Brockenhurst Village

Key:

• Trail Starting Point
• Trail
• Point of Interest
• 1 Trail Steps

Directions

1. From the Train Station

   Exit by the ticket office and follow the marked pedestrian route on your right though the car park to the road junction and level crossing. Turn left and carefully cross the entrance road to the station to join the pavement ahead that follows alongside Brookley Road and takes you directly into Brockenhurst village

2. Over the watersplash

   Cross over the watersplash via the footbridge and turn right onto Rhinefield Road. Follow the pavement past houses and alongside the stream. Continue past St Anne’s Catholic Church on to just before the post box, where the landscape opens up and take the long straight path across the grassy lawn

3. Bolderford Bridge

   Cross over two small wooden footbridges, past the edge of Brockenhurst allotments and keep going until you hit a large gravel track. The route turns left but you can always head right for 100m to visit Bolderford bridge

4. Ober Water

   Follow the gravel track alongside the open lawn, past a low wooden barrier and Ober Corner car park. Turn right through the entrance to Aldridge Hill campsite and follow the gravel track to Aldridge Hill cottage which overlooks Ober Heath. Follow the track as it bends left past the cottage onto a wide grassy track and take your next left to join the woodland path by a small cast-iron tombstone, an old Victorian boundary marker for Alderidge Hill Inclosure

5. Alongside the river

   Follow the woodland path straight ahead to meet Ober Water. Turn right and follow alongside the river and past a wooden bridge on your left to join a waymarked footpath. Wooden posts (red band) mark the route through mixed woodland. Look for the low boundary banks which mark the edge of the Forest inclosure. Turn left and cross the next wooden bridge over the river, leaving the woodland, and follow the gravel path across a short section of wet heath towards the grassy lawn ahead

6. Onto the higher lawn

   Turn left at the wooden waymarker post (yellow band) where the gravel path ends at a gap in the hedge line and follow along the edge of the lawn keeping the tree and hedge line on your left. As you rise out of the dip onto the higher lawn there are good views across Whitefield Moor and Wilverley Plain to the south-west in the distance. Continue following the lawn edge and wooden waymarker posts (red band)

7. Past Beechern Wood car park

   As the path bends right, turn left onto a narrow gravel path for 10m and then turn right onto a wide gravel path heading to Beechern Wood car park. Across the road from the car park is a gravel track with houses on the left and open forest on the right. Cross the road and head down this track for a leisurely walk back into Brockenhurst

8. North Weirs

   At the end of North Weirs Road turn left and walk along the road for 20m before picking up a gravel track on the opposite side of the road on your right. Carefully cross over the road and follow the track over fields, past the primary school to re-join Sway Road

9. Past the school

   Continue past the school to the pedestrian crossing and cross over the road. Turn left and follow the pavement for 40m and turn right through a metal gate by a footpath waymarker and follow the narrow path between properties. Go through the gate where the path ends and turn left to join a road that runs alongside the western edge of the station. Go through a wooden gate on your right and down steps into the station car park and ticket office entrance.

This varied walk takes you across grazed lawns and through riverside woodlands before skirting around the edge of the village. It takes in some great heathland views. Return through the village to Brockenhurst station.

The village is named after a Saxon manor known as Broceste in the Domesday Book. It’s also traditionally said to mean ‘badger hill wood’, although ‘broken wooded hill’ might be more likely, as the area is divided by many streams. The main street is along Brookley Road where ponies and donkeys often wonder through the shopping area, and at the western end of the road is a famous ford called the watersplash. Here where the North and South weirs meet, the stream can be a gentle trickle or impassable torrent after heavy rain.

Trail Overview

Brockenhurst Village