My Adventures 3: Butlers Retreat

So I decided a quick local walk is what was needed today, so a short 25 minute drive saw me parking up in the free car park opposite the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge on Rangers Road,Chingford E4 7QH.

Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge is a Grade II* listed former hunting lodge, on the edge of Epping Forest.

In 1542, Henry VIII commissioned the building, then known as Great Standing, from which to view the deer chase at Chingford; it was completed in 1543. The building was renovated in 1589 for Queen Elizabeth I. The former lodge, now a th

ree-storey building, has been extensively restoredand is now a museum, which has been managed by the City of London Corporation since 1960. Admission is free.

This is a Tudor hunting stand, built for King Henry VIII (the staircase is so wide as he had to be carried up it) so he could watch the hunting in the forest and shoot the odd arrow. Later the sides were covered and it became the building that we see now. It was massively and quite erroneously 'restored' by Victorians, who turned it into a black and white striped chocolate box picture. These 'improvements' were removed a few years back, and the exterior covered in thick authentic lime wash making it look white and ordinary,next to its fabulously mock-Tudor neighbour the Royal Forest. Now the beams are starting to show again like ghosts from the past.

The lodge has a various exhibits, including dressing up for the kids, and a mock-up of an Elizabethan feast complete with boars head. You can't eat it, but the pub next door does food. It's free to enter but only open weekends in winter.

View from the Hunting Lodge looking over the Chingford Plain

I walk along the road passing Butlers Retreat. A beautifully restored Essex Barn serving a mixture of hearty dishes and healthy salads alongside the wonderful coffee and cakes.

An old Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough

I walk across the plain passing a small unnamed pond, that offers free fishing though this is a little shallow for any proper fishing I suspect.

After a short while I enter some trees before emerging by Connaught Water.

Connaught Water is one of the most popular lakes to walk around in Epping Forest, largely because of the range of wildlife that lives here.

Connaught Water is also popular with anglers and bird watchers, as large numbers of ducks and geese winter on the lake, and swans, geese, great crested grebes and ducks all breed here.

I head off along a path after a short walk around Connaught Water towards Fairmead Bottom. En-route they were doing some tree pollarding, amazing the work involved in looking after Epping Forest.

Dick Turpin's first kill was probably a man named Thomas Morris whom he killed on May 4, 1735. Morris was a servant of Henry Thomson, one of the keepers of Epping Forest, and during a routine walkabout of the forest Morris accidentally came across Turpin at Fairmead Bottom, near Loughton. Morris tried to apprehend him (there was a big reward for Turpin's capture at the time) but was immediately shot by Turpin.

Once again Turpin took to his heels, only this time with a far greater crime on his hands than theft. Despite the high risk of capture, Turpin visited his estranged wife who was now living in Hertford, possibly suspecting (accurately, as it turned out) that he would never see her again. Turpin was indeed nearly caught and only very narrowly avoided capture at this point.

I now reach the Original Teahut at the top of Fairmead Bottom. Where I stopped for a cup of coffee, not the best I've tasted but a nice rest all the same.

In the early 1930’s Speedway was a big attraction at High Beech in Epping Forest with tens of thousands of people all turning out to watch the fearless speedway riders ride the track near the Kings Oak Pub. For many people especially those from inner London this was a brief break away from the city to the countryside and actually seen as a holiday destination for many before cars became more affordable and coastal resorts became the place to head for.

During these massive speedway events people wanted refreshments and this is where the tea hut or “bikers hut” started, there was a good business in serving tea and cakes to be made and the current owners Great Uncle Ernie saw this opportunity and so the business began. The original tea hut is still run by a member of the same family all these decades on and is still a great attraction if you are visiting Epping Forest.

There has been a longstanding legacy left with motorcycling in the area with this being a focal point an attraction for thousands of people from famous writers and artists to local forest users and even people visiting from abroad to catch up with old friends however the original Tea hut doesn’t just focus on Bikers it is open to anyone and everyone who wants to enjoy being out in Epping Forest and wishes to be served some good honest food with a decent cuppa!

During the decades the Hut has had to be replaced, from its humble beginnings it has been upgraded to a shipping container still in the same recognisable green paint that it always has been and once again now in 2016 it has had a third upgrade to a larger container, this time purpose made and constructed to specifically cater for the business’s unique requirements yet still in keeping with the history and tradition of the business.

