GeoGraph - photograph every grid square

Trees on the lawn at Backley Holmes, New Forest

Backley Holmes is a strange place - a large irregular pentagon of heavily-grazed lawn, surrounded by the heathland of Backley Plain. It presumably got its name prior to being re-seeded as a pasture lawn for the commoners' stock - in the New Forest a holm is small, round area of pasture woodland dominated by holly, although here the spelling has unusually picked up an extra 'e'. There are a few holly bushes on the plain, but nothing that would really constitute a 'holm', or 'holmes'.