Bramshaw is a small village and civil parish in Hampshire, England. It lies just inside the New Forest. The name Bramshaw means Bramble Wood. Until 1895, Bramshaw was divided into two parts, one half in Wiltshire, and one half in Hampshire. The village of Bramshaw is stretched out for several miles along the B3079 road, with the church to the north, the hamlet of Brook to the south and Stock's Cross at its centre. Overview Bramshaw is a village and civil parish in the New Forest National Park. It includes large tracts of land owned by the National Trust, and Crown Land administered by the Forestry Commission. It is located some 10 miles west of Southampton. The parish contains the hamlets of Brook and Fritham. Bramshaw Commons, owned by the National Trust, comprise some of manorial wastes and commons. It is some of the best surviving example of lowland heath in Europe, still managed by the common grazing of ponies, pigs, donkeys, cattle and sheep. The parish also contains the highest point in the New Forest at Pipers Wait, some 129 metres above mean sea level. The site of a 14th-century Royal Hunting Lodge ("Studley Castle"), a Scheduled Monument, can be seen nearby. The site of a former stocks and gallows can be seen at Stocks Cross, at the intersection of Furzley Lane and the B3079. The gallows were still in use in 1831, when records show that they were repaired. The Admiralty Shutter Telegraph Line had a station at Telegraph Hill, near Bramshaw. It was an optical shutter signal station used as a communication link for the Admiralty during the Napoleonic Wars. History Bramshaw appears twice in the Domesday Book for Wiltshire, when the lands were held by Wulfnoth and a certain Edmund. Odo of Bayeux was overlord of these lands in Bramshaw at the time of the Survey. The name Bramshaw probably derives from an Old English word for "bramble bush wood." It may be that it is Bramshaw being referred to in 1418 in a legal record, (appearing as Bremelelsthaw). The manor of Bramshaw, together with that of Britford, appears to have been granted by one of the Norman kings to the family of de Lacy sometime during the 12th century. In the 15th century it was sold to Robert Lord Hungerford. It switched hands during the Wars of the Roses, but in 1485 it was back