#10 – Beechern Wood

Car Park : Beechern Wood

Location : SU 28429 02631

Distance : 5.1 miles

Date : 25th March 2018

Conditions : Mild, brightening (Spring is on its way!)

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…more photos

(N.B. These notes are not designed as detailed instructions for the walk. If you’d like to do the walk, see my advice here)

This time last week we had blizzards. Today it definitely felt like spring is springing! Such are the vagaries of the British climate. And so off we set, finally taking our little walking adventure into double figures (we’re going to have to speed up a bit if we’re going to finish this before we retire!).

Today’s walk was – I’ll admit – something of a cheat. For this is one of our favourite routes, and it seemed churlish to take a different route from the car park just for the sake of it. So credit to Jean Patefield’s “Hampshire and the New Forest Teashop Walks” book for the route.

Leaving the car park, the route heads away from Brockenhurst, through a small wood and across a lovely stream, before heading out across the open heath land of Ober Heath. This was – unsurprisingly, given recent conditions – a little boggy, getting more so as the route progressed to cross a couple of streams (fortunately these were bridged). Crossing the heath we spotted – in the distance – quite a large herd of deer, but were a little confused by a couple of white animals (of similar size) in amongst them. Were the rouge alpacas? Mutated shorn sheep? It turns out that there is such a thing – albeit somewhat rare – as white deer, and these were those.

From the heath, the walk continued into further mud and waterlogged paths (boots a necessity today), before turning right towards Queen Bower. This is a lovely stretch of ancient woodland, running alongside Highland Water, a stream that ultimately turns into the Lymington River. Skirting the edge of New Park Farm (the site of the New Forest Show) and roaming through Water Copse Inclosure (the path is pretty vague through here) the route leaves the woods and crosses more heathland before entering Brockenhurst itself. Here we took the opportunity to avail ourselves of tea and cake – there are now at least three such establishments to choose from, but we ended up (both through habit and because it appeared to be the most welcoming of muddy walkers) in The Buttery.

Leaving the tea shop, the route returned back through Brockenhurst high street, and then loops along a path that skirts the edge of the village, passing more than a few des res along the way before finally ending up back at the car park.

So a pleasant 5 mile round route, although in the current (late winter / early spring) conditions I reckon you can add 25% to any distance for all the diverting around puddles and bogs that you need to do. But it definitely feels like spring is on its way, and that’s a good thing.

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