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Hainault Forest Website The London County Council era 1903 - 1963 |
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HOME PAGE HISTORY INDEX PERIOD 1902-3 PERIOD 1903-5 OPENING CEREMONY LCC PERIOD GLC PERIOD REDBRIDGE PERIOD |
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FOXBURROWS FARM 1913 A. Head Keepers Cottage. Demolished by GLC. The Sports changing rooms were built on the site. B. Foxburrows Barns and Buildings. C. 1-4 Foxburrows Cottages - the keepers were housed here. The foreground is now the golf course. The horizon is Cabin Hill which is now covered in secondary woodland. With thanks to the London Metropolitan Archives for the use of the photograph. |
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Susie Harvey writes: My father (Jack) worked in the forest for Mr Buxton, a verderer of Epping Forest, in the early part of the 20th century as a casual labourer and when the London County Council took over the forest, Mr Buxton recommended him as a good workman and he was taken on by the LCC. Eventually he was given a cottage on the forest in which he moved in 1909. (No. 1 Hainault Cottages). I was born there in 1910. During the 1914-18 War the three large barns and kitchens were taken over by the army and German prisoners were encamped there for the duration. There was also a searchlight based on top of the backs hill beside what is now the 17th fairway of the golf course.
At the end of World War I, the stables and garaging were let to a farmer, who kept cattle on the field around the lake and the back hills. When he left in 1922 the grazing was let to a Scottish sheep farmer, who left after a few years when the forest reverted to an open space, until World War II, when it was taken over by the Ministry of Agriculture and wheat was grown in the fields.
After World War I, the big barns at Foxburrows were let to a caterer. He sold sweets and drinks and did snacks and teas. There was only one golf course in those days and the golfers would often break off their game to go for a cup of tea during the 1920's. He had swing boats and coconut shies and donkey rides in the meadow (as it was called then) in front of the buildings. The parties all sat at trestle tables in the barns for high tea and early evening would set off for home, singing with a cornet accompanying them. I longed to ride in a brake but never did. Susie died in February 2004.
Gus from Sussex wonders what happened to the old Tea room that he visited in the early forties. It was full of stuffed Pike and Perch in glass cases, deer heads, antlers, stuffed foxes and other animals. He used to fill sandbags with chestnuts, hang them over the pannier on his cycle, and cycle back through the forest. At the Tea room he sat in front of a very nice open fire roasting chestnuts with a couple of friends, putting logs onto the fire, before cycling over Hog Hill for home. "On one occasion in the summer I was on the top of Hog Hill with a friend and we thought we would collect some blackberries. We pitched the cycles up against the bramble hedge and climbed up on them picking blackberries. On the way down I stepped onto the crossbar and slipped, dislocating both my arms and shoulders. My friend went to the Tea room to summon help. A policeman came and there was an army lorry approaching which he stopped. He made them take me to Oldchurch Hospital as an emergency since I was in quite some pain. They put my cycle in the back of the lorry. I learned later that they had an unexploded bomb in the back which had just been defused!!"
Doreen Phillips from Chadwell Heath remembers the proprietress of the Tea room - a Mrs Lucas who kept live monkeys in cages in the tea room in addition to the stuffed animals and deer antlers. Mrs Phillips can still recall the horrible smell of the monkeys!
The Essex War Agricultural Committee occupied Foxburrows farm during WW2 and the fields were ploughed and cereal crops planted. It was in 1954 that the LCC drew up plans for the reinstatement of these areas to leisure use. Seventeen football pitches were laid out, each having dimensions of 300' x 150'. Much of the woodland areas had become overgrown with scrub and each winter from 1957 areas were designated for clearance of Holly, Blackthorn and other scrub. The first area to be cleared was at Crabtree Hill in 1957. Contractors tendered for this work.
Does anyone have pictures of the inside or outside of the Tea room taken around the forties or fifties? Or any other photographs of people or views of the forest at that time? |
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HOME PAGE HISTORY INDEX PERIOD 1902-3 PERIOD 1903-5 OPENING CEREMONY LCC PERIOD GLC PERIOD REDBRIDGE PERIOD |
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