Revisiting the arboretum that was forgotten as a New Forest village grew up nearby
A forgotten arboretum
The line of the A35 road from Southampton to Lyndhurst has for centuries comprised the most important eastern route into the New Forest, although until the early 19th century vast areas of common land adjoined the Forest where Ashurst village now stands. Only a line of boundary stones showed where the privately-owned common land ceased and the Forest started. The rather slow development of the village is well described by Peter Roberts in his Ashurst: A New Forest Railway Village, but he makes little mention of what happened on the Forest side of the boundary.
In the late 1840s, the railway sliced through the former common land beyond the Forest’s eastern boundary and then into the Forest itself, severing the line of the later A35 road and necessitating the provision of a level crossing. Then, in 1864, a huge plantation (Busketts Inclosure) was formed. This, together with the earlier inclosure of Lodgehill, lined the north side of the main road for two thirds of the way to Lyndhurst. Busketts was and remains a great area of commercial woodland, but something curious and unexplained was done at the Ashurst end of the plantation adjoining the present railway bridge. An arboretum of about three acres was formed which in time would come to dominate this entrance to the Forest. There must be official records showing when and why this ornamental planting took place, but I have never come across them. It was not made concurrently with the inclosure, and its site remained un-planted in 1869 (1st edition of the Ordnance Survey 6” map), despite the Forestry Commission stock map indicating that mixed conifers were planted there in 1864. Small scale OS maps suggest that it still remained unplanted in 1877 and was perhaps separately fenced, but that the arboretum itself existed by 1893. That would put its origin into the term of office of Deputy Surveyor Lascelles.
In 1928, presumably in response to growing traffic volumes, the county council decided that the level crossing gates had to go. A large engineering project was started thereafter for a new bridge with massive approach ramps, to carry the road over the railway. The works must have destroyed a narrow strip on the south edge of the arboretum, but most of it remained intact.
By the 1960s, the ornamental planting had completely disappeared in a jungle of rhododendron and laurel. Most local people, I imagine, did not even know that it existed, although one forestry officer did have the bright idea of clearing it and opening it up as a tourist attraction. Fortunately, the idea was quickly abandoned because the access was so difficult and dangerous. There is certainly no convenient and safe Forest parking here, and I don’t think the residents of Woodlands Road would have welcomed a tourist magnet right in front of their houses, so the arboretum slept on, inaccessible and unseen.
Within the last 10 years the Forestry Commission has, to its credit, cleared the invasive scrub and sprayed the regrowth, so that the fruits of the original planters’ work can now be seen for the first time. The site is still littered with fallen timber and threatened by natural regeneration of Lawson’s Cypressus or something similar, but there are some very interesting trees still surviving. Chief among them are several monkey puzzle trees which are rare in the Forest. They are probably the largest examples we have. There are huge Corsican and Scots pines, long past their economic maturity, but it is unusual to see such trees of this age surviving in the inclosures. I am no expert on conifers, but I am told that the Wellingtonias are of two different types. I am grateful to Chris Read for the photograph.
Rather strangely, the arboretum contains no Douglas fir. Giant trees of this type border Bartley Water further to the north in Busketts and to judge from the Ordnance maps they once probably formed avenues along some to the rides, so their inclusion in the arboretum may have been thought unnecessary.
It is good that there are still interesting little corners like this surviving without being littered with tourist trails, and dozens of notices and information boards, to say nothing of health and safety fellings. Assuming that this was the work of Gerald Lascelles, we have something new to be grateful for to the famous Deputy Surveyor.
Too many bridges?
