New Forest

One of the largest surviving tracts of unenclosed pasture, heath and woodland in southern England, proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror and recorded in Domesday Book. The New Forest Commoners still hold and exercise ancient rights of common pasture, enforced by verderers and agisters, which is why ponies and cattle wander the roads. In the eighteenth century the woods supplied timber to the Royal Navy. The area carries a 289-square-kilometre Site of Special Scientific Interest and is a Special Area of Conservation, a Ramsar site and a Special Protection Area.