New Forest Short Walks - Walks from Lyndhurst

This walk crosses White Moor, goes through Mallard Wood’s ancient, unenclosed woodland, and meets the Beaulieu River at Longwater Lawn.

The Route

From Lyndhurst village centre

1. Walk straight down the High Street, ignoring opposite the garage the right turn into Gosport Lane - sign-posted Lymington and Brockenhurst. Pass on the right the Lyndhurst Park Hotel, and almost immediately turn right following the road sign for Beaulieu. Then immediately turn left at the Forestry Commission Bolton’s Bench sign.

2. Pass on the left two Forestry Commission car parks and on the right, the hillock of Bolton’s Bench. Continue along this tarmac road, and eventually turn left along the road leading to the village cemetery - another Forestry Commission car park lies ahead, on the right.

Overlooking White Moor, the cemetery was opened in the mid-1880s when the parish church graveyard became full. Just inside the main gate is the tomb of John Wise, mid-19th century chronicler of New Forest landscape and scenery. Around the cemetery, mature conifers, a range of broad-leaved trees and extensive patches of brambles form a small copse, a haven for many species of birds and butterflies that are not often found on the adjacent, open heathland.
          
3. Reach the cemetery entrance and turn left alongside the wall. After a few paces, turn right to continue parallel to the wall until it again bears right. Turn left here along a grassy path bordered by bracken and brambles.

After a short distance, reach an open area of undulating ground overlooked by a bench – this is the site of an old gravel pit. Pass behind the bench, go down a slight incline and just beyond, turn right at a ‘T’ junction of narrow tracks.
 
Follow beside a patch of bracken on the right, which runs alongside a quite substantial overgrown trench obscured in summer by vegetation.

Here, an adjacent, wasted earthen bank suggests deliberate excavation, rather than creation by the passage of feet and hooves. The trench may have been associated with the nearby disused gravel pit, or the village rubbish tip that until the early years of the 20th century was incongruously located close to the cemetery. But more likely it is linked to the military use of White Moor, and was used, maybe, to simulate a war-time trench.
 
4. Follow the path beside bracken and trench, reach the end of the cemetery-edge woodland, and go straight across at a crossroad of grassy tracks. Continue straight ahead beside a far shallower trench on the right.

Proceed along the path as it swings round to the left a short distance beyond a small clump of Scots pines and birches. After around 150 metres, reach a junction of multiple grassy tracks. Take the second exit on the right, heading for the edge of Mallard Wood.

Notice on the right here, close to the path, two low ridges separated by a narrow area of lower lying ground – more evidence, maybe, of military manoeuvres.

5. Follow the path into the bracken adjacent to a strip of woodland on the left, and on into Mallard Wood.

Here, a 75 - 100 metre detour to the left, through the bracken, will lead to the fledgling Beaulieu River as it meanders through the wood not far from its source at nearby Pikeshill - the river here is only 1 metre, or so, wide.  

6. Back on the main route, continue through the wood, past on the right another stretch of heathland - the view of this in summer is obscured by bracken and other vegetation.

Note the browse lines here on the hollies – the work of commoners’ stock, and deer. Note, too, the recently pollarded hollies – trees cut of at around head height to encourage re-growth.

Keep to this path as it bears to the right, take the next right fork close to the edge of the wood, and emerge onto the open heathland. Follow the path diagonally across the heath.

Notice to the right amongst the trees, Row Hill - it was here a century ago that the White Moor, Volunteer’s Rifle Range terminated.

7. At the far side of the heath, cross a narrow side-stream at a small bridge and immediately turn left then right to follow a narrow path beside the Beaulieu River as it passes through a small copse. (Do not cross the river at this point).

Emerge onto an area of open grassland and, after a short distance, reach a small bridge over the still very narrow Beaulieu River, where set into the river bank is a parish boundary stone.

This is Longwater Lawn, whilst across the bridge is the heathland once known as Old Ralph Heath.

Take the path leading directly away from the river, the route of the old Salt Way, as it skirts heathland on the right and an area of damp scrub on the left which eventually gives way to heathland. Bog Myrtle, Marsh St. John’s Wort and Willow are much in evidence here, illustrating just how wet this part of the walk can be.

Follow this path for just over 1 kilometre, towards The Ridge, a strip of modestly high, gorse-clad ground running parallel to the Beaulieu road.  

Short detours to the left during the early sections of this path reveal further heather-topped trenches and adjacent ridges, evidence again of military manoeuvres carried out by men in far off times, men preparing for the horrors of trench warfare.

And when level with the only group of pines beside this track, a detour to the left, to the edge of the gorse will provide for those with good eyesight or a pair of binoculars a distant view of a small, rounded hillock sitting on a ridge running parallel to the river – it lies on a line at around 65 degrees to the path. Sitting above the surrounding low-lying land, this is a Bronze Age burial mound, alone in the midst of the heath.

Away to the right, the distant church spire at Lyndhurst is visible, a beacon amongst the trees, whereas most of the village is hidden from sight, and slightly to the right, high on its hill overlooking Lyndhurst, the whitened walls of Northerwood House.

8. Turn right at the first ‘T’ junction of tracks, to follow the main path back towards Bolton’s Bench and Lyndhurst High Street. (A short detour left here will reveal the Park Pale, much wasted, as its narrow neck draws close to termination.