I was delighted to meet with Historic England today at Amresbury Banks, one of two Iron Age earthworks or hillforts at Epping Forest (the other being the Loughton Camp).
These are Scheduled Monuments were listed in 1923 as nationally important heritage sites. You can read more about what makes them so historically significant in the Loughton Camp citation here and Ambresbury Banks citation here.
Despite Epping Forest’s high archaeological potential, the Forest has previously lacked a comprehensive landscape study. Thankfully, Heritage England have recently produced a report (Epping Forest Uncovered) which covers an aerial survey of Epping Forest carried out primarily using newly acquired 0.25m resolution lidar data commissioned by the City of London Corporation.
Aerial photographs for open areas of the Forest were also assessed. The project area comprised the whole 42 sq. km of Epping Forest and its buffer lands where lidar and aerial photographs were used to discover, interpret and map archaeological sites across the project area adhering to Historic England’s Aerial Investigation and Mapping (AI&M) standards. Archaeological Monument Records for each feature were created and directly entered into either Essex or Greater London Historic Environment Records (HER).
The City of London Corporation, as Conservators and Trustees of Epping Forest’s charity, has commissioned Historic England to produce further analysis using the latest technology and tools to survey and document more of the archelogy of the site to allow us to build a fuller historic interpretation.
This work has come at the request of Verderer Paul Morris, who for many years has believed that there is a range of evidence to suggests the site could be historically more significant than is currently understood. That many of the site survey over the past 150 years have focused on very particular themes, rather than the how the landscape was connected and used by our forebears. Follow Epping Forest for more updates.
If you are interested in local history, and would like to find out more, why not join the free guided tour of the Epping Forest exhibition at the Epping Forest Visitor Centre at Chingford? These take place monthly. The next tour will take place at 2pm on Thursday 26 March 2026. Book here.
The City of London Corporation’s Epping Forest’s team also offer a free monthly guided tours of the Tudor hunt standing, known as Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge in Chingford. The next tour will take place at 2pm on Friday 27 March. Book here.
