in charge of Epping Forest as Conservators. The Act did not mince its words when it specified their responsibilities: Section 7 says
- Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Conservators shall at all times keep Epping Forest uninclosed and unbuilt on, as and open space for the recreation and enjoyment of the public; and they shall by all lawful means prevent, resist, and abate all future inclosures, encroachments, and buildings, and all attempts to inclose, encroach, or build on any part thereof, or to appropriate or use the same, or the soil, timber, or road thereof, or any part thereof, for any purpose inconsistent with the objects of this Act.
- Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Conservators shall not sell, demise, or otherwise alienate any part of the Forest, or concur in any sale, demise or other alienation therefor, or of any part thereof.
The Act appointed an Arbitrator (Sir Arthur Hobhouse Q.C.) to oversee the process whereby the Corporation was to buy up all the remainder of the land in the Forest. Most of the text of the Act therefore became obsolete when he completed this job in 1882. Section 7 is the only important part of the Act now: there are no “technical” clauses in it.
The Epping Forest Act states in unambiguous terms the will of Parliament, Queen Victoria, the Corporation of London and the people of the day that this area of open land should remain unenclosed and undeveloped in perpetuity. Ordinary people fought then for their rights to use this land for grazing and recreation. They continue to this day to defend the lungs of London.
The Corporation is the “local authority” for the City of London, ie the “Square Mile”, not for the metropolis, so Epping Forest is way outside their territory. However, they owned enough of the land to qualify as Commoners and fought numerous Court battles against landowners for the rights of common people. This is how they came to be appointed Conservators of the Forest and have since undertaken the care of many other open spaces in and around London.
According to the preamble of the 1878 Act,
The Corporation of London ... made great exertions to preserve the Forest as an open space for the recreation and enjoyment of the public, and for that purpose ... purchased and hold a large proportion of the waste lands and ... expended large sums of money, as well in those purchases as in the prosecution of the said suit and in the proceedings before the Commissioners, and otherwise.
On Saturday, 6 May 1882, Queen Victoria went by special train direct from Windsor to Chingford and then by carriage to High Beech, where the most extensive view of the beautiful scenery of the forest is to be obtained. At this point an amphitheatre was erected capable of holding 2,000 persons, and an address from the Corporation of London was presented to Her Majesty by the Lord Mayor. The Queen then formally declared Epping Forest dedicated to the free use and enjoyment of the public for all time.
PDF.
The 125th anniversary was celebrated by the then Superintendent with a guided walk following the Queen’s route.
It had been proposed to extend the railway that now terminates at Chingford as far as High Beech.
However, Chingord station is at a much higher level than the part of the Forest that the line would have had to cross, so an unsightly viaduct would have been necessary.
James Bryce defeated this proposal in Parliament.
The biggest threat that the Epping Forest Act and Wanstead Flats faced was the proposal to build houses there in 1946 for the people who had been bombed out during the war.
Nevertheless local people resisted the building proposals, the Corporation supported the people against the local authority and a public enquiry finally rejected the proposals.
There is a history of this campaign by Mark Gorman and a shorter one; an exhibition about it was held in Stratford in 2007–8.
The Flats had been used during WWII. I found the following other links but haven’t followed them up:
Hansard, 1947: John Maitland on the Town and Country Planning Bill.
Waterworks Corner is the junction of the A406 North Circular and the A104, to the east of Walthamstow. It is an extremely brutal spot (I have some photos) that is a bottleneck for anyone wanting to walk the length of Epping Forest.
Building of the roundabout itself was authorised by Section 4 of the Epping Forest (Waterworks Corner) Act 1968.
The Metropolitan Water Board Act 1967 swapped ownership of parts of the land that had been covered by the 1878 Act with some other land, in order to allow a reservoir to be built. Unfortunately, I am not clear whether this was the reservoir at Waterworks Corner, although this link says: “Plans and Sections - re. Service Reservoir, access way and conduits in Epping Forest in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.”
