| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 | |
| Location | Essex |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | TL 538202 |
| Interest | Biological |
| Area | 403.2 hectares (996 acres) |
| Notification | 1985 |
| Location map | Magic Map |
Hatfield Forest is a 403.2-hectare (996-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Essex, England, 3 mi (4.8 km) east of Bishop's Stortford.[1][2] It is also a National Nature Reserve[3] and a Nature Conservation Review site.[4] It is owned and managed by the National Trust.[5] A medieval warren in the forest is a Scheduled Monument.[6]
Hatfield is the only remaining intact Royal Hunting Forest and dates from the time of the Norman kings. Other parts of the once extensive Forest of Essex include Epping Forest to the southwest, Hainault Forest to the south and Writtle Forest to the east. Hatfield Forest was established as a Royal hunting forest in the late eleventh century, following the introduction of fallow deer and after Forest Laws were imposed on the area by the king. Deer hunting and chasing was a popular sport for Norman kings and lords, and the word 'forest' strictly means place of deer rather than of trees. In the case of Hatfield, the area under Forest Law consisted of woodlands with plains.
In his book about the site, The Last Forest, botanist and rural historian Oliver Rackham argues that "Hatfield is of supreme interest in that all the elements of a medieval Forest survive: deer, cattle, coppice woods, pollards, scrub, timber trees, grassland and fen ... As such it is almost certainly unique in England and possibly in the world ... The Forest owes very little to the last 250 years ... Hatfield is the only place where one can step back into the Middle Ages to see, with only a small effort of the imagination, what a Forest looked like in use."[7][8]
- ^ "Hatfield Forest citation" (PDF). Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
- ^ "Map of Hatfield Forest". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
- ^ "Essex's National Nature Reserves". Natural England. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
- ^ Ratcliffe, Derek (1977). A Nature Conservation Review. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 60. ISBN 9780521214032.
- ^ "Hatfield Forest". National Trust. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
- ^ "Warren in Collins Coppice, Hatfield Forest". Historic England. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
- ^ "Oliver Rackham obituary". the Guardian. 20 February 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
- ^ Rackham, Oliver (1998). The Last Forest: The Story of Hatfield Forest. Orion Publishing Group, Limited. ISBN 978-0-7538-0525-1.