Release The Hogs

As pigs are unleashed into the New Forest to sniff out acorns, VIV MICKLEFIELD discovers why the ancient tradition of pannage still matters

William the Conqueror founded the New Forest as a royal hunting ground almost 1,000 years ago.

And his legacy still bears fruit. As walking beneath the boughs of the ancient oak trees, resplendent in their autumn colours, a closer look may well reveal a hungry hog foraging along the forest floor.

That’s because this corner of Hampshire continues to encourage the age-old custom of pannage – or common mast as it’s also known – which sees domestic pigs roaming free. Pannage has disappeared in other parts of the country yet here, nature’s own health and safety squad gobble-up the newly fallen green acorns, as well as beech and chestnuts, with gay abandon. While once as many as 6,000 swine were turned-out by their owners, all of whom are commoners and so have legal grazing rights, these days about a tenth of that number is released in a practice repeated from Bolderwood in the heart of the Forest, to its northern fringes.

“The pannage season is a tradition going back centuries but it was done then for a reason that is as equally important now,” says Andrew Parry-Norton, of Storms Farm, Cadnam, a fourth-generation commoner who continues to rear livestock by traditional forest methods. “The acorns are deadly to ponies and cattle. Unfortunately they like to eat them but their digestive systems can’t cope and they die an awful death. The pigs have no such worries, gorging themselves on as many acorns as they can and clearing up this deadly crop, making it safer for other stock to graze the forest in the autumn.” He adds: “In our area of the forest, Bramshaw Commons, about 60 pigs were released last year.”