Going through Parliament at the same time as these two Bills was (what was to become) the City of London (Various Powers) Act 1967, which was debated in the Commons on 26 July 1967. This refers to a Clause 27 that was supposed to strengthen the powers of the Conservators to resist encroachments on the Forest, especially in the face of compulsory purchase powers of Ministers. This is not Section 27 of the Act, so maybe this Clause was defeated.
Section 27 of the City of London (Various Powers) Act 1967 allowed the Conservators to build a field study centre. Rather than using the current anti-democratic methods, on this occasion proper Parliamentary processes were used and the amendment clearly says “Notwithstanding Section 7 of the Epping Forest Act 1878”.
The Field Study Centre at High Beech was opened in 1971.
When the M25 (the orbital motorway around London) was being planned, it was proposed to cut off a portion of the Forest called Bell Common that is close to the town of Epping.
The Friends of Epping Forest were founded to oppose this development.
The motorway was enventually put into a tunnel under the common, which was fully restored.
Peter Brooke, MP for the City of London and Westminster South, spoke on this in the Commons on 6 March 1979. He summarised the history.
He also said that, “on agreeing to the dedication of lands for addition to minor roads radiating from the High Beech area, the Corporation made it a condition that the roads should not be used by larger vehicles. That condition was accepted by the Ministry of Transport and a weight restriction was imposed on the roads in or about 1966.”
Hasard, Lords, Nov 1979: building of the M25 - to go through a tunnel
Bell Common Tunnel from the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation.
The A12 links the M11 Motorway with the Blackwall Tunnel. It runs through Wanstead, Leytonstone and Leyton.
In order to build this, the whole of the southern tail of Epping Forest through Leytonstone and Leyton was taken by the Department of Transport.
On 15 May 1989, Harry Cohen MP reported in the Commons that he had tried to negotiate concessions. The parliamentary agents for the Corporation had described his requests as “peanuts” but the Department of Transport had said “no deal”.
These proposals caused severe planning blight through the centre of Leytonstone. When the houses along the Central Line were finally due for demolition in 1994, there was a very impressive display of civil disobedience.
Until BSE (Mad Cow Disease) in the mid 1990s, cattle roamed freely over Wanstead Flats.
Hansard, April 1962, Edward Redhead
Unfortunately, on this occasion the Corporation has forsaken the local people. Section 7(2) of the Act says that “the Conservators shall not sell, demise, or otherwise alienate any part of the Forest, or concur in any sale, demise or other alienation therefor, or of any part thereof”. But they have concurred with the Metropolitan Police to alienate a part of the Forest. They have done this under a threat of compulsory purchase that is barely concealed in a Home Office consultation document about amending the Act.
If the MPA proposal is allowed to go ahead (even in some modified form) then it will have taken part in ‘giving away’ a large part of Wanstead Flats. Such a decision will confirm what many local residents privately believe, that the land here is less important and that they are lesser citizens than residents who reside close to other parts of Epping Forest where such a proposed use of that land would never have been given any consideration.
But even if you dismiss this comment as being overly sensitive or just plain wrong, you must should see the danger to other parts of Epping Forest for the MPA inspired legislative changes heralds grave dangers to all open space. The nature of the changes that will be necessary to accommodate the MPA will mean that a ‘temporary use of land’ does not mean this one time and never again. The proposed changes make it possible for further use to be made of the land (with perhaps diminished scope by your planning department to govern what happens on the site) as and when the MPA or perhaps some other government body or department decide they would very much like to use it.
Redbridge Council’s Borough Wide Primary Policies Development Plan acknowledges Wanstead Flats as heritage land and that heritage is long indeed.
For over 500 years local people have fought to keep Epping Forest free and accessible for everyone and as representatives of local people now resident around these same lands and as partial custodians of that land, you must resist the attempt to remove it from the governance of the people.
This document was translated from LATEX by HEVEA.