The New Forest breeds committees like a rabbit warren produces young. Most of these groups are rather dull and toothless, but there are some exceptions, of which the Open Forest Advisory Committee is one. This was originally a forum just for the commoners and the Forestry Commission to discuss maintenance of the common grazing of the Forest. It considered such matters as the proper drainage of the Forest (required by the New Forest Act 1949), clearance of coarse vegetation, removal of fallen timber, bridge and passage maintenance and access for drifts (round-ups) and colt-hunting (catching of individual ponies by their owners). While it still serves some of these functions, the emphasis is very different today. The “official” team is now made up largely of ecologist employees and advisors who explain exactly what can, or more usually cannot, be done within new rules and financial constraints. Still, there remain a few experienced and long-serving forestry officers who know the Forest and its problems as thoroughly as any commoner. Dealing with them is always a refreshing change, if not so productive as it once was.
In the April meeting of this committee, one announcement was of particular significance, if a little unsettling. The committee was told that Forestry England is undertaking a review of all bridges on the open Forest to see which ones are to be removed, which must be retained and which might be replaced by fords. At the same time, all sorts of safety checks and weight-carrying specifications will be considered. Once FE’s internal discussions are finished, the plans will be put to the committee and then (presumably) published for public responses.
Bridge maintenance is an expensive business and that, I think, is what is driving this review. FE constantly pleads poverty when even the smallest item of maintenance work in the Forest is requested. No doubt priority will be given to heavily-used tourist bridges such as that at Bolderford, or King’s Passage below the Matley camp site, but the fate of tiny hidden crossings in such places as Mark Ash are likely to be high on the list for axing, if they have not already been allowed to fall down.
In the old days, of course, before hunting was banned, there was an influential lobby of local people who could ensure that even the most out-of-the-way bridges were maintained. This was primarily for the use of the hunters, but all local people benefitted, whether they were commoners on horses or just walkers on a favourite route. Now all this is history and I fear that the door to large-scale bridge removal may be opening.
Opening of the Ziegler memorial horse bridge at Foulford in 1980
Quite apart from the access considerations, the Forest bridges have always been an important component of the landscape. Today any new bridges are likely to be of steel, but with a not unattractive superstructure of timber. There remain many timber cart bridges and horse crossings – still called by many “hunting bridges”. In the north of the Forest there are two unusual hump-backed concrete bridges which were cast in-situ. One of these is the famous Splash Bridge at Broomy and the other an un-named, copy deep in Islands Thorns Inclosure.
Splash Bridge in 1972
Inclosures, when thrown-open, are technically part of the Open Forest, so bridges in such places as Islands Thorns are potentially at risk. At Linford there is an elaborate brick memorial bridge and a similar brick structure, the Old Roman Bridge is a little to the west of Lyndhurst. It has nothing to do with the Romans. Altogether the Forest will be a poorer place if its bridges suffer a determined assault.
On one of the few warm sunny days this spring, I watched an interesting performance on Latchmore Brook at Ogdens. Here, there is a good hard-bottomed ford and about 20 yards downstream of it a fine modern horse bridge. One by one, a group of Forest ponies came to the ford to drink at intervals of two or three minutes. Then, instead of following the track through the ford, each in turn walked away from the intended route, crossed the horse bridge and came back upstream to rejoin the original line. Five in all attempted this manoeuvre and four succeeded. The fifth, as it was about to set foot on the bridge, encountered a walker and was driven off with a large stick. The mare reluctantly returned to the ford and crossed there. It will not only be local people who will regret any cull of Forest bridges.
Deer census
I was recently sent copies of the maps from this year’s deer census across the north of the Forest and beyond. It is one of those reports that tells us precisely what we already know (that there has been a huge explosion in deer numbers), but it is still useful in that it puts a sort of scientific seal of approval on unofficial observations. Unfortunately, the scale of the maps is very small and the 1km squares do not seem to fit well with the National Grid, so that interpretation is difficult. I only have maps for the north of the Forest, mostly covering the area between the A31 and the A36. There, the drones identified 6,546 deer, with very large concentrations along the Forest margins with the Avon Valley. No doubt if the report is published, we will be given a lot more information, but if the density in the south of the Forest is the same, the total population must be immense. It sometimes seems to me that most of this population spends its time marching through my garden and crashing about outside my bedroom window.
