Alice Holt Forest Hampshire

'Maps are seen by their readers as neutral carriers of information, and thus have the power to persuade without appearing to do so' Denis Wood, The Power of Maps.(1992).

'"We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!" "Have you used it much?" I enquired. "It has never been spread out, yet," said Mein Herr: "the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."' Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893).

One would have thought that Alice Holt Forest, as a Royal Forest and notable feature of the countryside would have appeared in most old county maps of Hampshire.... ...Not so!

The old county maps generally concentrate on locating the villages and hamlets, the main roads, the parks and country houses of the nobility and gentry and certain geographical features such as rivers , hills and ...forests. So why is Alice Holt missing from so many? Largely laziness I suspect as so many of the county maps produced in the 17th and 18th centuries, despite the usual claims to be "true ,faithful and ,accurate" and invariably "based on a new survey" were little more than straight copies of older maps.

Christopher Saxton produced the first extensive set of detailed county maps including Hampshire ,which he published in 1575. Although Saxton included 'Alisholt Forest', John Norden's map of 1595 excluded the Forest, probably for simple reasons of space or perhaps (unlikely) he considered it contiguous with 'Wulmer Forrest' which is clearly depicted. As Norden's maps were tremendously successful ,still being reprinted almost a century later and relentlessly copied, Alice Holt was excluded from most county maps thereafter.

Saxtons 1575 map of Hampshire showing Alice Holt Forest Saxton's 1575 map Nordens 1595 map of Hampshire showing Alice Holt Forest Norden's 1595 Map

Now it's here....( Saxton 1575)

Although very stylised ,it's clear that Saxton (Born around 1543 in Yorkshire and initially servant to a clergyman with an interest in the newly popular and politically important science of cartography)had visited the country. The arrangement of the villages of Bentley, Froyle , Holliborne (Holybourne) and the town of Aulton (Alton) along the North Wey valley is instantly recognisable and the rather symbolic molehill features behind represent the Downs in their westward continuation from the Hog's Back between Gylforde (Guildford) and Fernham (Farnham).

The Forest is shown as rather "hollow" with a clearing in a ring of woods. This is no accident. Although the great days of Forests as Royal hunting grounds were all but over, Alice Holt was still essentially a medieval wood-pasture-parkland, not the timber-growing plantation it later evolved into. The area around the Lodge (today well kept gardens with a row of cottages and a series of sheep paddocks) would indeed have been open parkland where deer and grazing cattle roamed under scattered, spreading old oak trees. From here the hunting parties could ride out while parties viewed the chase from the Lodge.

detail from Saxton 1575 map of Hampshire

Now It's gone! (Norden 1595)

Norden was the most prolific mapmaker of his day and his maps became the basis for dozens of later maps. Born around the same time as Saxton he was an Oxford graduate who came to map making by way of his work as a lawyer. In the 1590's he interested Lord Burghley in his idea of a Speculum Britanniae or Mirror of Britain : a series of annotated maps and descriptive texts of the counties. Norden accordingly obtained both finance and a Government warrant to "travail through England and Wales to make perfect descriptions chartes and mappes of the same by information, inquisition, and view" with instructions from the Privy Council to "Lieutenants of Counties, Mayors, Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace and all others of Her Majesties officers and loving subjects ... to permit and suffer the said J. Norden quietly, and without any manner of let or hindrance, to travel and pass from place to place"

The book was never published and Norden seems to have given up the project. But following the publication of the maps as part of Camden's 1607 Britannia (Essentially a grander version of Norden's Speculum Britanniae idea) the maps became tremendously popular and were still being reproduced as late as 1700. There is quite a lot of detail included which was not in Saxton's map, especially the grander houses such as Buricourt (Bury Court) and Coldree (Coldrey) near Bentley.

It's hardly imaginable that Norden could have failed to notice a Royal Forest but possible that he considered it part of Wolmer Forest? Most likely he just left it out for reasons of space! Some editions ,notably the beautiful 1607 version in Camden's Britannia do show a few stylised trees around Bentley and Binsted. These appear separated from Wolmer Forest which, together with the lack of such trees shown in the open country west of Alton suggests this was a deliberate representation of the wooded nature of the area.

So it continued...with the "Alice Holt-less" version of Hampshire being copied from map to map

Fast Forward to 1759

In this year Isaac Taylor produced a complete large scale 1 inch to 1 mile map of Hampshire. The intervening maps of the county had been mainly adaptations of Norden with a lot of emphasis on more accurate depictions of the latest roads and turnpikes plus the seats of the Nobility and Gentry (who were ,after all the principal customers for such maps and atlases!)

