Winter

Winter in The New Forest is a magical time. It’s a season of rustling, frosted leaves; of snow and storms, dark, starry skies and dramatic sunsets.

And there is plenty to see and do.

Buy some sausages (or even some Pannage pork from our free-roaming pigs) at one of our New Forest Marque butchers and pop some soup in a flask. Then take your food to one of our fixed barbecue sites, at Lepe Country Park, perhaps, or Anderwood near Lyndhurst, and cook up a winter storm. And don’t forget to bring some marshmallows to toast, too!

Take your little ones on a walk and try and identify the bare trees from their structure alone.

Check out the date of the Winter Solstice (it changes a little every year). Then set your alarm so you can wake up in time to take a hike up Piper’s Wait, near Bramshaw - officially the New Forest’s highest hill. Or walk up Bolton’s Bench at Lyndhurst. Or stand atop the heathland at Minstead and take in the magnificent site of the sun rising on the shortest day of the year which is also the first official day of winter.

Then get yourself to one of our welcoming hotels, pubs or cafes for a well-earned Full English, or a cup of hot chocolate.

Winter is the ideal time to take in some of our local museums, if you’d prefer to be warm indoors.

Lymington’s refurbished St Barbe Museum runs a packed programme of exhibitions and events as does Beaulieu and Palace House, and the Sammy Miller Motorbike Museum at New Milton.

Don’t forget, too, that many of our major attractions, including Paulton’s Park, Beaulieu and Longdown Activity Farm all run winter and Christmas-themed events.

Outside again, winter is the perfect time to walk or cycle in the forest – fewer cars on the roads, fewer users of the tracks, more chance of getting close to nature.

If it snows check all the safety advice before heading out to see what conifers really look like an their native, snowy habitat. Build a snowman using pine cones and twigs for arms and a nose.

If it’s dark and clear, park up at one of our heathland car-parks one evening. (But don’t forget your torch!) Why? The New Forest has some of the UK’s darkest skies in the relatively light-polluted south-east.

Nearly 90 per cent of our skies are in the three darkest categories which make us the perfect place to see the Milky Way, spot Orion and the annual winter meteor showers.