Site Code
Country: United Kingdom
Central coordinates: 50.84609562o [50o 50' 45" North], -1.63633594o [1o 38' 10" West]
Administrative region: South East (South Hampshire)
Area: 29190 ha
Altitude: 10 - 120
Site Description
The National Park is 220 sq miles (57,000 ha) in area and lies mainly in south-west Hampshire – from east of the Avon Valley to Southampton Water and from the Solent coast to the edge of the Wiltshire chalk downs. The NFNP includes approx 42 km or 26 m of coastline including saltmarsh, lagoons and mudflats. The New Forest is a unique landscape of ancient woodland, temperate and dwarf shrub heath, wide lawns, boggy mires, gentle farmland, coastal saltmarsh and mudflats, Mediterranean temporary pools and Oligotrophic waters containing very few minerals of sandy plains.
Botanical Significance
The area is noted for lichens, bryophytes, stoneworts, vascular plants and habitat interest. It contains the largest remaining area of lowland heath in Europe, made up of a patchwork of dry and wet heath, mainly of the Erica tetralix – Sphagnum compactum type. The wet heaths are important for rare plants, such as Marsh Gentian Gentiana pneumonanthe and Marsh Clubmoss Lycopodiella inundata. Unlike much lowland heath, the New Forest heaths continue to be extensively grazed by cattle and horses, favouring species with low competitive ability. The New Forest holds the largest area in England of Depressions on peat substrates of the Rhynchosporion, in complex habitat mosaics associated primarily with the extensive valley bogs of this site. The area is considered of European importance for Stoneworts in Stewart (2004).
The New Forest Molinia meadows are species-rich grasslands with an abundance of small sedges such as Carnation Sedge Carex panicea, Common Sedge C. nigra and yellow-sedge C. viridula ssp. Oedocarpa. This vegetation occurs in situations of heavy grazing by ponies and cattle in areas known locally as ‘lawns’. Around 20,000 hectares of the National Park is farmland, half of which is permanent grassland for pasture.
The New Forest is the largest area of mature, semi-natural beech Fagus sylvatica woodland in Britain and represents Atlantic acidophilous beech forests and old acidophilous oak woods Quercus spp. in the most southerly part of the habitat’s UK range. The mosaic with other types of woodland and heath has allowed unique and varied assemblages of epiphytic lichens.
Management guidance notes
None
Notes
Beaulieu Heath; Five Thorns Hill; Holmsley; Lucas Castle; Mockbeggar Area