The New Forest

The New Forest is a bit of a misnomer as this royal forest was created in 1079 by William I.

It was set up as an area for royal deer hunting.  It's now a National Park. 

The New Forest National Park is in Southern England close to Southampton.

Last weekend we decided to get away for a B&B night and explore a bit.  

We arrived on Saturday and started with lunch at a local pub, The New Forest Inn.

This was the best lunch!

Ham, salad, cheese sticks, baguette, pickled onions and the most incredible parsnip soup.

We then headed to Lyndhurst to check in to the B&B.  (It was just okay, so I won't recommend it.)

Then we hopped on to an open top bus tour to get an overview of the area.  At 120 square miles, this is the largest area of unenclosed pastureland in the UK.  It's made up of green lawn, heathland and forest areas.  

We were lucky enough to be there when the Heather was in bloom.  I've talked about the colors of England being blue and green, but now we have to add purple to the mix.  

And it smells heavenly!  I want to bottle the smell of the forest and the heath.  

People who live in the area have common rights to allow their livestock to roam the area.  There are over 4,000 ponies loose in the park.  By the way, common rights is where the term "commoner" comes from.  

There are about 2,500 cows in the area.  She was talking to us.

There are a couple of hundred donkeys in the mix also. You will often see them in the little towns.  

There was only a 20% chance of rain when we left, but it did rain all day on Sunday.  It's only a few hours from London, so we know we will go back.

We just spent most of our time driving around.  

There was only a 20% chance of rain, so I didn't take my wellies.  But, of course it rained on Sunday.

I'm going to start just keeping them in the car trunk (boot).  

You aren't allowed to feed the animals, but when we stopped to take a photo he came right over to the car.

Then he wouldn't move.  TE was a little nervous about the new car, but the pony just snuffled the windshield a bit.

There are several villages in the park to explore with fun shopping and good food. 

Burley was one of the cutest.

It's famous for a white witch who lived there in the 1950's so there are a lot of little witchy shops.  

There are tons of pubs to stop for a bite to eat.

I didn't get a picture, but we had another terrific meal at The White Hart.  

 And wouldn't you just LOVE to live in this little cottage!?!

We also drove to the South end of the New Forest to take a look at the coastline.  

You can see the Isle of Wight across the water.  It's also on our list of places to visit.  

These beach sheds are so cute.  Families flock here during the summer and set up camp for the day in these little boxes. School starts this week and it was raining so the place was empty. 

We also used our English Heritage cards to pop into the Calshot Castle.

We only had 12 minutes to explore because they were closing for lunch. 

It's not really a castle as much as a bunker.  It was built by Henry VIII in the 1500's as a part of the coastal defense chain.  It was use up until the 1950's to protect the coast. 

It was interesting, but 12 minutes turned out to be plenty of time.  

We loved our quick trip to The New Forest and will definitely be going back.

I can't wait to see it in Winter and Spring.  

Mom & Mr. B arrive tomorrow morning and we have a packed itinerary.

I'll try to pop in for a few quick posts but I will probably be pretty scarce in blogland for the next two weeks.

But, then I'll be back with a ton of new pictures and posts featuring my adorable Momma.

We are even squeezing in a trip to Paris!

See you soon!

xoxo

Selena