This lovely day-long circular walk encompasses the full range of scenery immediately surrounding the village, including mixed forestry, open heath and unenclosed pasture, and visits the New Forest’s oldest and tallest trees along the Tall Trees Trail. Keep an eye out for majestic herds of deer at dusk, moving out from the cover of forest to graze the plains.
[1] From Brockenhurst station (SU302019), turn left down Brookley Road, past The Foresters Arms on the corner on your right, over a cattle grid and the junction to the parade of shops along Brookley Road.
The attractive village high street is often disrupted by one of the New Forest’s free-roaming horses searching for an edible handout.
Head to the ford at the top of the street and turn right. Follow the road past a church on your right to pick up a well surfaced footpath at the junction with Meerut Road (SU295027), that heads north over the open expanse of lawn and scrub that makes up Black Knowl.
[2] Stay ahead on the path into the forest enclosure and over Bolderford Bridge’s broad boardwalk across the Lymington River beneath some beautiful mature oak. Turn left at the gate for the cycle path to Lyndhurst onto a woodland footpath. The track splits and merges around pockets of trees, taking you through glades and hollows. Don’t worry about sticking to one route, just keep in sight of the boundary fence on your right and follow it northwest, turning right at the fence’s far corner (SU287045).
[3] Continue following the footpath along the fence-line and turn left at the second track that branches left by a gate on your right. The grassy path through bracken goes over two brooks and through a gate before heading up onto Hursthill Inclosure. Turn right where you meet with the surfaced track and then left off the track after 30 metres onto a grassy footpath heading north through bracken. Go straight over the junction with the track and head for a kissing gate at a T-junction with another footpath (SU287058).
[4] Go through the gate and follow the path through Gritnam Wood, keeping right at a fork to stay on a northerly course, to eventually reach a cattle grid at a bend in a road. Turn left down the road, past some gorgeous historic cottages, into Bank and the Oak Inn pub on the corner past the half-timbered houses on the green.
[5] Turn left at the pub and go down the quiet lane, past picturesque homes and through woodland, to tiny Gritnam. Follow the track around the eastern side of the hamlet and pick up a footpath through bracken at the end of a row of white cottages, heading southwest through holly and silver beech woodland. Follow it through a brook and straight ahead (the way route can sometimes become indistinct, but hold your course and you’ll soon rejoin it) to meet with a footbridge over a stream (SU276061).
[6] Cross it and turn left then almost immediately right through bracken, which quickly opens up into a broad southwesterly path through Brinken Wood. Keep to the route over a raised track and brook and through a gate onto a forest track amongst mature woodland. Keep ahead over a junction until you meet with the quiet road known as the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive and turn right. Cross the A35 and follow the road to the Knightwood Oak (SU265064).
(A) At more than 600 years, it’s the oldest oak in the New Forest with a girth of 7½m/25ft. The so-called ‘Queen of the Forest’ has been pollarded for centuries, and its most recent prune has robbed it of some of its regal splendour, but it’s still a pleasant spot for a picnic.
[7] Retrace your steps to the Ornamental Drive and pick up the circular Tall Trees Trail that runs beside it, going south.
The scenic route meanders beneath some truly Jurassic-sized trees, including 100m-high sequoias and Californian Redwoods taller than Big Ben.
At the end of the trail is the worthwhile Blackwater Arboretum, with even more exotic trees and a wheelchair-friendly sensory trail to explore.
Otherwise, turn left through Blackwater car park, past the toilets, following the signs for ‘Picnic Area’ into a Deer Conservation Area. Keep ahead over a junction with a grassy disused track, then turn second-right at a junction with three gravel tracks (SU274048) to head southeast.
[8] The track bends right, then left. Then before it bends right again, turn left onto a footpath, passing through a gate and a scrubby field. Turn right at the tree margin to follow a footpath heading south over a ford and out across the stunning purple heathland of Fletchers Green, where herds of deer often roam at dusk.
[9] Aim for the white cottage ahead (SU281034) and head up its driveway, taking the first left onto a footpath through a belt of woods to a footbridge over a brook. Cross over and continue ahead to meet with the corner of a single-track road and turn left along it to Beachern Wood car park at the road junction (SU284026).
[10] Turn left along the quiet road for about a kilometre – there’s a good pavement beside it – to bring you back to the junction with Meerut Road by Black Knowl and retrace your steps back through Brockenhurst’s village centre to the train station.