On Monday 19th August, ten of us travelled down on Monday afternoon to settle in to the Premiere Inn at Ringwood. In spite of some earlier concerns about the catering, we were well served from their full menu and being quite a new hotel, the rooms were up to the high standard expected. A large Lidl store next door provided many of our picnic lunch snacks. We would be joined by six others plus our leader, Barbara the following day.
DAY 1 Tuesday 20th August
A circular walk from the Rufus Stone. Approximately 12 miles of gently rolling countryside.
Seventeen of us met at the woodland car park of the Rufus Stone. It was a mild and grey morning and Barbara welcomed us and explained the plans for the two days of walking. Barbara knows this area well and we were confident of a well planned couple of days. Our first stop was just over the road at the famous stone marking the spot where 924 years earlier, King William II was accidentally shot and killed by a ricocheting arrow during a hunting accident. After taking in the significance of the spot we headed off into the National Park and were frequently walking through extensive areas of purple heather and encountering ponies and cattle wandering free. They are all owned and rarely stray far from their home territories. Our next stop was at the Portuguese Fireplace and Barbara explained its purpose and how it was a monument from WW1 to commemorate a large group of Canadian and Portuguese forestry labourers brought in to help provide enough wood for the war effort. The sun finally came out and made the scenery so much more colourful especially the vast areas of heather. Lunch was in a picnic area at Bolderwood where coffees and ice creams were available and enjoyed by some.
Shortly into the afternoon, we stopped to see and hear about the Canadian Memorial. Barbara told us of a particularly moving story that she had heard directly from the son of one of those commemorated there. Our next stop was for very welcome tea and cakes in the sunny tea rooms garden. A flat fee of £5 seemed good value for home made cake and limitless cups of tea. There was another interesting stop again a little later on as we called in to see the ancient 13th centuary church at Minstead. It was open so we went in and enjoyed a moment of quiet and wondered at the layout of the particularly enclosed pews and balconies. In the grave yard, Barbara showed us the grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which was adorned with magnifying glass, pipe and a blue teddy bear. Our walk continued on past The Trusty Servant pub, another very old establishment with a fascinating pub sign. The smell of delicious pub meals from the open door rekindled a hunger that would have to be satisfied later at the Premiere Inn! Our walk ended back at the Rufus Stone after a short distance but this time it was bathed in late afternoon sunshine.
DAY 2 Wednesday 21st August
A circular walk from the Godshill Cricket Club car park. Approximately 13 miles of gently rolling countryside.
Our second day started quite brightly and we met at Godshill Cricket Club car park where ponies and donkeys gather. After posing for photos and having breakfast of blackberries they all trotted off down the main road oblivious of the possible dangers. Lesley thanked Barbara for all her effort and gave her a card on all our behalfs. We set off down hill through vast areas of gorse and heather. The finely nibbled grass everywhere made for very soft walking underfoot. We weaved through ponies and cows and arrived at our first of several points of historical interest which surprisingly related to military training for the Second World War. A large earth mound was a bomb target but survived the testing and remains today as a good observation point of what used to be a much devastated and cratered landscape. Next was a small brick shelter to safely observe the exploding bombs. It was hard to reconcile the peace and prettiness of this area today with the reality of 80 years ago. Barbara later on told us of a wartime gunpowder factory which now appears as a farm. As it was too dangerous for the postman to get near the factory, a bespoke black pillar box was installed at the end of the factory road and we stopped to see it as we arrived at our lunch stop at Fritham. Several of us visited The Royal Oak pub for a drink. This was a characterful old pub with a good choice of real ales and a large garden making it a very popular destination in the New Forest.
After leaving Fritham, we soon found ourselves at a sparkling but peaty brown and very meandering stream called Dockens Water. We jumped and hopped across it a number of times as we continued our walk. A number of ponies emerged from the purple heather at one point to have a drink, making a very pretty sight. A little further on we entered an area of particularly old and intriguingly shaped trees, some yew and some oak. The most spectacular oak is known as the Elephant Oak and is in the list of top 12 veteran oak trees in the country. The backdrop to a good group photo! A little later we came to a large concrete arrow which we had heard pointed south to aid the bombing practice flights in the war. Curious to find out how accurately the arrow was pointing, Catherine and Simon both tried lining it up with their phone app compasses. We both agreed that the arrow seemed to be a few degrees out of line. It probably wasn’t worth raising the matter with the Ministry of Defense after all this time! We were so absorbed in this research that we, plus back marker Richard, found ourselves separated from the rest of the group who had gone on weaving along tracks through the heather. However it proved that Barbara’s whistle system combined with mobile phones worked well as we got back together by following the whistles! Luckily we didn’t get into too much trouble.
The route took us back to our cars through heather and gorse bathed in the late afternoon sun. It had been a delightful walk and we all thanked Barbara for these two days and made our ways back home or one more night in the New Forest area for some.
Report by Simon Thornhill