LOUGHTON AND DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER 172 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2007 Price 20p, free to members www.loughtonhistoricalsociety.org.uk It started on a sunny Sunday afternoon in November We hope all our members enjoyed the holiday season 1968 in the car park of the Wake Arms PH and arose and that 2007 is a pleasurable year, both for themselves from a remark by Sir William Addison. At that time and those dear to them. serious damage in the Forest caused by horse-riding Richard Morris certainly organised an absorbing was widespread and so many letters had appeared in series of talks for our 2006–2007 programme and we the local newspapers complaining about the damage look forward with much anticipation to the remaining that the Conservators were anxious to deal with the ones in the current season, taking us through to problem. They were considering taking powers to Thursday, 10 May. license and restrict horse-riding In response to an approach from Sir John Biggs- 150 years of the Loughton Railway Davison, MP for Epping Forest (following This event was celebrated at Loughton Station on 19 representations to him by horse-riders), the August 2006 from 10.00 to 16.00. The Society had a stall Superintendent, Alfred Qvist, arranged for a coach to be in the booking hall and brisk business was done all day at the Wake Arms car park at 2 pm on this Sunday selling our book, The Loughton Railway 150 Years On , as afternoon. The coach was to take The Superintendent, well as many other Society publications. There was the Verderers, Sir John and the horse-riding lively interest in what the Society does and quite a representatives and several people who had written number of discussions on the railway and other topics. complaining letters to the local paper, around the Forest to see whether any damage actually existed and how serious it was. The Superintendent asked me to direct the coach to the places where I knew damage could clearly be seen (as I had written to the local paper and regularly took Waltham Forest schoolchildren out into the Forest). Among the assembled people there was a strange difference in foot-wear. Many folk were wearing shoes and many others wearing ‘wellies’ . not surprisingly this dichotomy seemed to illustrate whether the wearer believed there was damage to be seen or not! After struggling through several areas of deep mud MP Sir John was ‘caught’ washing the mud off his shiny black shoes This incident reduced the tension between the two ‘sets of opinion’ when there was general laughter. The photograph shows Richard Morris and Ted Martin in He took it well! conversation with Julie Mackay who had contributed material to the However, as we left the woodland, embarrassment display featuring her grandfather, Percy William Howes (see and triumph became the two differing emotions Newsletter 170 ). experienced among the group, when a young horse- rider appeared riding across Fairmead Bottom in a restricted area well off the designated Ride. After visiting several other damaged areas the coach Early history of the Friends of finally returned us all to the Wake Arms. In the car park Epping Forest various people congregated around William Addison, the senior Verderer (later Sir William). KEN HOY In the discussion about what we had seen, William Addison expressed a desire to see the focus of opinion that was concerned about damage in the Forest [Extracted, with their kind permission, from an article by Ken organised into a body that could eventually represent Hoy in the Friends of Epping Forest Newsletter, Autumn all the users of the Forest. He privately expressed a 2006] view that as the Conservators wished to avoid 1 becoming involved in any conflict . but rather to ‘hold The Minister’s representative appointed to chair the the ring’, there would initially need to be a counter- meeting was Colonel Sir Arthur Noble. The meeting balancing pressure group of Forest users to that of the took place in the Council Offices in Loughton on 8 May organised horse-riders. Among the several individuals 1969 and included representatives of Essex County who formed this ‘car-park-group’ were John Haywood, Council, the Essex County Sports Association, the Lee from Woodford Green Athletic Club, Harold Lee from Valley Regional Park Association and the ‘interested the Orion Harriers, and John Greenwood (who said he parties’. Following visits to the Forest, the subsequent represented ‘a person who just walked his dog in the report from Sir Arthur concluded that excessive damage Forest’). Among the others were Misses Arnold and to the Forest floor was occurring. It recommended that Flack from the Ilford Ramblers, and Colin Lowson, an the Conservators continue to construct their system of art teacher who organised a painting group using the surfaced rides, and that