The first mention of the New Forest or Nova Foresta, occurs in the Domesday Book of 1086. At this time William the Conqueror had taken the land for the Crown and imposed Norman forest law. Winchester, only few miles to the north, was the home of the Royal Treasury. It was the imposition of forest law and the creation of the first Norman Royal Forest which gives the area its name.

Most of the forest is open heathland and common rather than wooded expanse. Forest law was designed to protect the deer and habitat on which the deer depended and almost everything which went against their interest was prohibited. No fences were permitted, no hunting, no tree-felling, and no dogs large enough to harm deer. This was enforced by the Courts of Swainmote and Attachment and the Justice of Eyre vigorously.

In the early centuries, timber management consisted of planting copses and harvesting them for furnace charcoal and for making gunpowder. The increasing need for Oak was met largely through pollarding - removing tree limbs to encourage re-growth without actual felling.

From 1300 Oak was supplied to Southampton for construction but with stock browsing on the saplings and lower branches of small trees, the forest regeneration was poor. In 1483 an Act was passed to allow parts of the forest to be fenced for the first time.

These inclosures were to allow the natural regeneration of timber and was normally constructed of an Oak fence and thorn hedge. Once the trees within the inclosures were large enough to survive the browsing of animals, the fences were removed and another inclosure would be formed.

By Henry VIII’s time, the need for Oak had increased, and indiscriminate felling occurred to feed the shipbuilding yards at Bucklers Hard and elsewhere. Subsequent wars only served to increase the destruction.

By the beginning of the last century greater forethought and more careful management techniques had begun to restore stocks of mature timber, and Holmsley Mill provided local employment to craftsmen by creating superior quality finished products as well as traditional sawn timber.