A NEW exhibition giving an insight into the wildlife, history and culture at the New Forest launched over the weekend.

Visitors to the exhibition, which runs until November 13, can take part in family friendly activities to explore how the Forest has changed over the centuries.

The exhibition, at the New Forest Centre, in Lyndhurst, focuses on the challenges the historic working landscape of the New Forest faces in the future.

It is part of a £4.3m Heritage Lottery-funded landscape partnership scheme called Our Past, Our Future, led by the National Park Authority.

Families can join in with the latest craze and learn about the Forest’s unique landscape and heritage as they help complete the largest mindfulness colouring wall in the UK.

Each of the six panels features an important scene from the Forest, showcasing six of the projects within the Our Past, Our Future scheme, with a separate children’s colouring station.

Meanwhile aspiring archaeologists can explore the Forest’s past through some unique artefacts relating to key points in local history.

The Forest is full of important archaeological sites and many of these are hidden just beneath the landscape yet to be recorded.

New Forest National Park Authority interpretation officer Jim Mitchell said: “Visitors can discover a number of unusual tools and traditional practices through a touch table quiz.

The activities featured link to the skills courses being run within the scheme and it is important to preserve these skills and reconnect residents and local building business with the Forest’s traditions to protect its heritage.”

The Forest is famous for its roaming New Forest ponies, but people often don’t know that these are owned by commoners.

You can learn what other commoning animals dwell on the Forest and vote for your favourite one.

A selection of walking videos from the New Forest National Park Authority website’s new routes section and a walking map for visitors to mark where they like to walk in the Forest is also on display.

This is accompanied by information about this year’s New Forest Walking Festival and how to book onto walks.