The saving of Hatfield Forest

On the 10 May 1924, 90 years ago this week, the nation received a wonderful gift.  350 acres of Hatfield Forest were given to the National Trust by the Buxton family. 215 acres of this land had been purchased on his death bed by Edward North Buxton, whose efforts had done so much to secure Epping Forest for the nation some 40 years earlier. The remainder had been purchased by Buxton’s sons Gerald and Anthony in the weeks after their father’s death, in tribute to his memory. 

 

The Lake at Hatfield Forest

Hatfield Forest is a remarkable place. It is one of our only surviving medieval forests – a wood-pasture that was originally established and maintained as a Royal hunting ground. Passing into private hands, its last owners were the Houblon family, who acquired it in 1729 as an adjunct to their estate at Hallingbury in Hertfordshire. Evidence of the Houblon influence on the landscape of Hatfield can still be seen today, with the Shell House next to the ornamental lake dating from the ‘Capability’ Brown era and later 19^th century plantings of black pine and horse chestnut. Yet still the medieval character of the forest is evident in its great ancient oaks and hornbeams.

A special ceremony was held at Hatfield on 10 May 1924 to mark the occasion of the gift. Gerald Buxton symbolically handed the deeds over to Lord Ullswater, the Trust’s vice-president. Ullswater in turn reminded the guests of the huge contribution the Buxton family had already made to the nation – through Edward North Buxton’s efforts to save Epping Forest, as well as through the other gifts to the National Trust of Paycocke’s House in Coggeshall (Essex) and Roman Camp in West Runton (Norfolk). Had the Trust not been invented, Ullswater observed, the state would have needed to have stepped in, such was the pressure on such ‘delectable and enjoyable spots’ from creeping urbanisation. As The Times reported, this was a time when the ‘preservation of flora and fauna’ was regarded as an increasingly vital necessity. The Trust’s ambition at Hatfield was to ‘increase the places where flora and fauna could multiply without being subjected to constant raids’.
 

Ullswater even ended his speech with a joke. He hoped the public would respect Hatfield’s special character, and not leave it strewn with litter. ‘We [are] indeed a littery nation’ was his jest, evidence for which he needed to look no further than the benches of the House of Commons after he, as Speaker, had cleared them for a division.

The list of those attending the ceremony on 10 May 1924 includes some interesting figures. One was Harriet Yorke, Hon Treasurer to the National Trust and companion of Octavia Hill. Another was the colourful figure of Daisy, Countess of Warwick, socialist socialite who lived nearby at  Easton Lodge. Also present was Miss Dorothy Hunter, the daughter of Hill’s colleague and fellow co-founder Sir Robert Hunter. Dorothy served on the Trust’s Council until the mid-1960s and was a stalwart supporter of the Trust’s work her entire life. Given that the last of the founders, Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, had died four years earlier in 1920, it must have been especially gratifying for these survivors of the Trust’s first generation to see a site as rich in ‘natural beauty and historic interest’ saved for the nation.

 

Dorothy Hunter in later life 

This weekend special events are being held at Hatfield to mark the 90^th anniversary of the Trust’s acquisition, including free car parking and guided walks and talks.