they take powers to restrict Forest and myself – on behalf of the children attending riding where and when necessary to protect the Forest the two Waltham Forest Field Study Centres. and that a system of licensing and registration, A few evenings later these individuals and a few dependent upon accepting a ‘code of practice’, be others, met at the Suntrap Field Study Centre and it was introduced to identify riders. decided to proceed by forming an ad hoc committee to A further recommendation was that future problems call a wider representative meeting. It was proposed to should be solved by joint consultation between the begin by organising a meeting in Lopping Hall, inviting Epping Forest Committee (Conservators of the Forest) as many people as possible who were secretaries and and the Friends of Epping Forest, representing all users chairmen (in those days!) of local organisations who of the Forest. used the Forest and were likely to be affected and [Later, in 1973, the Friends of Epping Forest was re- concerned about the problem of damage to the formed on a ‘mass basis’ – individual membership rather than woodland floor. The Superintendent and the four a federated form.] Verderers were also invited to the meeting. Briefly its aims and objects were: Superintendent Alfred Qvist and Mrs Qvist and (a) To provide a consultative link between the Bernard Ward and William Addison (Verderers) administrators of Epping Forest and accepted the invitation and were present. members of the public who have at heart Thus a total of 27 people representing eleven the preservation of the Forest as defined in organisations met (perhaps appropriately) in the the Epping Forest Act 1878. historic Lopping Hall, Loughton, on 11 February 1969. (b) To promote measures likely to be of benefit Among the locally well-known signatures on the to Epping Forest and to take action against ‘attendance sheet’ were those of Roy McKenzie-Smith, measures which could be detrimental to it Miss Marjorie M Smith, Julie and Roger Small, Jean and/or impair the amenities it provides Usher, William Nursaw, R A Warren, John Greenwood (later these objects were slightly amended and Harold Lee. and amplified when we became a charity). In the discussion it was thought that an organisation [Lack of space dictates that details in the original article should be formed and initially consist of representatives dealing with the controversy and great public concern about of various interested societies and amenity bodies such the proposed orbital road that was to become the M25 are as those present, (and others that were suggested) – and excluded, but the interested reader can obtain the rest of the it should be organised in some ‘federated’ form and article from the Autumn issue of their Newsletter on the called the ‘Friends of Epping Forest’. FOEF website: From this inaugural meeting John Haywood agreed www.friendsofeppingforest.org.uk ] to serve as secretary and Ken Hoy as chairman. A Steering Committee of six was elected to prepare a Constitution, including Aims and Objects and Rules of The friendly Scots Guards of 1940 Membership. It was hardly by coincidence that also in November 1968 the Minister of Education & Science CHRIS POND had asked the Eastern Sports Council to comment on the conflict between the horse-riding interests and the [This piece results from a response to Chris Pond’s question Administrators of Epping Forest. The Conservators and in Newsletter 171 concerning the Scots Guards] the British Horse Society both agreed to accept the help of the Eastern Sports Council in finding a solution. Very After publication of the extract from Willie Whitelaw's soon afterwards, on 19 February 1969, I received a memoirs of being stationed in Loughton in 1940 with phone call from Miss Bradley, who was Secretary of the the Scots Guards, our member, Doug Butterfield, called Eastern Sports Council. She was organising a meeting me to add some details. between interested parties into the ‘problem of damage Doug grew up in Meadow Road, and was about 11 caused by horse-riding in the Forest’ . would the when the war broke out. He remembers the Scots newly formed Friends of Epping Forest be prepared to Guards being stationed in and around Loughton for attend? some 18 months. Their principal centres were Woolston 2 Hall (which later became the Epping Forest Country his trek 700 miles south to the British lines, undergoing Club), which was the HQ, Loughton Hall, and Rolls incredible adventures and severe hardship – it took six Park. They also occupied large houses in Palmerston months. Road, Buckhurst Hill, and, nearby, some brand new Poems and stories abound as before but this time a houses in Devon Close were also requisitioned. ‘Portrait gallery’ with portraits of two Literary Circle The soldiers obviously made an impression on members and poems to laud them.