I was blessed to stay on the edge of an area in South England called "The New Forest", an interesting and diverse area. My nature walk outside of Beaulieu was a "New Forest walk". It has an interesting history, which I thought I would post - made into a "Royal Forest" by King William I in 1079!!
Other towns of the New Forest are: Lyndhurst, Brockenhurst, Lymington (Peter's fave), Burley, and Fordingbridge.
The New Forest has an awesome, interactive website of their own, with maps, etc - well worth checking out! Here it is - - http://www.newforest.hampshire.org.uk/
History
The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily-populated south east of England. It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire.
The name also refers to the New Forest National Park which has similar boundaries. Additionally the New Forest local government district is a subdivision of Hampshire which covers most of the Forest, and some nearby areas although it is no longer the planning authority for the National Park itself. There are many villages dotted around the area, and several small towns in the Forest and around its edges.
The highest point in the New Forest is Telegraph Hill. Its summit is at 167 m (550 ft) above sea level.
Like much of England, the New Forest was originally woodland, but parts were cleared for cultivation from the Bronze Age onwards. The poor quality of the soil in the New Forest meant that the cleared areas turned into heathland "waste" that was probably used as an inter communal heath-wood facilty.
There are around 250 round barrows ancient burial mounds) within its boundaries, and scattered boiling mounds, and it also includes about 150 scheduled ancient monuments.
The New Forest was created as a royal forest by William I in about 1079 for the private hunting of (mainly) deer. It was created at the expense of more than 20 small settlements/farms; hence it was 'new' in his time as a single compact area.
According to Florence of Worcester (d.1118), the forest was known before the Norman Conquest as the Great Ytene Forest; the word "Ytene" meaning '"Juten" or "of Jutes". The Jutes were one of the early Anglo Saxon tribal groups who colonised this area of southern Hampshire.
It was first recorded as "Nova Foresta" in the Domesday Book in 1086, and is the only forest that the book describes in detail. Twelfth-century chroniclers alleged that William had created the Forest by evicting the inhabitants of thirty-six parishes, reducing a flourishing district to a wasteland; however, this account is thought dubious by most historians, as the poor soil in much of the Forest is believed to have been incapable of supporting large-scale agriculture, and significant areas appear to have always been uninhabited.
Two of William's sons died in the Forest, Prince Richard in 1081 and King William II (William Rufus) in 1100. Local folklore asserted that this was punishment for the crimes committed by William when he created his New Forest, a seventeenth century writer provides exquisite detail:
"In this County [Hantshire] is New-Forest, formerly called Ytene, being about 30 miles in compass; in which said tract William the Conqueror (for the making of the said Forest a harbour for Wild-beasts for his Game) caused 36 Parish Churches, with all the Houses thereto belonging, to be pulled down, and the poor Inhabitants left succourless of house or home. But this wicked act did not long go unpunished, for his Sons felt the smart thereof; Richard being blasted with a pestilent Air; Rufus shot through with an Arrow; and Henry his Grand-child, by Robert his eldest son, as he pursued his Game, was hanged among the boughs, and so dyed. This Forest at present affordeth great variety of Game, where his Majesty oft-times withdraws himself for his divertisement."
The reputed spot of Rufus's death is marked with a stone known as the Rufus Stone.
The Rufus Stone Memorial John White, Bishop of Winchester, said of the forest:
"From God and Saint King Rufus did Churches take, From Citizens town-court, and mercate place, From Farmer lands: New Forrest for to make, In Beaulew tract, where whiles the King in chase Pursues the hart, just vengeance comes apace, And King pursues. Tirrell him seing not, Unwares him flew with dint of arrow shot."
An interesting thing about the New Forest, is that common people living there can still graze their animals on the common land - thus, instead of seeing wild creatures there, one sees ponies, pigs, and cows, just out wandering around!!
Common Rights
Forest Laws were enacted to preserve the New Forest as a location for royal deer hunting, and interference with the King's deer and its forage was punished. However, the inhabitants of the area (commoners) had pre-existing rights of common: to turn horses and cattle (but only rarely sheep) out into the Forest to graze (common pasture), to gather fuel wood (estover), to cut peat for fuel (turbary), to dig clay (marl), and to turn out pigs between September and November to eat fallen acorns and beechnuts (pannage or mast). There were also licences granted to gather bracken after 29 September as litter for animals (fern), Along with grazing, pannage is still an important part of the Forest's ecology. Pigs can eat acorns without a problem, whereas to ponies and cattle large numbers of acorns can be poisonous. Pannage always lasts 60 days but the start date varies according to the weather — and when the acorns fall. The Verderers decide when pannage will start each year. At other times the pigs must be taken in and kept on the owner's land with the exception that pregnant sows, known as privileged sows, are always allowed out providing they are not a nuisance and return to the Commoner's holding at night (they must be levant and couchant there). This last is not a true Right, however, so much as an established practice. The principle of levancy and couchancy applied generally to the right of pasture as it was unstinted but commoners must have backup land, outside the Forest, to accommodate these depastured animals as during the Foot and Mouth epidemic.
Commons rights are attached to particular plots of land (or in the case of turbary, to particular hearths), and different land has different rights — and some of this land is some distance from the Forest itself. Rights to graze ponies and cattle are not for a certain number of animals, as is often the case on other commons. Instead a marking fee is paid for each animal each year by the owner. The marked animal's tail is trimmed by the local agister (Verderers' official), with each of the four or five Forest agisters using a different trimming pattern. Ponies are branded with the owner's brand-mark; cattle may be branded, or nowadays may have the brand-mark on an ear-tag. The grazing done by the commoners' ponies and cattle is an essential part of the management of the Forest, helping to maintain the internationally important heathland, bog, grassland and wood-pasture habitats and their associated wildlife.
