jVcw Forest. 
333 
lino drawn from North Cliardford to Owerbridgc or Awbrid<je. 
This tract may be estimated at 230 square miles, or 147,200 
acres, the greater part of which, if not the whole, is mentioned in 
Domesday-Book as forest (either demesne or prerogative) be- 
longing to the Crown. This survey appears to have been fol- 
lowed by practical results in the relief of the subject ; fen- in the 
twenty-ninth of Edward's reign (20th November, 1300-1301) 
another perambulation was made, very materially reducing the 
limits of the Forest. The boundaries then assigned were after- 
wards fixed by statute (2 & 3 Edw. III. c. 1), were followed in 
the perambulation of the 22nd Charles II., in the peram])ulation 
of 1801, and exist at the present time. 
These limits are now said to be from Gadshill on the north- 
west to the sea on the south-east, and from Hardley on the east 
to Ringwood on the west. The entire acreage of the Forest, 
within the perambulation, is computed at 92,365 acres. Edward 
grumbled at the reduction but submitted to it, his poverty, but 
not his Avill, consenting. His ambition preferred the acquisition 
of the principality of Wales, and the probability of the crown 
of Scotland, to the retention of a few prerogative afforestations 
adjoining his New Forest demesne. The disafforested land had 
and has the name of purlieu. 
Thougli the boundaries of the Forest were so long undefined, 
yet unenclosed as it was and is, unmarked by any natural or arti- 
ficial lines of distinction, and probably by reason of this very 
absence of boundaries, every spot, however secluded and insig- 
nificant, has its proper name ;* so that if you drop your glove 
anywhere in the Forest, a native will go straight to the place on 
its being named to him, and recover it. 
But the entire quantity of 92,365 acres is not now forest, nor 
is all of it the property of the Crown. Besides ancient inde- 
pendent manors, such as Minstead and Brockenhurst, there are 
lands within the external boundaries of the Forest belonging to 
private individuals and surrounded by the royal demesne. No 
regular perambulation of these, no attempt at legally ascertaining 
and recording their extent, appear to have been made before 
1800, and then by statute (39 cSc 40 Geo. III. c. 86). They may 
be supposed to have come into existence since the Crown's 
relaxation of its forest laws. Under them there could be no 
enclosures, and consequently the boundaries of these private 
lands must have been little else than imaginary lines. It appears 
* So also in other forests. "Wild as this immense tract (Blair Athol) is, every 
rock, corrie, cairn, and mountain is distinguished by some particular name, nullum 
sine nomine saxiim ; and there are numerous subdivisions which indicate every 
precise spot, so that the men appointed to bring home the dead deer, being thus 
told -where they lie, never fail to find them."— Scrope's ' Deer Stalking.' 
2 A 2 
