Heart of the Forest

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The heart of Epping Forest, with its massive ancient trees, lies to the west of the Epping Forest Conservation Centre at High Beach. To see many of the best of the Forest's habitats, follow Three Forests Way – signposted Loughton – from the High Beach car park and turn left at Debden Slade on to Green Ride. Follow Green Ride all the way to Long Running, then return via St Thomas' Quarters and Verderer's Ride.

Loughton Camp

Loughton Camp is a circular earth bank believed to date from the late Iron Age. It is set in a woodland of tall beech pollards, with occasional clumps of heather. Below it is Debden Slade, a grassy glade beside a stream where oaks and hornbeams have been repollarded. Many streams run through this area, some with boggy flushes full of ferns, sedges and wetland flowers.

Honey Lane Quarters

Honey Lane Quarters slopes down steeply to the west with good views over the Lea Valley. It is wood-pasture, with beech at the top and hornbeam lower down. A broad ride leads down to the grassy plain and stream at its foot.

Wake Valley

The Wake Valley is a mosaic of beechwood and heathland with a number of ponds. These have good dragonfly populations, and especially Wake Valley Pond, in which the downy emerald breeds. The marsh to the the north has a good range of wetland plants including ragged robin, lesser spearwort, marsh violet and marsh fern.

St Thomas' Quarters

This is mostly beech wood-pasture, with some very large beech pollards. It has a number of streams with boggy flushes and two fine valley bogs east of Lodge Road. Visitor pressure is relatively low so it serves as a refuge for fallow deer.

Furze Ground & Copley Plain

These are restored heathland, surrounded by ancient pollards and some 'coppards', that is trees that have first been coppiced then the multiple stems have been pollarded.

Long Running

Long Running has probably the best areas of restored heathland in the Forest. One section is being grazed by cattle and others have been cleared of invading birch and the original vegetation of cross-leaved heath and ling has reappeared. In the open areas there is a good chance of seeing tree pipits, a once-common bird that has become very scarce in Essex in the last 20 years, and they also support many reptiles.

Gt & Lt Monk Woods

Here you will find many very old beech and oak pollards, a good number of which have died, creating small clearings in which dense stands of young trees spring up. A number of streams cut deeply into the gravelly slopes.

Loughton Brook

Loughton Brook meanders in a deep valley cut through beech and hornbeam wood-pasture, bordered by ferns, sedges, flag iris and heather. Kingfishers and grey wagtails nest along its banks. It leaves the Forest at Staples Pond which has marsh marigolds and a good range of dragonflies.