Scott - if your interested in Epping forest the best place to go is Debden Green.
The site always you to camp and have a fire. Your governed by forest bye laws on wood collection but that isnt a problems as long as your sensible.
The site is pretty crowded sometimes but I have run courses there when I worked for Woodlore and privately both with equal success.
When you planing on going down there? I'll be spending a weekend over there in July probably teaching my son and nephews how to make fire by friction or some such.
OH ya and you can't legally camp in the forest itself again Bye laws forbid it - if you want to know the byelaws or anything else about the forest visit the information centre at High Beechs - thats where the field studies council run courses too.
Hope that helped and if you ever see a bloke walking a dog that looks like an arctic wolf over there sat hello it'll be me!