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Go through a gate to Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge. Cross the road, go ahead on a rough lane, continuing on a track through a gate with Warren Pond on your left. Some 75 metres from the gate, look for a path on your left which keeps close to the pond, which will lead you downhill to cross the little Ching Brook. Just after crossing the brook, turn left in a clearing, the path soon becoming a horse-ride. This is one of the many broad paths cut through the forest with the needs of horses (and riders) in mind.

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S HUNTING LODGE

The timber-framed lodge, or ‘standing’ as it was known then, was in fact built in 1543 for Elizabeth I’s father, Henry VIII, so that royals could view hunts from the then-open top storeys. It is the only remaining standing in England that is still situated within the forest it served. Although Elizabeth did later arrange its renovation, she may never have visited. Her successor James I certainly had little if any use for it, and by 1608 it was converted to hold the Manor Court, a function that remained there for nearly 250 years. The Victorians then carried out an intrusive restoration, remedied in the early 1990s when a more weather-resistant, and traditional, limewash exterior replaced a hard plaster infill.