ALL that remains of them are faint ridges of earth bordering sections of the forest.

Yet Epping Forest's purlieu banks tell a fascinating story, one that encompasses Magna Carta and royal hunts to the gradual erosion of the forest in the 18th century.

Historian Nick Holder has just completed a major research project investigating the banks for the Corporation of London.

In the course of his research Mr Holder discovered that the banks towered up to 7 feet high and were bordered by deep ditches.

Purlieu means border, and their function was to mark the boundaries of the part of the forest where the king had exclusive hunting rights, preventing hunted deer escaping, and providing a stark barrier to would-be trespassers.

Mr Holder has just completed his PhD at Royal Holloway University and currently works as a freelance historical researcher.

He said: ““I was surprised when I began the research just how well the banks have survived. It is not very often you encounter the remains of landscape from the medieval era.”

The first ditches of the purlieu banks were dug in the 1200s and Mr Holden believes that they were erected soon after Magna Carta was signed in 1215.

“After the Magna Carta the monarch’s prerogative to hunt in all forest land was taken away. I think the purlieu banks were dug to mark out the new boundaries.”

Mr Holder said that the purlieu banks were not the only difference between how the forest was in the Middle Ages and how it is now.

“I think the biggest difference to strike someone going back to the medieval forest is how much more open it would have been.

“It was a more managed forest. More trees would have been cut down and more would have been cut back to allow easier hunting,” said Mr Holder.

He said the royal hunts within the purlieu banks would have provided an incredible spectacle, with courtiers, aristocrats and liveried servants all attending.

“Henry VIII is believed to have hunted with Anne Boleyn there. The hunts provided an opportunity for courtship and the mixing of the sexes away from the more segregated situation at court," said Mr Holder.

In the 17th and 18th century as large areas of the areas of the forest were felled and areas fenced off for rearing livestock and growing crops the purlieus fell in to disrepair.

Their remains, however, can be found on the eastside of Theydon Bois gold club; in Lower Forest and at Gibbons Bush Green, in the northernmost part of Epping Forest.