Car Park : Matley
Location : SU 33155 07398
Distance : 4.3 miles
Date : 12th November 2020
Conditions : Overcast, mostly dry
<Detailed route map for walk (OS Maps)>
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(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)
Making the most of having a week off in the middle of lockdown, and therefore not having many other options in terms of things to do, here we are again back out in the New Forest. The day had started off bright, but a leisurely start meant by the time we got to Matley things were glooming. But no matter, we were here to walk, and walk we will. Matley is on the Beaulieu Road out of Lyndhurst, half-way from there to Beaulieu Road Station, and next to Matley Wood Camp Site. It’s a reasonable sized car park, long and narrow, which again was surprisingly busy for mid-week in November. Everybody else with nothing else to do, we suspect.
Our route followed a track near the entrance to the car park, wandering through the camp site before eventually bearing right onto a more deliberate path that leads off into the woods. This route heads gradually down hill until it eventually emerges into a flat, wide open space known as Matley Holms. Rather than continuing to follow the track right in front of us, we instead take another track that bears off to the right, heading towards a row of long wooded area, in the middle of which is Kings Passage, a path and bridge through the woods and across the river.
Emerging from the passage, our route bears left across more open grassland, eventually leading up a gradual slope and running parallel to the railway line, past a couple of tunnels under the railway (we’d come through these on our Beaulieu Road walk), and eventually coming to Beaulieu Road opposite Shatterford car park. Crossing the road and walking through and out the end of the woods that car park is located in, our route follows a track across Shatterford Bottom, a wide open, grassy and boggy area that fortunately has a couple of well-made footbridges across it.
Reaching the edge of Denny Wood, we fork right onto a grassy track that leads into a rather lovely old wooded area before eventually meeting a tarmacked road. We turn left onto this, and after a short distance turn right along the gravel cycle route. This winds through another lovely old piece of woodland, until we turn off right down a grass track just before a fenced off enclosure on the righthand side. A somewhat boggy track, this leads gradually downhill until emerging into another camp site (Denny Wood), through which we walk until eventually coming to the main Beaulieu Road (again!). From here our route returns back to the car park via. the edge of the road and a small track (probably the old main road).
Although it was mid-week, mid-November, there were quite a few people around. But even so, this was still quite a quiet walk that had a lot of open grassland, mixed with what appeared to be some very old and attractive woodland.
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New Forest Car Park Walks 