The New Forest
Nearly a thousand years old, and still 'new'. The New Forest is a royal hunting ground where ponies, pigs and a medieval court still run the show.
Published
Quick Facts
- Location
- Southwest Hampshire, reaching into Wiltshire, between Southampton and Bournemouth
- Created
- Around 1079 by William the Conqueror as a royal hunting forest (Nova Foresta)
- Size
- About 220 square miles (570 sq km) within the national park
- National park status
- Designated in 2005
- Unofficial capital
- Lyndhurst, home of the Verderers' Court
- Famous landmark
- The Rufus Stone, marking where William II died on 2 August 1100
- Free-roaming livestock
- Ponies, cattle, donkeys and pigs, all privately owned by commoners
- Habitats
- Heathland, bog, ancient woodland and open grazing, among the largest areas of its kind in lowland England
The 'new' forest that is nearly 1,000 years old
William the Conqueror claimed this stretch of southern England around 1079 and named it Nova Foresta, the New Forest. The Domesday Book of 1086 already refers to it. A medieval 'forest' was not a wood. It was a legal zone where the king's deer and the king's hunting came first. Heath, bog and trees were all part of the deal, which is why the New Forest is so open today. The poor, sandy soil helped. It was never great farmland, so it was easier to keep wild, and that is a big reason so much of it survived.
The king who never came home from the hunt
On 2 August 1100, William II, known as Rufus, was killed by an arrow while hunting here. The man usually blamed is the French nobleman Walter Tirel, who always denied it. Rufus's brother Henry rode off to seize the crown almost at once. Was it an accident or a murder? Nobody knows. The Rufus Stone, near Canterton, marks the traditional spot. The monument dates from 1745 and was later encased in iron to protect it from souvenir hunters. The old tale that William the Conqueror flattened villages and churches to make the forest sits uneasily with the thin soils and sparse Domesday settlements. The story grew far larger than the evidence.
Ponies that aren't wild at all
The famous New Forest ponies look wild, but every one has an owner. They belong to commoners, local people with ancient rights to graze animals on the open forest. Commoners also have the right of pannage, which lets pigs loose in autumn to hoover up acorns that can poison ponies and cattle. Officials called agisters keep an eye on the animals. Each year the ponies are rounded up in 'drifts' to be checked and branded. The Verderers' Court at Lyndhurst has overseen all this for centuries, and it is one of the oldest working courts in England. The grazing is what keeps the forest open. Without it, the heath would turn to scrub and woodland.
Nelson's oaks and a village built for ships
The forest's oaks were a strategic resource. Britain's Royal Navy needed huge quantities of timber, and Buckler's Hard, on the Beaulieu River, became a shipbuilding village. HMS Agamemnon, one of Nelson's favourite ships, was launched there in 1781. Nearby stands Beaulieu, with its abbey ruins founded in the thirteenth century. The Knightwood Oak, a pollarded giant near Lyndhurst, is one of the best-known old trees in the forest and is thought to be several centuries old.
Snake-catchers and Alice
The forest has produced some distinctive characters. Harry 'Brusher' Mills, who lived in a hut near Brockenhurst, made his living catching grass snakes. He sold them to London Zoo as food for its reptiles and was known as the New Forest Snake Catcher. He died in 1905. At Lyndhurst churchyard lies Alice Hargreaves, born Alice Liddell, the girl who inspired Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She spent part of her adult life in the area. The forest is also a haven for wildlife. Look out for fallow and roe deer, and for rare birds such as the Dartford warbler and nightjar on the heath.
What to look for when you visit
Slow down on the roads, because animals have right of way in practice if not in law. Never feed the ponies. It teaches them to beg near traffic and it can be dangerous for you. Go in late summer for purple heather, and in autumn for fungi and pigs rooting under the oaks. Walk the open heath to see the real shape of a medieval hunting forest. Then look at the ground. The scattered ponies, cropped grass and open views are the product of centuries of shared use, not accident.
Notable people
- William the Conqueror
- William II (Rufus)
- Walter Tirel
- Henry I
- Harry 'Brusher' Mills
- Alice Liddell
- Lewis Carroll