New Forest, a triangular district of south-west Hampshire, 9 miles SW. of Southampton, bounded W. by the river Avon, S. by the Solent and English Channel, and NE. by Southampton Water. It measures about 14 by 16 miles, and has an extreme area of 144 sq. m., or 92,365 acres, of which, however, only 64,232 belong to the crown demesnes. The district seems to have been wooded from the earliest times; its present name dates from 1079, when the Conqueror here made a 'mickle deer-frith,' and cleared away several hamlets. This afforestation, enforced by the savage 'Forest laws,' was regarded as an act of the greatest cruelty; and the violent deaths met by two of his sons, Richard and William Rufus, of whom one was killed here by a stag, and the other by an arrow, were looked on as special judgments. The deer were removed under an act of parliament (1851); and under another of 1877 the New Forest now is managed by the court of Verderers as a public pleasure-ground and cattle-farm. Enclosed plantations occupy about one-fourth of the entire area, the remainder being open woodland, bog, and heath. The principal trees are oaks and beech. The former were once much used as timber for the navy; the mast of the latter still feeds large herds of swine. There is also a herd of small, rough-coated ponies. The hollies, the rhododendrons, and therewith the general absence of underwood, give a beautiful park-like aspect to the forest, points within which or on whose verge are Lyndhurst, Beaulieu, and Lynton.
See Gilpin's Forest Scenery (ed. by F. G. Heath, 1879); Blackmore's Craddock Novell (1866); and Wise's The New Forest (1863; 4th or 'Artist's edition,' 1883, with Linton's engravings of views by Crane, and etchings by Sumner); The Portfolio (1894); The New Forest by De Crespigny and Hutchinson (1895); also FOREST LAWS.