I visited Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge last year, so this post has sat fallow for a while! Tomorrow I'm planning on going back and creating a vlog, so I thought I'd better get my preliminaries in, and make a start with this blog.
Update- here is my YouTube link:-
This was a day out with the SuperDean, who began by showing me Highams Park, which is where he went to school. I just thought I'd show you a couple of pictures of that area purely because I loved them.
This is the Millennium Clock and dates (as you might expect!) from 2000 (artist unknown).
This road was nearby, and I think I'd like to live here!
A fairly short bus trip away in Chingford (outer London), sits Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge.
The lodge was built in 1543 for Henry VIII (r.1509-47) and renovated by his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I (r.1558-1603). It was used to view the deer chase through Chingford.
The entrance hall, and the building is an intact timber-framed hunting lodge, which is very rare to find nowadays.
Hunts were an opportunity for monarchs to show off their power, wealth and sheer magnificence.
The ground floor rooms are laid out to display a Tudor feast.Here you can make out a pig's head on a plate, amongst other beasts, and specialities such as pike. The upper classes of that time ate a diet that we would probably consider too rich.
A stag's antlers have been used to decorate this table. I suppose that would have happened back in Tudor times; as a way of displaying what had successfully been hunted.
Vegetables, conserves and pies, plus a hungry little field mouse! Interestingly, the Tudors viewed fruit- especially exotic fruits such as pomegranate and figs- with suspicion, and tended to eat it "disguised" in pies. It's ironic that the lower classes of that time probably ate a better diet than their better-off counterparts.
Bread baking, with a potage cauldron dangling over the fireplace. I had to say, it did look inviting and made me feel hungry! The bags hanging to the side look like leather flasks; cross-body bags to fill with stream water or maybe beer or wine (safer to drink in those times!)
The fireplace was installed in 1589, on Queen Elizabeth I's orders.
This three-storey building has been extensively restored- these stairs definitely look modern. The lodge "museum" is open most days of the week and is free to visit.
It was rumoured that Elizabeth I rode her white steed up the lodge stairs, to celebrate her victory over the Spanish Armada. But this has never been confirmed, and could well be a tall tale!
The building to the side used to be the Premier Inn (it is now listed as permanently closed). I think it's safe to say that that's "mock Tudor!"
At the time this building was the only three storey building in England. Henry VIII always had to have the best of the best!
Authentically styled window panes, and I have read that there's actually no evidence that Henry VIII visited this lodge- although he did enjoy hunting. We can't be sure that Queen Elizabeth I visited, either- accounts contradict- but I like to think that they both did.
The first floor hall...
Here are some costumes for dressing up, and medieval music is piped through too, to add to the atmosphere.
Me looking a tad ruff!😁
Traditional fireplace...
The building was commissioned in 1542, and was then known as Great Standing.
There is apparently a smaller hunting lodge in Loughton, about a mile away. It is called The Little Standing, and I will make a point of checking it out. Both would have been part of a system of stands and paddocks on this site.
Stair deer (I'm a poet and yes, I know it...😁)
The kind of deer that were hunted were fallow deer- an elegant medium-sized deer with a distinctive spotted coat.
Top floor hall, and it's from here that the monarchs would have viewed the hunt. The deer would have been felled by crossbows and arrows in a style of hunting known as "bow and stable hunting." It involved beaters and their dogs driving the deer towards the hunters positioned on their stands
Top floor fireplace...
This is the window the hunt would have been viewed from, and in those days the the building was essentially an open grandstand (the building would have been open to get the best view over Epping Forest) and there would have been no windows.
It was Queen Elizabeth I who had the walls filled in and a roof added.
"I remember when this was all fields..."
To quote an oft-used phrase. Well, this area is still fields!
It's very rare to have a hunting lodge in existence nowadays which is still surrounded by its royal hunting forest.
The view over the hunting grounds and The View, which is the visitor's centre is to the left of the photograph.
Back on the ground, and it's this side of the building that overlooks the fields.The lodge has been limewashed (it acts as a mild disinfectant) and the jury is out as to whether the wooden beams should have been painted over. Some say that this is the authentic way of dealing with a building such as this, and that black beams were only a Victorian aesthetic addition. Others say that during Medieval times buildings across Europe allowed the beams to remain exposed...
Carved wooden models of a doe and her fawn...
A stag and an information board...
Bucolic Epping Forest, and the forest is very ancient woodland; once part of the larger Forest of Essex. Straddling the border between London and Essex, it's roughly 8000 acres in size.
Epping Forest was designated as a Royal Forest or "kingswood" back in the 12th century, during the reign of Henry II. The idea was to protect by law all wild game and greenery for the exclusive use of the King.The hunting lodge is certainly worth half/ three-quarters of an hour of your time.
Standing back from the lodge with The View to the side.I think I'd personally like to see the contrasting beams exposed and not limewashed over.
Very soon I will post my vlog of the hunting lodge.
Until then, TTFN,
Miss Elaineous
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