EPPING Forest district might nowadays be more likely to be the home of professional footballers, but in past centuries it has been associated with some of our greatest writers, as CARL BROWN discovers.

EPPING Forest has a surprisingly rich literary heritage dating back to the days when it was royal hunting forest.

In Elizabethan times poets and courtiers, including George Gascoigne and Thomas Lodge lived in and around the forest.

Lady Mary Wroth, perhaps the first female English writer to achieve a lasting reputation lived at the original Loughton Hall, which burned down in the early 19th century.

Lady Wroth, born in 1587, came from a noble family as the great niece of Sir Philip Sidney and Lady Mary Countess of Pembroke.

She was the first woman to publish a work of prose fiction, The Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania and she also wrote the first known sonnet sequence by a woman, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus.

Local historian Sue Taylor has written a book on Lady Wroth.

She said : “Lady Mary Wroth is one of those figures Loughton figures who is often mentioned in the history of the town, but about whom relatively little is known.

“She is nevertheless a notable figure in English literature, one of first women authors in our language, the first female author of a sonnet sequence.”

One of the most famous writers to be associated with the forest was Ben Jonson, who achieved success in Shakespearian times with satirical plays such as Volpone and Bartholomew Fair and was said to be a regular visitor to the area.

In the 18th century pioneering female writer Mary Wollstonecraft lived in Epping Forest for the first five years of her life.

Wollstonecraft, whose father would move from place to place, later wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Seen by many as an early feminist text, A Vindication argued that women should have the same rights to education as men.

Socialist writer and one of Walthamstow's famous sons, William Morris, would also regularly visit the forest.

The Morris family later moved to Woodford Hall and the young William enjoyed exploring the forest.

According to historians Andrew Summers and John Debenham in their book The Essex Hundred Histories: “From a young age Morris was interested in romantic tales of chivalry, knights in shining armour fairies and heroic deeds in history.

“He had his own pony and even a suit of armour in which he acted out heroic deeds.”

But it was in the 19th century that the forest acquired its perhaps most impressive literary connections.

Charles Dickens set the first half of his 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge in a “village in Epping Forest”.

The historical novel was set during the 1780 Gordon Riots against laws to remove a number of penalties for Catholics.

The poet John Clare, who was known for his representations of the English countryside, spent four years in the High Beach private asylum suffering from mental illness and alcoholism.

Alfred Lord Tennyson lived at Beech Hill House, in High Beach, from 1837 until 1840.

He also spent two weeks in the High Beech asylum recovering from depression.