Agricultural History Review, Volume 66 Part 1 (2018), p. 154

Hadrian Cook, author, academic and landscape historian, will perhaps be more familiar to people with an interest in the history, ecology and conservation of water meadows and catchment management. In his latest book, New Forest, he turns his attention away from the aquatic to another evocative but altogether more terrestrial landscape as he attempts to ‘defragment’ interest in the New Forest and tries to produce a fresh and integrated look at its history, conservation policy, changing economy and governance. The writing of the book was, it seems, prompted by two events: the creation of the New Forest National Park in 2005 and the Coalition Government policy of 2011 which many interpreted as an attempt to privatize the Forestry Commission and sell off the New Forest (among other state-owned forests). Both of these events revealed the contested nature of the New Forest landscape. In the case of the former, through the argument that effective forms of governance and legislative provision had already been established over its 900-year history, and in the case of the latter, through protests in favour of the New Forest remaining a state-owned and state-maintained public resource. As the author shrewdly observes, even the late Mrs Thatcher never presumed to privatize the assets of Mrs Windsor. These themes and, indeed, the thrust of the book therefore emanate from questions concerning the values that we place on the landscape; asking why we perhaps value some areas more than others, and what do we value them for? For the New Forest, once a medieval royal hunting forest and now a modern conservation-cum-recreation landscape these are valid enquiries that demand a multi-disciplined approach. This book is, therefore, Cook’s attempt to see the subject through the lens of environmental history or ‘green history’, to use his words, in an approach that mixes discussion of the political and economic dimensions with description of the New Forest landscape.

While the New Forest landscape has changed less than the agricultural landscapes and urban areas that surround it, Cook points out that the Forest has entered the twenty-first century as the core of an array of planning and conservation designations. He therefore seeks to provoke a wider understanding and discussion of how the New Forest has arrived at its current arrangement and where it is going. He does this by examining what he identifies as four critical themes: first, the shaping of the natural environment into human prehistory; second, human intervention through natural resource management; third, the governance and management of the Forest over time, stressing the pressures on resources and attempts at exclusion of certain groups; and, fourth, policies and designations to conserve the New Forest. The themes are dealt with in order of chronological interest.

After an introduction and a section explaining the landscape’s ecology, function and value, the remaining chapters deal (respectively) with the prehistoric and pre-Norman Conquest landscape, revealing through archaeology the impact of early humans on the New Forest; the medieval period, which saw the establishment of the royal forest and elite hunting; the Tudor period through to the reign of William III and Mary, which saw the rise of silvicultural production; the early modern period into the twentieth century, which is described as the decline of the ‘old ways’; the twentieth century, including the Second World War era up until the mid-1980s, which saw the conflict between forestry exploitation and public amenity; and, finally, from the mid-1980s into the present day, which has seen the New Forest increasingly under the influence of partnership arrangements between statutory, voluntary and private sector organizations. This book also attempts to outline the twists and turns of the New Forest’s journey through history, not just in terms of changing governance and political priorities but also some of the various stakeholders who have altered and influenced its cultural and physical landscape. These stakeholders include the prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies, the aristocracy, politicians, farmers, economists, agricultural labourers, gypsies and commoners to which list has been added in recent years, environmentalists, recreation-seekers, tourists and those living on its margins in the urban hinterland.

New Forest endeavours to blend history, politics, geology and ecology, together with a touch of literature and even folk culture, in order to examine the values placed on its landscape, the process of its governance and the possibilities for its future. Historians who regularly study the New Forest will be familiar with the primary sources (and indeed some of the illustrations) that have been used throughout this book but will surely find originality in the ideas that are presented and the questions raised by Cook’s book. Indeed, many of the questions considered by the author, particularly about the prospects for the New Forest in the coming years, are still being discussed amongst the many organizations that share an interest in the Forest’s purpose, value, governance and future. Fortunately, the author is fairly upbeat about the outlook for the New Forest, which he believes is all the better for being regarded and managed as a ‘nationalised’ property. But, as he says, time will tell.