Reminiscences of Epping Forest

The Roebuck Gardens and Grounds have always been historically associated with the adjacent Forest, and the quaint old edifice has been referred to chiefly as the Foresters’ and Keeper’s Home for more than two centuries, so much so, that it was under the consideration of the late proprietors, Messrs. Green Brothers, at the suggestion of their neighbours and visitors to name it The Lord Warden’s Roebuck Hotel!

The situation (on the brow of a lofty hill), with two deep valleys on either side of it, watered by the rivers Lea and Roding, is scarcely to be rivalled, as to scenery, even by the far-famed contiguous eminence of High Beech.

In the extreme distance is the ancient town of Epping, from which the Forest takes its name, and “ye wodes of Waltham,” referred to in “Doomsday Book,” are on the opposite heights. To the North-west is the cave of the renowned Turpin; and this haunt of the Essex freebooter may be seen from hence, and easily reached by descending a ravine and climbing the high hill beyond it.

To the lovers of poetry this place will be interesting, inasmuch as at Fair Mead Bottom the author of the “Pleasures of Hope” lived in sedation, but so great was his love for the retreat we are now describing, that he (Thomas Campbell) half cut a way to it with a knife, and although this vista was relinquished through his death, it was finished by a gentleman of the same name, who resided at the Hotel for years, he remarking, with emphasis, that “A Campbell began it, and a Campbell completed it.” Another great author, the late Charles Dickens, no later than about seven years since, in a conversation that he had with the proprietors, Messrs. Green Brothers, stated that it have him great pleasure to visit this house, inasmuch as he had always considered it as the central rendezvous for all Foresters from time immemorial.