Landscape

• The unenclosed ancient and ornamental woodlands of the New Forest are the largest area of natural deciduous woodland in Britain.
• The Knightwood Oak at Bolderwood may be 500 years old.
• In spite of its name, less than half of the New Forest’s 150 square miles is wooded. The rest is heather- and bracken-covered heath, open pasture, marsh, villages and coastline.
• Mark Ash Wood is the largest beechwood in the New Forest.
• Heathland such as that found in the New Forest is rarer globally than rainforest.
• The New Forest is the largest remaining area of lowland heath in Europe.
• The New Forest has 100 inclosures covering around 8,500 hectares.
• There are 90 separate bog systems within the New Forest – three-quarters of the 120 lowland valley mires in Europe.
• Lowland heath in Britain represents 40% of the total remaining in Western Europe.

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