Dick Turpin's Cave

A wanted highwayman ran into this forest with the law behind him. An old fort's banks hid a pit that took his name.

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Turpin's Cave

Somewhere in these banks, a killer waited out the hunt.

Stand where it happened

What's there: Overgrown Iron Age ramparts deep in beech woodland
Legend from: Georgian
Tone: Dark history

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Before you go

Loughton Camp is open forest land, reachable on foot only; it is a scheduled monument, so do not dig or disturb the banks. It lies off the Clay Road/Green Ride near Sandpit Plain.

Loughton Camp, Epping Forest
Near Earls Path
The pin is approximate.

Loughton Camp ahead, the old forest fort where, folk said, Dick Turpin hid in a cave after killing a man.

In May 1737, after a botched arrest in east London, Dick Turpin fled into Epping Forest and shot dead Thomas Morris, a keeper's servant who found him. Accounts of the time said he had been hiding in a cave in a thicket somewhere between the King's Oak at High Beach and the Loughton road. Popular tradition and old maps later placed Turpin's Cave inside Loughton Camp, the Iron Age fort in the forest, where the Essex Field Club in 1882 described a huge pit inside the north-west rampart known by that name. Later legend moved the cave to Wellington Hill at High Beach.

Sources

Legends nearby

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