Around this time last year, I went camping with a group of friends in Epping Forest. We were a bit of a mixed bunch, and some of us came to make a Blair Witch Project style video (embarrassingly) and the others to watch wildlife. Epping Forest is perfect for the latter in Autumn, though the results for the video were somewhat debatable on our trip, and the cold overrides any other points of interest anyway! We stayed at a designated camp site called The Elms instead of sleeping rough properly, mainly because we weren't sure if we were allowed to (although if I'm honest, it was also because the idea seemed a little scary!) but we managed to stay out from dusk until 1am and the whole party was distracted for the first half of the evening by two water rats playing about on a bank by one of the streams in the forest. The forest is reputedly the home of Dick Turpin's ghost, which might have explained some of what happened later, although Leytonstone is where the sightings of it are supposed to be concentrated, which is quite some distance from where we were. Anyhow, the video-makers eventually separated off from the wildlife watchers (me and two others), and after a couple of hours of aimless wandering around and chatting (with not an owl to be seen anywhere), we heard a scream in the distance. Of course we were terrified, but ran in the direction of the sound in case the source of it was one of the video group. It turned out that it was, and a huge argument ensued when we discovered that it had been staged as part of a fake ghost sighting, designed to add some excitement to the film. Eventually the rage turned to laughter when the video party told us how terrified we had looked when we finally reached them, and as we stood about laughing, we heard another shout coming from a short distance away. We checked that all of us were present and were just about to go and investigate as a group, when we heard a loud crunching sound on the leaves, which sounded like a horse walking through the trees because the footsteps were too irregular to be human. It was dark, but not so dark that we couldn't see each other a couple of metres away, and every second we expected to see a riderless horse wandering aimlessly - naturally we thought the scream would have come from the rider falling off. We stopped to listen and the sound seemed to come really close before stopping, and then we never heard it again. We looked around and called 'hello' but found nothing. Was it a ghostly highwayman? It certainly seems that way!

Written by  clover.

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are you allowed to camp in epping forest without camping on a site

camping in epping forest

 

Question posted 23rd July 2009 by candice.

1 reply...

You definitely can't have a bbq! You're also not allowed to pick ANY mushrooms - and I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to just set up camp where ever you like...

 

Reply posted 24th July 2009 by weller.

I have done a lot of wild camping in Epping Forest over several years but I have never encountered anything unusual.

I have been told that the locals won't go into the forest after dark due to reports of ghostly encounters.

 

Comment posted 24th May 2009 by Freddie.

Not a fox then?

Not exactly conclusive evidence, is it? A scream was heard in the woods. If you've ever heard a vixen in heat then you won't forget it. If you have, then it sounds like a woman being killed. I imagine that's what a woman being killed sounds like, anyway. It is not pleasant. And the footsteps.... there are more than a few deer, badgers and hedegogs (very noisy little things) as well as foxes in Epping.

Paranormal things need investigating, but "I heard a noise in the woods at night so it must have been Dick Turpin's ghost"? Come on!!!

 

Review posted 29th January 2008 by carben.

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