The New Forest is an area of southern England between the towns of Southampton, Bournemouth which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and old-growth forest in the south east. The contiguous New Forest habitat covers south west Hampshire and some of south Wiltshire. Additionally the New Forest local government district is a subdivision of Hampshire which covers most of the forest and some nearby areas.

The New Forest was created as a royal forest in 1079 by William the Conqueror for the hunting of deer. It was first recorded as "Nova Foresta" in the Domesday Book in 1086. The inhabitants of thirty-six parishes were evicted. William's successor, William Rufus was killed in a suspicious accident while hunting in the New Forest in 1100. The reputed spot of the king's death is marked with a stone known as the Rufus Stone.

Formal commons rights were established in the 16th century. Over time, the New Forest became an important source of wood for the Royal Navy, and plantations were begun to replace the felled trees. In the Great Storm of 1703, about four thousand oak trees were lost in the New Forest.

The naval plantations encroached on the rights of the Commoners, but the Forest gained new protection under an Act of Parliament in 1877. The New Forest Act 1877 confirmed the historic rights of the Commoners and prohibited the enclosure of more than 16,000 acres (65 km²) at any time. It also reconstituted the Court of Verderers as representatives of the Commoners (rather than the Crown).

Forest Laws were enacted to preserve the New Forest as a location for royal deer hunting, and interference with the King's deer and its forage was severely punished. Over time, the local inhabitants ("Commoners") were granted or took on various "rights of common": to turn ponies, cattle, donkeys and sheep out into the Forest to graze ("common pasture"), to gather wood ("estovers"), to gather bracken after 29 September as litter for animals ("fern"), 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"). Along with grazing, pannage is still an important part of the forest ecology. Pigs can eat acorns without a problem, whereas to ponies and cattle large numbers of acorns can be poisonous. Pannage always lasts 60 days but the start date varies according to the weather — and when the acorns fall. The Verderers decide when pannage will start each year. At other times the pigs must be taken in and kept on the owner's land with the exception that pregnant sows, known as "privileged sows", are always allowed out providing they are not a nuisance and return to the Commoner's holding at night (they must be "levant" and "couchant" there). This is not a true Right, however, so much as an established practice.

Commons rights are attached to particular plots of land (or in the case of turbary, to particular heaths), and different land has different rights — and some of this land is some distance from the Forest itself. Rights to graze ponies and cattle are not for a certain number of animals, as is often the case on other commons. Instead a "marking fee" is paid for each animal each year by the owner. The marked animal's tail is trimmed by the local "agister" (Verderers' official), with each of the four or five Forest agisters using a different trimming pattern. Ponies are branded with the owner's brand-mark; cattle may be branded, or nowadays may have the brand-mark on an ear-tag. The grazing done by the commoners' ponies and cattle is an essential part of the management of the Forest, helping to maintain the internationally important heathland, bog, grassland and wood-pasture habitats and their associated wildlife.

New Forest National Park Authority
The New Forest Trust
The Verderers
New Forest Equine Directory
The New Forest Museum
New Forest Association
Commoners Defence Association
Beaulieu Road Pony Sales
New Forest Pony and Cattle Breeders Society
New Forest and Hampshire Show Society
Forest Friendly Farming
New Forest Pony Publicity Group
New Forest Equestrian Association
Claire Kitcher New Forest Artist

Ashurst, Bartley, Beaulieu, Bramshaw, Brockenhurst, Brook, Bucklers Hard, Burley, Cadnam, Crow, East Boldre, Exbury, Exbury Gardens, Fordingbridge, Fritham, Frogham, Godshill, Holmesley, Hyde, Hale, Ipley, Lymington, Lyndhurst, Marchwood, Minstead, Milford on Sea, New Milton, North Gorley, Pennington, Pilley, Sway, Woodlands, Wootton.