Taylor's map is far more comprehensive than the old small scale county maps but is still essentially pictorial in style, depicting 'The Holt Forest" as having evolved from its medieval origins into very much a classic 18th Century park together with its lodges, rides and the pond in the Glenbervie Enclosure.

detail from Taylors 1759 map of Hampshire Taylor's Map 1759

Milne's 1791 Map

More than 200 years after Saxton and Norden tramped over the country, map making had progressed hugely and Milne's map looks far more modern . It's a true brid's eye view rather than the outline of a map filled with pictorial representations of the landscape seen from some imaginary hilltop.

But it's still a not-so-reliable guide once you look into the details. The topography of the country is reasonably well represented by hatching of the slopes, a technique used before contours were adopted.The layout of the hills and valleys is instantly recognisable, even down to the correct placement of Home Hanger and Catham Copse on the scarp of River (now often called Telegraph) Hill . The outline of the Forest is must have been carefully surveyed as the table showing the extent of Crown and Private lands within the "perambulationS" (boundaries) of Alice Holt and Woolmer shows. The letters A.R.P. stand for (presumably) acres, rods and perches. Over to you pre-metric types to explain that as I always thought a rod and a perch (Or for that matter a pole) were the same thing!

Within the Forest boundary lodges are depicted including the main Alice Holt (or 'Great') Lodge, inhabited by Lord Stawell, Goose Green Lodge (There is still a house called 'Forest Lodge' there today) and the Old Close Lodge (now disappeared?) in a rather smaller than today Straits enclosure. There had been many previous surveys along the main roads, so the modern A31 between Farnham and Alton is very accurately depicted. Other than the main "turnpikes" (Privately improved roads where societies and landowners could collect tolls), the roads seem very fragmentary: accurate in places, clearly not in others. The modern A325 seems to peter out as it approaches the northern tip of the forest beyond Wrecclesham (marked but not named) .Surely that road must have been in existence? Perhaps , not being a turnpike it was not considered a proper public road? The Blacknest Road was it seems pretty much the edge of the Forest itself but the route of the Binsted road up from what is now the Jolly Farmer looks highly suspect and the cottages at Blacknest (Some of which were clearly there in 1791) are absent.

Milne's Map 1791

another detail from Milne's Map

Finally : The arrival of the Ordnance Survey!

The Napoleonic wars and the advent of modern surveying techniques brought about the systematic mapping of the country on a truly accurate basis,with this part of Hampshire mapped around 1817. There's such a wealth of information contained that this map alone provides for hours of fascinating study. The roads and Forest outlines are far more precise than on Milne's map and it seems an era away from the sketchy pictures of Isaac Taylor only half a century before.

The noble city of Blacknest takes its rightful place with the older cottages shown right up against the Forest edge.These were almost certainly put up in a hurry by peasants over the centuries in the hope that the Forest Rangers would not notice, then subject to "Squatters' rights" after a certain period. The Blacknest Road is mainly a Forest ride and the road through from the present Jolly Farmer to the Half Way House at Buck's Horn Oak is marked. An old newspaper article I have refers to the creation of this road which exposed a spring on the Forest slopes. Prior to that Blacknest's inhabitants apparently had no good water: now it's still a feature of the road: frequently flooding and makingthe slopes hazardous in winter.

"Enclosure" was all the rage in the early years of the 19th Century and the long strip of cleared land around Goose Green Farm is visible and is still a distinctive feature of the current O.S. maps. Enclosure is also indicated the gate near Holt Pound (A pound was an area where cattle were penned).

The spellings of the place names seems quite confusing, especially as earlier maps use spellings closer to today's usage. The Forest itself is remarkably "Alder Holt Wood", perhaps symptomatic that it had truly entered it's decline from Royal hunting ground to today's semi-privatised "Woodland Park". We have places such as Wracklesham (Wrecclesham) and Maryland (Marelands). One can almost hear the amused yokels patiently repeating the names in thick Hampshire accents as some young officer-surveyor struggled to write it down. Frith End always struck me as a pure Anglo-Saxonism: "frith" being an Old English name for wood. But maybe that's a self concious archaism? Actually "Freeze End" is equally approriate for this notoriously damp and chilly hollow!

