As part of the improvements that HPPG has been working on at Highams Park Lake with the Epping Forest Conservators, a new board with some information about Highams Park Lake and the surrounding woodlands has been installed next to the footpath, as you walk from The Charter Road along the park side of the lake. This board was meant to be installed in 2020 along with the signposts, viewing platform and waste bins but installation was delayed due to the Covid Lockdowns.
You may note the inclusion of some of the historic place names of the woodlands around the lake, such as Great Sale Wood, Little Sale Wood and the Lops, which we hope will give the area more of a sense of its place as a part of the much larger Epping Forest.
You may notice use of the place name “Sale” in the above. The Sale (more recently known as Great Sale Wood and Little Sale Wood) is a name that is believed to date back to Saxon times.
Hale End hamlet was an old Saxon settlement recorded in the Domesday Book. Some local field and road names, and the name of Sale itself, are Anglo-Saxon in origin. The Old English salh, from which “Sale” is derived, means “at the sallow tree”, which is the old name for willow trees, which often grow alongside rivers such as the Ching.
With thanks to the team at the Warren and the Highams Park Snedders for all their work on this project.
