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well-doing of the people, and they not only called public
attention to the encroachments in Epping Forest, but
the Lord of the Manor of Loughton having in 1864 and
the following year, made arrangements for the inclosure
of no less than 1300 acres belonging to him in the
Forest, they supported two labourers of Loughton, in
asserting their rights as commoners in this land by a
Bill in Chancery. The effect of this suit, in which a
veritable village Hampden, named Willingale, was the
Plaintiff, was to preserve nearly 1000 acres in its
primitive condition, and as the Bill was registered as a
lis pendens, it gave notice to, and bound those who
chose in defiance of it, to cut down the trees upon and
enclose the other 300 acres to which it also applied.
On the 23rd December, 1869, the Metropolitan Board
further resolved, after an interview with Mr. Layard
then First Commissioner of Works, that it could not
charge itself with any payments in compensation of
manorial or proprietary rights.
In this condition of things, Mr. Fawcett, M.P., in
the month of February, 1870, carried an address to
the Crown praying Her Majesty "to take such
" measures as in her judgment she might deem most
" expedient, in order that Epping Forest might be
'' preserved as an open space for the recreation and
" enjoyment of the public."
Her Majesty expressed her concurrence with the
desire of the House of Commons, that open spaces in