Hainault Forest

Grand in size, stature and origins, Hainault Forest today is, in fact, just a tiny remnant of what was once the “Forest of Essex”. Never the less this is a site of national historic, cultural and landscape importance. A former hunting forest and created to provide venison for the King’ table, it’s one of the best surviving medieval forest of its kind, dominated by the distinctive top heavy and distorted shapes of veteran hornbeam pollards which the Woodland Trust is working hard to revitalize.