Nobody knows how old Epping Forest is. The discovery of two Iron-Age earthworks suggests that it's been here for thousands of years. The dendrologists tell us that we can still find 55,000 ancient trees here. That’s more than in any other place in the United Kingdom.
For centuries, it was a royal forest and the pollarding of trees was allowed. This changed in 1875 with the Epping Forest Act, but the influence of that human activity is still visible. The shape of many trees is uniquely strange and gives them, and the whole place, an eerie, mysterious look.
The gnarled, twisted arms of these unearthly creatures try to reach us... Sometimes we can almost hear soft whispers in the air. Or maybe it's just the wind... But some people claim that the feeling of invisible hands touching or even pushing them was exactly what they experienced during their walk in Epping Forest.
Epping Forest leads us from the urban environment of London into the rural landscape of Essex.
There was a time when fashionable ladies used to come here to ask the drabardi, Roma female fortune-tellers, if they knew their future. But historical records suggest that people from East of London were especially aware of the existence of witches and the dangerous influence of magic spells at least till the 19th century! The Epping Forest District Museum keeps in its collection the remnants of a mummified cat found in the walls of the Waltham Abbey Church.
I invite you for a walk in Epping Forest. Dark tales and sinister historical facts included.
Kamila Wielebska is a trained art historian, actress and comedian. A storyteller.
