New Forest Short Walks - Walks from Lyndhurst

This walk follows Pinkney Lane, passes through Brick Kiln Inclosure, crosses Butts Lawn and returns through Park Ground Inclosure.

Pinkney Lane is a delightful, relatively traffic-free country lane that in places is bordered by high banks that form a hollow-way. It offers views of Foxlease, and passes beside the grounds of the now demolished Cuffnells mansion, and Wilverley House.

Brick Kiln Inclosure was first planted in 1810 and features a wide variety of broad-leaved trees, including many of the original oaks, beeches and sweet chestnuts as well as birch, hornbeam, and a relatively small block of conifers.

The name recalls an old brick kiln that was sited here from at least the late-18th century until well into the 19th century – the kiln was marked by Richard, King and Driver on their late-18th century map, and was also shown on an 1826 map of the New Forest. It had, though, disappeared by the time of the 1870s Ordnance Survey map.

Butts Lawn is a horseshoe-shaped piece of open land, the name of which possibly indicates the presence of Bronze Age barrows, which locally were known as Butts. None, though, are now visible.

The south-western arm is primarily heather and gorse-clad heath, whilst the base of the horseshoe supports heather and not much else. The north-eastern arm, through which this walk passes, is a mixture of heathland and rather wet grassland intersected by slow flowing water channels, the haunt of dragonflies and damselflies, sundews and Marsh St. John’s Wort, all of which provide summer splashes of interest and colour.

Philip’s Hill and Whitley Wood are ancient, unenclosed woodlands. Look out here for the browse lines created by commoners’ stock, and deer; and also for the many mature trees left to live out their natural life, creating valuable living places for hole nesting birds, insects and autumnal fungi.

Park Ground Inclosure was first planted in 1810, and contains many of the original beech and oak trees from those days, and also two small, later conifer blocks. Here can be found woodland birds aplenty, and also good numbers of fallow deer and occasional roe deer.