78 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



spreads the gloom of a yew, which, from the Conqueror's day, 

 to this hour, has darkened the graves of generations.* 



But the charm of Brockenhurst, as of all the Forest villages, 

 consists in the Forest itself. To the north runs the small 

 Forest stream, blossomed over in the summer with water-lilies. 

 On the left lies Black Knoll, with its waste of heath and gorse, 

 running up to the young plantations of New Park. On the 

 right, Balmor Lawn, with its short, sweet turf, where herds 

 of cattle are pasturing, stretches away to Holland's Wood, with 

 old thorns scattered here and there, in the spring lighting up 

 the Forest with their white may. 



Just now though, it is the southern part of the Forest we 

 must see. So going back again for a little way upon the 

 Beaulieu Road, and leaving it just above the foot-bridge for 

 Whitley Lodge, let the reader go on to Lady Cross. Suddenly 

 he will come out upon the northern edge of Beaulieu Heath, and 

 see again the Island Hills. To the people in the Forest, the 

 Island is their weather-glass. If its hills look dark blue and 

 purple, then the weather will be fine ; but if they can see the 

 houses and the chalk quarries on the hill sides, the rain is sure 

 to come. 



Keeping straight on, with Lady Cross Lodge to our left, 

 we enter Frame Wood, with its turf and its bridle roads winding 



* The following measurements may have some interest, and can be 

 compared with those of the oaks and beeches in the Forest, given in 

 chap. ii. p. 16, foot-note : Circumference of the oak, twenty-two feet eight 

 inches. Yew, seventeen feet. An enormous yew, completely hollow, how- 

 ever, stands in Breamore churchyard, measuring twenty-three feet four 

 inches. There are certainly no yews in the Forest so large as these ; and 

 their evidence would further show that at all events the Conqueror did not 

 destroy the churchyards, As here, too, there remains some Norman work 

 in the doorway of Breamore church. 



