Busketts Lawn

Date: 7 March 2009

Distance: 5 1/4 miles
Parking: New Forest Car Park Busketts Lawn
Map: Explorer OL22 New Forest
Map ref for car park: SU312112

From the car park return to the barrier to the private road and turn along this. Where the gravel path turns towards the driveway of a house continue ahead on the indistinct path through the trees alongside the fence. Soon come to more houses and fence and turn right towards a gate.

Go right through the gate and continue along this path to its end at a road. This track can be muddy for the first 200 or so yards. There is a narrow footpath that winds through the trees to the left. Be aware of large pools that come close to this footpath. The footpath later comes out on to the main bridleway which becomes more passable at this point.

At the end of the path, turn left on to the road and continue until a sharp bend left. On the right side of the road is a path going off with a roadsign "Rossiters Lane". Go on to the path and then immediately left: this is Rossiters Lane. It can be very muddy with brambles but gets better further along beside a small stream on the right. Keep along until the road.

Turn right along the road and look for a wooden footpath sign on the right. Go over the stile and follow the path round. Today the path was clear but there is a warning in Norman Henderson's book "A Walk Around the New Forest" that this can become choked with nettles. A river runs parallel to the path after a while and the path itself narrows to pass around some paddocks and stables. There is no fence between the path and the river, so take care with children.

Over the stile at the other end and turn right on to the road. Take the second street turning on the left into a Close. On the left hand side near a scrubby copse is a footpath sign. Turn along this. Go over the stile on to a broad greenway and keep along this until the path ahead becomes tarmac and a dirt track goes right across a field. Just inside the hedge is a footpath sign pointing two ways, back the way you have come and along the field edge inside the fence. Continue along, over a stile and into a copse. A clear path winds through the copse alongside a river on the left. Be aware that this copse forms part of a grazing area for domestic horses and it opens out on to a tree-lined narrow field. This runs up to the next stile and the road.

Turn right along the road and continue along all the way down past farms and houses and woodland until Woodlands Road, which runs down from Bartley to Ashurst.

Cross here and straight through the gate on the other side of the road into Busketts Lawn Inclosure. Keep along the cycle track and at the T-junction with another cycle track turn right. Go over the footbridge. The ford is very deep on the further side.

Where the path divides, take the left path which continues in a straight line for some way. Ignore all paths to right and left and where another cycle track crosses ahead, continue straight over up to a gate. Through the gate do not turn immediately right to the lawn (although you can if you wish to as it goes straight up to the cricket ground and the car park), but follow an indistinct path through the trees ahead and a little right until a lawn is reached.

A stream skirts the trees to the left and another runs across the lawn across your path. Turn right here and follow the stream up to the cricket ground and round to the right here to a barrier and return to the car park.

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