Talk:New Forest

Oaks
I believe that New Forest is the location for these oaks, can anyone verify :

New College, Oxford, England has a dining hall that was built 350 years ago. Its roof is supported by a series of 40-foot long beams made of brown oak which recently were found to be decayed and in need of replacement. The college authorities contacted a contractor who specialized in this type of work and indicated that they wanted the new beams to be similar to the original ones, preserving the architectural integrity of the building. They were told that brown oak of the needed dimensions was not available anywhere in the United Kingdom. Not wanting to take no for an answer, New College contacted the local Oxford forester to see if this were true. "We've been wondering when you'd ask," said the forester. It seems that when the dining hall was built, the architect went to the person who was then the Oxford forester and asked him to plant a stand of brown oaks, because he knew those ceiling beams would need to be replaced in about 300 years.

The trivia section of the New College web page dismisses this story because the 1862 remodelling was preceded by one a century before. The oaks did not come from New Forest. 169.207.90.173 09:56, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

New Forest National Park
The change just made to the map (adding the Lord Lieutenency area of "" to Hampshire) need explanation for me - why are they necessary? As a local they make no sense. --Webmink 00:41, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * The map shows the area of the 'hampshire' lord lieutenecy; it doesn't show the administrative county (the area covered by Hampshire County Council), which does not cover the unitary authorities of Portsmouth and Southampton. In other words - the area shown is not Hampshire as the term would be used administratively (where it would be described as Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton), and according to Naming conventions (places), administrative counties should be used; in this instance, they aren't, and so should be qualified by this description. 80.255 12:31, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * OK, got it. I've made the change reflect the way locals would talk about it and hopefully stuck within the conventions you refer to. --Webmink 20:09, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sources for Facts
Someone just added "It is also the largest contiguous area of un-sown vegetation in Europe." Does anyone have source for this please? I feel assertions like this need to be supported if they are to be allowed to stand. --Webmink 21:12, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * The source is a BBC documentary, 'A Wild Autumn Day', broadcast on Sunday 6th February on BBC2 South at 17.15 UTC. I can't find any other reference to support the claim, but on the other hand this was the BBC. I have found a reference to it being the largest contiguous area of unsown vegetation in lowland Britain (http://www.chm.org.uk/detail.asp?m=812) so I have changed my addition accordingly. I'm sorry - this is the first time I've edited a Wiki article - what kind of evidence is acceptable for this sort of thing?


 * Your source is good - you should add a link to it to the article at the bottom under a 'references' heading. I think Webmink was right to question the unsupported fact, and you've also now done the right thing by providing an authoritative reference and amending the wording to ensure that it is consistent with what can be demonstrated. Admittedly this level of rigour isn't always demonstrated on all pages, but it's something to aim for. Well done on your first edit - you've participated very positively and successfully in the Wikipedia process. Keep it up. And why not get a free account? Then we can recognise you and your work. Naturenet 12:09, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, I've added it to the external links section. Thanks very much for the positive response, I will register and go through the editing tutorial.


 * Excellent link, thank-you for the addition. --Webmink 18:27, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

GA nom failure
I am failing this article for the following reasons:


 * Missing basic map I'd like to see a map of this whole area within the context of England.


 * Paucity of references Could fail for this reason alone. Seven footnotes is far too few for the assertions made in this article.


 * Images Plenty, but they seem unrelated to the text of the article other than being taken in the forest. The intro image, for one — where does the article even mention Buckler's Hard on the Beaulieu River (Not to mention it being a poor-quality photo, in need of some attention from the shadow/highlight tool)? I have no idea what it really has to do with the New Forest except that, well, the river runs through it. Conversely, there should be a picture of Rufus Rock where it's discussed ... there are a bunch over at that article.


 * Inconsistent use of systems of measure This is a real sticking point for me personally. All references to areas in metric should be in km², not square kilometers as they are in one or two instances, and English equivalents should be given for every one (at present they are given for only a few).

