New Forest
Forming a large part of south-west Hampshire, the New Forest is the best known of Britain's forests and a unique area of England. Its varied and beautiful landscape of heath and woodland results from its diverse soils, and inhospitable as this region must have been in prehistoric times, traces have been discovered of settlements belonging to early man. More than a hundred Bronze Age barrows exist in the forest and there is evidence of both Iron Age and Roman occupation.
Treated as an ancient Royal hunting forest by Saxon rulers, after the Norman Conquest William I created the 'New' forest in 1079, taking it as his own private deer park for hunting. The Domesday Book of 1086 records the area as being sparcely settled and it was then much less wooded than today, being largely open heathland; oak and beech trees, now a very familiar sight in the forest, did not exist there in the 11th century. William introduced harsh laws to protect the deer, known as 'The King's Forest Law', death being the penalty meted out for the laying of animal traps and for poaching.
The deer and other animals did great damage to young trees however, and hindered the natural regeneration of the woodlands. In later centuries trees were urgently required for house and ship building, demands that witnessed parts of the New Forest being enclosed in the later Middle Ages, with animals prohibited from entry; the first of these enclosure acts occurred in 1482. James II (1685-88) was the last king to 'hunt' the forest, after which hunting gradually died out, permitting the deer stock to replenish itself. Today there are about 1500 deer roaming the woods, mostly fallow deer; they are accompanied by about 3000 New Forest ponies who have grazed the area since before the Norman invasion.
Conifers were introduced to the forest 200-yrs ago and are most suitable for the largely infertile soils, especially the Scots Pine; the conifers are mainly accompanied by oak, beech and birch trees, all introduced to the forest in recent centuries. The New Forest has flourished and survived as a beautiful medieval landscape for over 900-yrs, only because it is Crown land protected by special laws. Conservation of the forest and its wildlife is paramount today, for the New Forest is a classified National Nature Reserve.
Lyndhurst is known as the 'capital' of the New Forest, the only sizeable town within the historical confines of the forest and designated the administrative centre by William in 1079. Lyndhurst remains the official seat of the ancient Court of Verderers, who protect the rights of the commoners. Their Court Room and the Forestry Commission offices are both housed in the beautiful 17th century Queen's House. The Verderers meet every two months and have jurisdiction over all New Forest animals, while the forest is patrolled by four Agisters, a medieval office of 'collector'. The New Forest commoners, born of generations of New Forest folk, are permitted to own tiny plots of land for grazing their ponies, cattle, donkeys and geese. Commoners' rights were clearly defined and protected in 1877, but date back to Norman times and the creation of the forest. Lyndhurst is also home of the Museum and New Forest Visitor Centre, a useful introduction to the forest. The local church dates from 1860, contains windows by Burne-Jones and in the graveyard lies the body of Mrs Hargreaves, who as little Alice Liddell, was the model for Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland.
Further south is Brockonhurst, meaning 'badger's wood', a pleasant village lying on the forest boundary amidst strikingly beautiful wooded countryside; ponies and cattle wander in from the fields at will and mingle with their human neighbours in the village streets. The parish church is reputedly the oldest in the forest, and certainly the only one recorded by William's officers in their Domesday survey. Situated on the northern periphery of Brockonhurst are two of the largest and most attractive of the New Forest 'lawns', Butts Lawn and Bulmer Lawn.
Lying just east of the New Forest is the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, founded by Lord Montagu in 1952 in memory of his father. It houses more than 250 vehicles, including legendary record breakers 'Bluebird' and 'Golden Arrow', film star cars, family cars from the 1930s & 1950's and commercial vehicles. Alongside the museum stand the ruins of Beaulieu Abbey and the old abbey gatehouse, restyled in Victorian Gothik to become Beaulieu Palace House. Beaulieu was Bellus Locus Regis, the King's Beautiful Place, a Cistercian abbey founded in 1205 by King John to atone for his many sins.
The Rufus Stone at Canterton Glen commemorates the suspicious death of William'Rufus' II in 1100. It is reputed to mark the spot where William, the hard-bitten and unloved son of the Conqueror, was 'accidentally' shot dead by an arrow whilst hunting - it is more probable that he was deliberately assassinated because of his unpopularity.
The village of Rockbourne, on the high chalklands west of the New Forest, is famous as the site where one of the largest Roman villas in Britain was accidentally discovered in 1942. Occupied from the mid 2nd century until the Roman withdrawal in about AD401, over 70 rooms, some with mosaic floors, several bathing suites and an underfloor heating system, have been uncovered. A museum attached to the villa displays many excavated finds.
Other places of interest in the area of the New Forest include Braemore House, an attractive Elizabethan manor-house with a Carriage Museum attached; Exbury Gardens, 250 acres of spacious gardens; Furzey Gardens at Minstead, containing stunning gardens of huge botanical interest, and the Owl Sanctuary at Ringwood where over 400 birds of prey are tended to.