A New Forest commoner (also known as a New Forester, Commoner or Forester) is a person who owns common land with recognized historical rights in the New Forest area of Southern England. The term is used both for a practitioner of the heritage agricultural vocation of commoning, and also a cultural minority native to the area. They are closely associated with the New Forest pony. In 2020, there were about 700 New Forest commoners. Areas of common land in and around the New Forest are linked to established historical rights, some dating back to the Anglo-Saxon period. These include rights of pasture, mast, marl, turbary, sheep-grazing, and fuelwood. The landowners entitled to these rights – often families who have held common land for generations – are known as commoners. Only they have the legal authority to exercise the rights attached to their holdings. The contribution of New Forest commoners to maintaining the area's ecology and landscape, as well as their historic role as a living tradition and heritage cultural minority, has been recognised by the Government of the United Kingdom, and the New Forest National Park Authority has acknowledged its commitment to protecting and supporting the community and the practice.
History
Following the Norman Conquest, the Anglo-Saxon Ytene Forest was proclaimed a royal forest, about 1079, by William the Conqueror. It was renamed as Nova Foresta and used for royal hunts, mainly of deer. It was created at the expense of more than 20 small hamlets and isolated farmsteads; hence it was then 'new' as a single compact area. Though Forest laws were now enacted to preserve this "New Forest" as a location for royal deer hunting, and interference with the king's deer and its forage was punished, the inhabitants of the area (commoners) had pre-existing Anglo-Saxon rights of common which were recognised by the Crown and governed by verderers. These common rights were passed on generationally through local families alongside the land that they were tied to, and over the centuries cohered a number of historic cultural practices, customs and values which are maintained to this day. Though the rights were re-confirmed by statute in 1698, throughout the 18th century a number of tree plantations were created within the area to supply timber for the Royal Navy, a number of which encroached on the rights of the commoners. In response to this, the Forest gained new protection under the New Forest Act 1877, which again re-confirmed the historic rights of the commoners and entrenched that the total of enclosures was henceforth not to exceed 65 km2 (25 sq mi) at any time. It also reconstituted the Court of Verderers as representatives of the commoners (rather than the Crown). As of 2005, roughly 90% of the New Forest is still owned by the Crown. In 1909 the Commoners Defence Association was established to defend the commoners' rights from increasing pressure. The Crown lands have been managed by Forestry England since 1923 and most of the Crown lands now fall inside the new National Park. Further New Forest Acts followed in 1949, 1964 and 1970. The New Forest became a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1971, and was granted special status as the New Forest Heritage Area in 1985, with additional planning controls added in 1992. The New Forest was proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in June 1999, but UNESCO did not take up the nomination. It became a National Park in March 2005, transferring a wide variety of planning and control decisions to the New Forest National Park Authority, who work alongside the local authorities, land owners and crown estates in managing the New Forest.
Cultural minority A New Forest commoner is distinguished from holders of rights over common land elsewhere by the unbroken lineage of the practice, and the expansive cultural and community heritage that surrounds and defines it. Commoners define themselves by their cultural practices, which are over a thousand years old, their community and their native territory of the New Forest. According to Phoebe Weston, writing in the Guardian, "Very few outsiders learn to become proper New Forest commoners. It’s not just biodiversity, it’s human heritage that’s being preserved here". The commoner community is based around a number of historic local families, many of whom have been practising commoners for as long as records exist, and who have passed knowledge and custom on through a generational oral and vocational tradition. The Commoners Defence Association considers that "Commoning isn’t just about animals. It’s about people. It is about family, community, and New Forest skills. The cultural heritage of the New Forest lies much more in these people than it does in buildings or other physical features of the landscape." The 2011 census of New Forest commoners confirmed that "When respondents were asked the main reasons that they continue to turn out, the single most often repeated reason was that commoning is a way of life, a tradition based on family and community. 41% of all comments made include expressions such as ‘it’s in my blood; I love the life’, ‘(it is a) family tradition that it is important to continue’ and ‘it’s a community I love being part of and something I want my children to have the opportunity to continue’ ... ‘Because it has been in the family for generations and is a way of life’".
Commoners' rights Commoners' rights are attached to particular plots of land (or in the case of turbary, to particular hearths), and different land has different rights – and some of this land is some distance from the Forest itself. These rights are recorded and documented in the Atlas of Rights maintained by the verderers. The rights of common are: to turn horses and cattle (but only rarely sheep) out into the Forest to graze (common pasture), to gather fuel wood (estovers), to cut peat for fuel (turbary), to dig clay (marl), and to turn out pigs between September and November to eat fallen acorns and beechnuts (pannage or mast). There were also licences granted to gather bracken after Michaelmas Day (29 September) as litter for animals (fern).
Common pasture
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