The following paper was presented at the New Forest Knowledge Conference 2017 entitled: New Forest Historical Research and Archaeology: who’s doing it? Below you will find the abstract of the paper and a video of the paper given if permission to film it was given by the speaker.
Speaker:
Brice Stratford
Abstract:
Extensive archival research over the past year, prompted by recent planning applications for the total redevelopment of the site, has uncovered a great deal of unexpected historic interest in Glasshayes House, the former Lyndhurst Park Hotel building. Perhaps most valuable amongst this has been the discovery that the 1912 architectural redesign (which exists in predominance today) was conceived of by sometime New Forest resident Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Possible connections to John Nash and George Repton are also of some note, as is the potential for parts of the present building to be 18th century survivals.
This talk provides a concise but detailed overview of the life of the building, from it’s earliest mention to the present day, with particular attention to Conan Doyle’s original designs for the 1912 hotel extension. It places them in their social and biographical context, and demonstrates the degree to which they were realised in construction and the unique extent to which they survive today.
Take a drone tour of Hurst Castle in Hampshire, an artillery fort established by Henry VIII. This is one of the most important heritage sites in the New Forest National Park.
You can discover more articles about Hurst Castle on New Forest Knowledge by visiting: Hurst Castle – Overview
Iron horseshoes and nails were used as simple charms to protect the home, whilst blacksmiths made more sophisticated amulets out of iron to protect against the evil eye. Iron itself was of course considered a sacred and magical material, and the Blacksmith considered a magician.
Horse brasses with symbols (such as the sun, greenery, hobgoblins, and lucky horseshoes) were also made to protect horses as they worked. The moon was a particularly frequent symbol to decorate horse trappings, being associated with various aspects of horsemanship including shoeing: ‘continue the shooing of him…until his heels be well shaped and large which will be infallibly after twice or thrice shooing; do it at the change, about the fourth or fifth day of the new moon.’
– Vikki Bramshaw, author of the book ‘New Forest Folklore, Traditions & Charms’
On 6 June 1944, thousands of troops with their vehicles and supplies left Britain via locations such as Lepe beach in the New Forest National Park for the beaches of Normandy. This was D-Day, the start of the great campaign to liberate Europe and to bring World War Two to its end. View the remains of the launch site at Lepe from a different aerial angle in this short clip and get the full story here: D-Day at Lepe Beach
In this film you can clearly see the embarkation area first including the wooden Dolphins that formed part of the pier head used to load ships departing for Normandy. You can also see the iron Bollards used to tie up the ships that were being loaded for the invasion and the Beach Hardening Mats which resemble huge bars of chocolate, were held in place by a series of iron hooks. They were laid out to strengthen the beach enough to take the weight of the tanks and other vehicles being driven onto landing craft.
The flight then moves over the Mulberry Harbour construction area. First you will see the concrete slipways run from the rolling track walls to the sea. These were used to launch the caissons at high tide. You then see the impressive construction platforms where the caissons were constructed. Today, although parts are storm damaged and some have been deliberately destroyed, the platforms run for 374 metres and are 11m wide and 1.3m high. The platforms were large enough to construct all six caissons simultaneously, reflecting the urgency of the work.
You can find out more about the New Forest’s vital role in D-Day from Mulberry Harbour, to holding camps, road widening, advanced landing grounds, PLUTO and Embarkation by visiting our main page on D-Day in the New Forest.
Many users of the site will be familiar with our map and map overlays which provide a range of heritage and natural environment information.
Owing to changes in how map overlays are provided to the website, from mid 2023 users will temporarily lose access to most of this service.
We apologise for the inconvenience.
Below is a full list of the overlays that will be affected. We are working on a solution to restore the overlays and hope to have good news soon. We will let you know through this page once the overlays are working again.
This paper was presented at the New Forest Knowledge Conference 2018 entitled: The Role of Commoning in the Maintenance of Landscape and Ecology: A New Forest, National and Global Perspective.
Speaker:
Chris Short, Countryside & Community Research Institute (CCRI)
Abstract
Commons can be found across the globe, and often hold an important message for us back home, often about the need for shared problem-solving to meet current and future challenges. In Norway a new project FUTGRAZE, is assessing why some pastoral associations are able to meet the challenges while others are not. In some areas, the conflict level has grown so high that farmers cannot bear the social strain of continuing with farming. Key reasons are poor cooperation between pasture farmers as well as between farmers and other stakeholders. The result is less grazing, increasing encroachment with subsequent loss of biodiversity. But at the same time, in other areas, the grazing associations have managed to handle these complexities despite huge challenges, sometimes bigger than in the areas where cooperation has declined. FUTGRAZE seeks to crystallize alternative ways of organizing, operating and managing commons in Norway, with the purpose of reducing the conflict levels that threaten these areas and to ensure improved communication amongst all stakeholders.
Rockbourne is near Fordingbridge in a picturesque and peaceful part of Hampshire close to the New Forest. This animation recreates the Roman villa that once stood here in the centre of a large farming estate, and is the largest known villa in the area. Its history spans the period from the Iron Age to the 5th century AD.
The animation was created by Aaron Stone, a student in the Creative Technology Department at Bournemouth University using UE4.
