BARRY LEIGHTON checks out the sights of the New Forest

On one side is a Georgian quay with a quaint, cobblestoned street, a small fleet of local fishing boats, a colourful marina, a clutch of seafaringly flavoured pubs and a winding coastal pathway that will eventually lead anyone with sufficient will and stamina to a remote Tudor castle.

On the other sits the country’s smallest national park with a smattering of olde worlde villages and a verdant patchwork of woodlands, valleys and heathland where herds of outrageously cute ponies amble contentedly alongside and occasionally onto its rural roads.

Sandwiched between the New Forest and a once busily industrious but now relatively laid-back harbour, the Hampshire market town of Lymington appears to have the best of both worlds.

This former hub of ship-building turned tourist location is a leisurely, often scenic two-hour drive from Swindon via Salisbury, where Britain’s tallest cathedral spire looms imperiously above medieval streets.

Lymington’s long and sloping High Street is lined with a splendid succession of predominantly Georgian and Victorian buildings: if architecture is your bag then you will spend much of your stay there craning your neck upwards.

An abundance of independent stores are stacked with antiques, fashions (often of a nautical variety), toys and a multitude of knick-knacks, sharing the thoroughfare with cafes, cake shops and tea houses, mostly of a pleasantly old-fashioned nature where the man or woman behind the counter is in all likelihood the owner.

It is no surprise to learn that a Channel 5 programme hailed Lymington as the UK’s “best town on the coast” to live in as a result of its “beautiful scenery, strong transport links and low crime levels”.

Our immediate destination is Stanwell House a 300-year-old, white-painted local landmark that, over the years, has served as anything from a school-house to a home for waifs and strays before eventually finding its feet as a boutique hotel.

Guests are greeted with the sight of a spacious, airy conservatory complete with potted plants and comfy wicker armchairs. Immediately, a big decision is required. Shall we have a drink here or pop up the steps for a snifter in the garden on this sunny Sunday afternoon? We did both, as I recall.

The privately owned hotel and restaurant – two Georgian buildings seamlessly joined as one – has been frequented by the good and the great over the decades. In recent years, we are reliably yet discreetly informed, its guests have included Paul McCartney and Lenny Henry (though not together).

More interestingly, at least from a historical perspective... this building is where General James Wolfe is said to have spent his final night in England before setting sail for the Americas in 1758 to spectacularly dislodge the French from Quebec and thus change the destiny of the nation that became Canada, while dying a national hero in the process.

Thoughtfully ensconced in the hotel’s cosy, intimately lit bar while gazing through the window onto Lymington’s traditional English High Street, I am wondering whether this was perhaps the room where Wolfe downed his last of glass port on home soil before embarking on his fateful duty for king and country. Turn right out of Stanwell House and an aged, cobblestone pathway leads to Lymington’s historic, picturesque quay where a small forest of masts protrude from the bluey green Solent amidst the intermittent caws and squawks of swooping seagulls.

Once this was a hive of noisy, thumping activity as great ships laden with locally harvested salt headed for the Atlantic before returning with rum and timber.

After dark, smugglers went about their nefarious business, and the town boasts a honeycomb of tunnels that run from many of its old inns to the quay.

Today anglers cast their rods over the quayside while children lark around with fishing nets as their mums and dads keep a watchful eye from the terrace of The Ship.

The Puffin ferry makes regular departures for the Isle of Wight, an island separated from the mainland a mere 9,000 years ago.

If you have a few hours to spare and a decent pair of hiking boots you can take the six-mile coastal walk, partly along the spectacular Solent Way sea wall, to Henry VIII’s grimly impressive Hurst Castle. Located on the end of a spit it was once England’s most advanced military fortress.

The walk offers fine views of the iconic Needles, those striking, photogenic rocks that rise, well, needle-like, from the sea.

Alternatively you can drive to nearby Keyhaven and catch the ferry instead... but don’t forget to call in at the village pub, The Gun, a low-beamed 18th century alehouse once frequented by thirsty Hurst Castle soldiers who rowed over for a keg or two during low tide.

A few minutes from Lymington in the other direction – by the conveyance of your choice be it car, bus, bike or train – is the New Forest, with its 218 square miles of natural beauty, wildlife and no little history.

It is said that William the Conqueror, who set aside the New Forest as a royal hunting ground more than 900 years ago, would still recognise much of it today.

He wouldn’t, however, have any recollection of its quaint railway service where the level crossings and sleepy rural platforms recall a Thomas the Tank Engine set.

Horse riding trails, unspoilt walks and cycle-ways criss-cross the rolling meadows, thickets of wood and expansive grasslands. A green and glorious landscape, it has to be concluded.

But it is the New Forest’s 5,000 ponies roaming free and lazily chewing the cud that catch the eye and stay in the memory.

 

  • Barry and Pauline Leighton stayed at Stanwell House Hotel, 14-15 High Street, Lymington, Hampshire, SO41 9AA. Telephone: 01590-677756. Email: enquiries@ stanwellhouse.com Website: stanwellhouse.com