108 The Heath Formation 



Dorsetshire and southwards into the Isle of Wight. The 

 plateau formed by these beds was covered in late Tertiary- 

 times by extensive sheets of river and estuarine gravels, 

 which have since been dissected by river systems forming 

 shallow valleys. The plateau gravels and the Tertiary 

 sands now bear wide stretches of heath, mainly to the 

 west of Southampton water. The New Forest alone has 

 30,000 acres (c. 12,140 hectares) of heathland, and further 

 to the west, in Dorsetshire, are even greater areas, of 

 which the "Egdon heath" of Thomas Hardy's novels 

 forms part. These Dorsetshire heaths are broken only 

 by occasional plantations of conifers, but in the New 

 Forest region heaths alternate with considerable areas 

 of dry oakwood. On the edges or even throughout 

 some of these woods degeneration through the stage 

 of oak-birch heath to the heath association can be ob- 

 served, while some of the heaths still bear isolated trees 

 of holly, yew, more rarely of whitebeam (Pyrus Aria) 

 and bushes of hawthorn {Gratsegus 7nonogyna). But much 

 of this heath area is certainly very old. Domesday Book 

 and Leland mention the great "bruaria" of Dorsetshire 

 and the Southampton district. 



The general level of the heaths of this region hardly 

 reaches 100 feet (c. 30 m.) of altitude, though in places 

 a height of 400 feet and more (c. 120 m.) is attained. 

 All the heath-bearing soils (Bagshot, Bracklesham and 

 Barton sands, valley and plateau gravels, 

 dunes and shingle banks of coastal origin) 

 of the Hampshire basin are poor in soluble minerals. The 

 typical heath soil is covered by a thin layer of dry peat 

 generally but a fraction of an inch in thickness, though 

 in constantly damp places it may attain sufficient thick- 

 ness to allow of its being flaked off in " turves " for fuel. 

 Below the layer of dry peat are a few inches of dark 

 peaty soil through which the root systems of the heath 

 plants ramify horizontally. The Bagshot and Bracklesham 