Ordnance Survey circa 1817

The Ordnance Survey maps were originally intended for military purposes. So it's appropriate to end with a quote from an American Major interviewed in 2002 about the U.S. Army's use of computerised satellite imagery in operations in Afghanistan: "A map with a bullet in it is still a map. A computer with a bullet in it makes a pretty good paperweight"

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Alice Holt Forest in Old Maps May 28th 2007. With acknowledgements to "Old Hampshire Mapped" by Jean and Martin Norgate which is a feast of lovely old maps of Hampshire reproduced in all their glory with great notes too. You can find it on Portsmouth University Geography Department's site www.geog.port.ac.uk . This site, created by Jean and Martin Norgate

	'Maps are seen by their readers as neutral carriers of information, and thus have the power to persuade without appearing to do so' Denis Wood, The Power of Maps.(1992). '"We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!" "Have you used it much?" I enquired. "It has never been spread out, yet," said Mein Herr: "the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."' Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893). One would have thought that Alice Holt Forest, as a Royal Forest and notable feature of the countryside would have appeared in most old county maps of Hampshire.... ...Not so! The old county maps generally concentrate on locating the villages and hamlets, the main roads, the parks and country houses of the nobility and gentry and certain geographical features such as rivers , hills and ...forests. So why is Alice Holt missing from so many? Largely *laziness* I suspect as so many of the county maps produced in the 17th and 18th centuries, despite the usual claims to be "true ,faithful and ,accurate" and invariably "based on a new survey" were little more than straight copies of older maps. Christopher Saxton produced the first extensive set of detailed county maps including Hampshire ,which he published in 1575. Although Saxton included 'Alisholt Forest', John Norden's map of 1595 excluded the Forest, probably for simple reasons of space or perhaps (unlikely) he considered it contiguous with 'Wulmer Forrest' which is clearly depicted. As Norden's maps were tremendously successful ,still being reprinted almost a century later and relentlessly copied, Alice Holt was excluded from most county maps thereafter. Saxton's 1575 map Norden's 1595 Map Now it's here....( Saxton 1575) Although very stylised ,it's clear that Saxton (Born around 1543 in Yorkshire and initially servant to a clergyman with an interest in the newly popular and politically important science of cartography)had visited the country. The arrangement of the villages of Bentley, Froyle , Holliborne (Holybourne) and the town of Aulton (Alton) along the North Wey valley is instantly recognisable and the rather symbolic molehill features behind represent the Downs in their westward continuation from the Hog's Back between Gylforde (Guildford) and Fernham (Farnham). The Forest is shown as rather "hollow" with a clearing in a ring of woods. This is no accident. Although the great days of Forests as Royal hunting grounds were all but over, Alice Holt was still essentially a medieval wood-pasture-parkland, not the timber-growing plantation it later evolved into. The area around the Lodge (today well kept gardens with a row of cottages and a series of sheep paddocks) would indeed have been open parkland where deer and grazing cattle roamed under scattered, spreading old oak trees. From here the hunting parties could ride out while parties viewed the chase from the Lodge. Now It's gone! (Norden 1595) Norden was the most prolific mapmaker of his day and his maps became the basis for dozens of later maps. Born around the same time as Saxton he was an Oxford graduate who came to map making by way of his work as a lawyer. In the 1590's he interested Lord Burghley in his idea of a Speculum Britanniae or Mirror of Britain : a series of annotated maps and descriptive texts of the counties. Norden accordingly obtained both finance and a Government warrant to "travail through England and Wales to make perfect descriptions chartes and mappes of the same by information, inquisition, and view" with instructions from the Privy Council to "Lieutenants of Counties, Mayors, Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace and all others of Her Majesties officers and loving subjects ... to permit and suffer the said J. Norden quietly, and without any manner of let or hindrance, to travel and pass from place to place" The book was never published and Norden seems to have given up the project. But following the publication of the maps as part of Camden's 1607 Britannia (Essentially a grander version of Norden's Speculum Britanniae idea) the maps became tremendously popular and were still being reproduced as late as 1700. There is quite a lot of detail included which was not in Saxton's map, especially the grander houses such as Buricourt (Bury Court) and Coldree (Coldrey) near Bentley. It's hardly imaginable that Norden could have failed to notice a Royal Forest but possible that he considered it part of Wolmer Forest? Most likely he just left it out for reasons of space! Some editions ,notably the beautiful 1607 version in Camden's Britannia do show a few stylised trees around Bentley and Binsted. These appear separated from Wolmer Forest which, together with the lack of such trees shown in the open country west of Alton suggests this was a deliberate representation of the wooded nature of the area. So it continued...with the "Alice Holt-less" version of