The forest is what is left of a huge royal hunting ground, and it covers about two thousand hectares of ancient woodland, heath and ponds, running from the edge of London to the Essex countryside. The trees are mostly hornbeam and beech, many of them pollarded, cut high in the past to give a crop of wood, and they have an odd, twisted shape.
After a ride that started in the Cotswolds, it is an easy and calm place to finish. The roads through the forest are narrow and winding, with gentle bends, overhanging trees and a surface that is often patchy, with leaves, mud and branches after storms. Deer, including fallow and muntjac, wander across without warning, and dusk is the most dangerous time. Traffic is moderate on weekdays, but heavy on sunny Sundays, with cyclists and walkers in large numbers.
Theydon Bois is a pleasant village with a green and a Central line station, which makes a quick journey into London possible. The forest was saved from enclosure in the nineteenth century by a public campaign, and the City of London Corporation took it over in 1878, an act that kept it open to everyone. Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, a Tudor timber building at Chingford, stands at the southern end and holds a small museum.
Fuel and food are easy at Epping, a market town with stations, supermarkets and cafes, and Theydon has several pubs and a bakery. The forest has a number of tea huts, small cafes in wooden buildings along the roads, and a mug of tea and a bacon roll from one of them is a London rider's tradition.
Walk a few steps into the trees if you have time. In autumn the leaves are thick underfoot and the smell of damp earth is strong.