New Forest
a triangular district of southwest Hampshire, England, 9 miles S. W. of Southampton, bounded W. by the river Avon, S. by the Solent and English channel, and N. E. by Southampton Water. It measures about 14 by 16 miles, and has an extreme area of 144 square miles, or 92,365 acres, of which, however, only 64,232 belong to the crown. The district seems to have been wooded from the earliest times; its present name dates from 1079, when the Conqueror here made a "mickle deerfrith," 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 a special judgment. The deer were removed under an act of Parliament (1851); and under another of 1877 the court of Verderers as a public pleasure ground and cattle farm.