Here were dog walkers, bikers and an old Humber. All enjoying the sun and food and a cuppa!

I walked on through the forest opposite.

I took a path leading up to Lippits Hill, where I emerged by the Suntrap Forest education Centre on Church Road, that offers environmental education and adventurous activities for schools and other groups.

Just then My dog Ben and I was almost ran down by 6 Police horses flying around the corner, they apologised as they rode by.

I could then hear India 99 ,The Metropolitan Police Helicopter starting up its engines and it flew off shortly afterwards from its base at Lippits Hill.

I now walk up Lippits Hill passing some lovely buildings.

I reach Lippits Hill Lodge.

Few people today have heard of the once famous High Beach Asylum in the heart of Epping Forest - where countless wealthy patients came to be treated during the early 19th century.

Novelist Adam Foulds recently brought the history of the mysterious institution to life in his Man Booker Prize shortlisted work 'The Quickening Maze' about the poet John Clare, who was one of a number of well-known residents there from 1837 to 41.

Most people think of asylums at that time as being oppressive places where people were locked away, but this place was quite different to that.

"Matthew Allen (who opened the institution in Lippitts Hill, in 1825) was a progressive thinker in his field.

"He had learned his trade at an asylum in York. The High Beach asylum used a kind of treatment that would be more familiar to people today.

"It was a sort of behavioural therapy which encouraged patients to work and socialise."

Patients had to pay for treatment at the asylum, and were generally wealthy, with several coming from London's 'fashionable' set.

Many were given their own keys, and were able to come and go, exploring the forest around them, which inspired some of Clare's writing.

Perhaps the asylum's most glamorous association is with the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, who is thought to have stayed there for a number of weeks while suffering from depression.

The institution was made up of three separate houses, Fairmead, Leopard's (or Lippitts) Hill Lodge and Springfield, with one of the buildings reserved for men, one for women (which was run by Allen's wife) and one for patients with more serious conditions.

When Allen died in the mid 1840s, his wife shared the running of the asylum with another specialist called Dr Forest.

The institution eventually closed in 1850 with Fairmead House being demolished in the 1870s.

Clare is thought to have written the following verse while staying at the asylum.

It read: "I love the Forest and its airy bounds Where friendly Campbell takes his daily rounds I love the breakneck hills - that headlong go And leave me high - and half the world below I love to see the Beech Hill mounting high The brook without a bridge and nearly dry There’s Bucket’s Hill (Buckhurst Hill) - a place of furze and clouds Which evening in a golden blaze enshrouds.

Lippits Hill Lodge

I reach The Owl PH on Lippits Hill. This superb woodland tavern has been a McMullen pub since 1898 and was rebuilt in 1975.

There are still signs referring to a ‘Water Otter’ in the garden. This was reference to a long standing joke where there was a large water butt with a 'Don't tease the water otter' sign above. When you pulled the chain you found a kettle on the end. It amused the kids…

Opposite is The Metropolitans Police Air Support Unit where the Helicopters are based.

Metropolitan Police Airs Support, Lippits Hill

I take the path next to the helicopter base and follow it down.

I take a path next to the golf course and walk across a common before entering the woods again.

I emerge back on the Chingford Plain after some walking.

Chingford Plin, is the large open plain that stretches from Connaught Water Westwards behind the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge to Pole Hill, Henry VIII probably created it when he formed his Deer Park briefly in the middle of the sixteenth century, but of course it may have existed previously.

In The nineteenth century about 1860 it was ploughed and farmed. The ridges can still be seen on the Golf Course and the Eastern part of the plain.

In 1940 deep ditches and piles of earth were formed across the plain to counter the threat of landings by German Gliders. Also during The War a barbed wire compound was made in the NorthEast corner of the plain to create a dump for unexploded bombs. The fuses were removed of course.

Ahead on the path are some cattle grazing (Long Horn Cows to be precise), so I get my dog under control before passing. They were very jittery and I didn't want to scare them.

More than 1,000 years of grazing by domestic animals has shaped the landscape of the Forest today.

The Conservators have re-introduced the traditional management technique of cattle grazing to restore historical semi-natural wood pasture in some areas of the Forest and to ensure that the veteran trees and their associated flora and fauna survive for future generations to enjoy.

Longhorns are one of the rarer breeds of British cattle, known for their docile nature and ability to thrive on rough grazing. Despite their sometimes scary appearance, they are very friendly.