Hampshire being copied from map to map Fast Forward to 1759 In this year Isaac Taylor produced a complete large scale 1 inch to 1 mile map of Hampshire. The intervening maps of the county had been mainly adaptations of Norden with a lot of emphasis on more accurate depictions of the latest roads and turnpikes plus the seats of the Nobility and Gentry (who were ,after all the principal customers for such maps and atlases!) Taylor's map is far more comprehensive than the old small scale county maps but is still essentially pictorial in style, depicting 'The Holt Forest" as having evolved from its medieval origins into very much a classic 18th Century park together with its lodges, rides and the pond in the Glenbervie Enclosure. Taylor's Map 1759 Milne's 1791 Map More than 200 years after Saxton and Norden tramped over the country, map making had progressed hugely and Milne's map looks far more modern . It's a true brid's eye view rather than the outline of a map filled with pictorial representations of the landscape seen from some imaginary hilltop. But it's still a not-so-reliable guide once you look into the details. The topography of the country is reasonably well represented by hatching of the slopes, a technique used before contours were adopted.The layout of the hills and valleys is instantly recognisable, even down to the correct placement of Home Hanger and Catham Copse on the scarp of River (now often called Telegraph) Hill . The outline of the Forest is must have been carefully surveyed as the table showing the extent of Crown and Private lands within the "perambulationS" (boundaries) of Alice Holt and Woolmer shows. The letters A.R.P. stand for (presumably) acres, rods and perches. Over to you pre-metric types to explain that as I always thought a rod and a perch (Or for that matter a pole) were the same thing! Within the Forest boundary lodges are depicted including the main Alice Holt (or 'Great') Lodge, inhabited by Lord Stawell, Goose Green Lodge (There is still a house called 'Forest Lodge' there today) and the Old Close Lodge (now disappeared?) in a rather smaller than today Straits enclosure. There had been many previous surveys along the main roads, so the modern A31 between Farnham and Alton is very accurately depicted. Other than the main "turnpikes" (Privately improved roads where societies and landowners could collect tolls), the roads seem very fragmentary: accurate in places, clearly not in others. The modern A325 seems to peter out as it approaches the northern tip of the forest beyond Wrecclesham (marked but not named) .Surely that road must have been in existence? Perhaps , not being a turnpike it was not considered a proper public road? The Blacknest Road was it seems pretty much the edge of the Forest itself but the route of the Binsted road up from what is now the Jolly Farmer looks highly suspect and the cottages at Blacknest (Some of which were clearly there in 1791) are absent. Milne's Map 1791 another detail from Milne's Map Finally : The arrival of the Ordnance Survey! The Napoleonic wars and the advent of modern surveying techniques brought about the systematic mapping of the country on a truly accurate basis,with this part of Hampshire mapped around 1817. There's such a wealth of information contained that this map alone provides for hours of fascinating study. The roads and Forest outlines are far more precise than on Milne's map and it seems an era away from the sketchy pictures of Isaac Taylor only half a century before. The noble city of Blacknest takes its rightful place with the older cottages shown right up against the Forest edge.These were almost certainly put up in a hurry by peasants over the centuries in the hope that the Forest Rangers would not notice, then subject to "Squatters' rights" after a certain period. The Blacknest Road is mainly a Forest ride and the road through from the present Jolly Farmer to the Half Way House at Buck's Horn Oak is marked. An old newspaper article I have refers to the creation of this road which exposed a spring on the Forest slopes. Prior to that Blacknest's inhabitants apparently had no good water: now it's still a feature of the road: frequently flooding and makingthe slopes hazardous in winter. "Enclosure" was all the rage in the early years of the 19th Century and the long strip of cleared land around Goose Green Farm is visible and is still a distinctive feature of the current O.S. maps. Enclosure is also indicated the gate near Holt Pound (A pound was an area where cattle were penned). The spellings of the place names seems quite confusing, especially as earlier maps use spellings closer to today's usage. The Forest itself is remarkably "Alder Holt Wood", perhaps symptomatic that it had truly entered it's decline from Royal hunting ground to today's semi-privatised "Woodland Park". We have places such as Wracklesham (Wrecclesham) and Maryland (Marelands). One can almost hear the amused yokels patiently repeating the names in thick Hampshire accents as some young officer-surveyor struggled to write it down. Frith End always struck me as a pure Anglo-Saxonism: "frith" being an Old English name for wood. But maybe that's a self concious archaism? Actually "Freeze End" is equally approriate for this notoriously damp and chilly hollow! Ordnance Survey circa 1817 The Ordnance Survey maps were originally intended for military purposes. So it's appropriate to end with a quote from an American Major interviewed in 2002 about the U.S. Army's use of computerised satellite imagery in operations in Afghanistan: *"A map with a bullet in it is still a map. A computer with a bullet in it makes a pretty good paperweight"* << Back to Home Page