I have added this article to the Protected Areas project; I believe looking at it from that perspective would greatly help improve it (the infobox for starters). It seems to fall into IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) due to the combination of private and public land, developed and undeveloped areas (I have worked on a similar one in the form of Catskill Park — I don't know if you could get any ideas from that one). Good luck. Daniel Case 03:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Added Infobox and Map with context in England
 * Changed square kilimetres to KM2
 * Added acres to all km entries

Ben 12:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Images - Over the past 2 years I have posted nearly 1000 photos of the New Forest on the geograph.org.uk website, each with a grid reference and description - see this search results page. They are all licenced with a Creative Commons attribution licence, which means they can be put onto Wikimedia commons no probs. I see someone has already done that with the Ibsley Common photo, although the geograph pics are only 640x480 pixels in size. I can upload the original hi-res photos onto wikimedia commons if necessary. If its mentioned in this Wikipedia article, I've probably photographed it. And if I haven't, someone else on geograph.org.uk probably has....

In this article as it currently stands, the pic of the miniature pony is a little unrepresentative (the vast majority of ponies on the Forest are 'full size') and I agree with the above comments about the Buckler's Hard photo. I've moved it to the gallery on the Beaulieu River article. JimChampion 19:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Release of mink in New Forest
Just to clarify deletion just done from the Wildlife section...

I've removed the sentence:


 * "There was a program to liberate mink into the New Forest as well in the late '90's, but they have been largely culled due to the surprisingly devastating damage they did to some livestock."

This statement is untrue in several important respects. There has been no official programme to introduce American mink Mustela vison to the New Forest, nor to anywhere else in the UK – certainly not in the past few decades, and I don't think ever. Most introductions have been opportunistic escapes from fur farms.

There were indeed releases close to the New Forest in about 1997, from a mink farm at Crow near Ringwood (about a mile from where I live). However, these were hardly a "programme", but were vandalism done by so-called animals rights activists. Most of the mink actually returned voluntarily to their tiny cages, or provided a slight and temporary deadening effect on local road-noise. There was some effort to kill the survivors, but it was not organised, and so could not really be called a cull. Finally, few people would be at all surprised at mink being devastating to poultry, and indeed to wildlife.

Personally I don't think there is any need to mention mink at all in this article – feral mink are not really any more or less prevalent here than elsewhere in the UK. If it is mentioned at all, I think it should be along the lines of "In the late 1990s Ringwood, on the edge of the New Forest, was the location of an illegal mass release of several thousand farmed American mink by animal liberation activists. Most of the animals were soon recaptured or killed, but some probably strengthened existing populations in the area." Richard New Forest 09:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Split the article?
Does anyone else think that New Forest (National Park) should be created, and all mention of the national park (apart from a wikilink) moved to the new article? It's a very recent development in the life of the forest, and doesn't have the same boundaries or legal status as the ancient forest. (On the other hand, the forest doesn't have a definite boundary in any case.) --Northernhenge (talk) 22:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I would tend to agree. The article currently mixes the topics of the New Forest as an area, and the New Forest as a National Park. The German Wikipedia so far is the only to distinguish both (here and here), but I feel it should be done everywhere as they are two distinct topics. Rgds, --Midas02 (talk) 12:33, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Any progress on this front? There is a lot of misinformation (which I can only assume is a result of confusion between the two) in the article which should be addressed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.82.36 (talk • contribs) 21:31, 20 November 2014 (UTC) Revision as of 21:31, November 20, 2014

Copyright problem removed
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Location map
I've uploaded a location map of the New Forest to Commons (shown to right). I have not created an associated location map template, but this can easily be done if desired.

If this is created, it allow enable creation a map of the New Forest similar to the one under construction at Talk:Dartmoor, and could be used in related articles (see this example). Hope people find it useful.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:00, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Possible source
http://www.newforestcentre.org.uk/uploads/publications/65.pdf

may be of some use.©Geni 18:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Common Rights
Comments such as "Many houses with common rights are now owned by migrants to the area (largely from cities) who have no interest in keeping the practice going, and are often only there for part of the year anyway." The assertion of new ownership is not backed up by figures and the attitude of the new owners is purely the authors opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.224.97.89 (talk) 09:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Map has misaligned text on 'History' section
In my opinion, the map size needs to be decreased a little on the 'History' section of the article as it has misaligned the text for the section. I feel that this may make the presentation of the article a little unprofessional in my opinion. Xboxsponge15 (talk) 12:19, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:38, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * New Forest Pony England.jpg