The Forest

Information

The New Forest is one of Britain’s newest and smallest national parks, designated in 2005. It has an area of 218 square miles that include 86 square miles of woodland, 61 square miles of heathland and grassland, 57 square miles of farmland, 26 miles of coastland and141 miles of footpaths. camping and caravanning alone.

The highest point in the New Forest is Pipers Wait, near No-mans land. Its summit is 129 metres (423 feet) above sea level. The tallest tree - a giant sequoia on the Rhinefield Drive was 51.10m in 2012-13. The height of this tree was measured by climbing with direct tape drop by Waldo Etherington of "Canopy Access", a group of professional tree climbers also climbing for research in tropical rainforests. This was reported by David Alderman of the Tree Register of the British Isles. Evidence can be found now of the height being 178ft (55m) but cannot be confirmed by The New Forest Guide.

Only half of the New Forest area is wooded. The New Forest is also home to heather-blanketed heaths, lawns, farmland, and even coastal marshes and mudflats. The New Forest is home to some 700 wild flower species, about a third of Britain’s total, and 2,700 different fungi. Deer, newts, bats, and all three native British snakes live here, including the adder, Britain’s only poisonous snake.

The New Forest has a population of 172,000 people, 35,000 living within the National Park area but its most famous inhabitants are the 3,000 or so four-legged locals known as The New Forest Ponies. These animals are free to roam where they will, as they have for centuries, but they are actually owned by commoners with rights of pasture in the park. This unique pony breed traces its lineage back nearly a thousand years.

Shipbuilding took place in the 18th-century village of Buckler’s Hard on the Beaulieu River where local oaks were crafted into ships that served in the fleet Admiral Lord Nelson led to victory at Trafalgar. Some Middle Eastern countries once imported New Forest conifers to become masts for their traditional dhows.

Rufus Stone William the Conqueror’s son, King William Rufus (William II), was killed while hunting in the New Forest. On 2 August 1100, William died when an arrow shot him. It was accepted as an accident, but could have been an assassination. It has been suggested that his alleged slayer, Walter Tirel, was acting under orders from William's younger brother, Henry, who promptly seized the throne as Henry I. The spot where he supposedly fell is now marked by the Rufus Stone.