Rhinefield House Tall Trees Walk

To reach the starting point for the walk, you turn off one of the New Forest's most famous avenues, Rhinefield Ornamental Drive. This was originally a track leading to a forest lodge with grounds used as a tree nursery by early foresters. In 1859, the drive was planted as an avenue of rare and mainly imported conifers, shrubs and rhododendrons. Now some of these trees are among the tallest in Britain, and include statuesque giant redwoods and Douglas firs. The Wellingtonia Redwood species boasts the tallest trees in the world, which grows in California. The Wellingtonias in the New Forest will grow only half the height of the native Californian species, but they still outstrip most other species in this country.

The start of the walk takes you through an arboretum planted a century later, in 1959 and 1960. The Blackwater Arboretum contains some special young trees, all labelled with their species, including dragon spruce and locust trees. These widely spaced youngsters appear midgets beside their older neighbours, and all are carefully protected from the destructive deer by a 12 foot high fence.

Passing out of the arboretum, the wide gravel track leads down to the Black Water River. This river gets its name from the brown hue of the water, which appears even darker as it runs under closely growing conifers that allow little light and a minimum of forest floor growth.

In World War Two, this area received some of the first flying bombs which caused many forest fires. Now there is little evidence of that destruction, except a few shallow pits. But everywhere there are signs of the hurricanes of 1987 and 1990.

The woods are home to many typical woodland birds - great and lesser spotted woodpeckers, nuthatch and tree creeper, as well as some that are more rare, such as the crossbill and hawfinch. Little owls can sometimes be seen in daylight in the summer breeding season, when they are having to provide a supply of food for their young.

Fallow, red and the smaller roe deer are also to be found here. Fallow, with a slim and graceful outline and spotted coats in summer are the deer you are most likely to see. You may also spot a few of the much rarer white fallow deer.

Gravel drives lead you past a typical forest cottage, and briefly back onto Rhinefield Drive, than up to Rhinefield House, which is well worth visit. This spot has an aristocratic history, been once the site of William the Conqueror's hunting lodge, and also at a later date the site of a hunting lodge used by Charles II. The house now standing was built around 1890 by Nottinghamshire collierie's heiress Mabel Walker, at the time of her marriage to Captain Lionel Munro. It stands approximately on the site of the original Master Keepers lodge. The house was constructed and decorated in a mixture of styles that appealed to the couple - the mainly neo-Elizabethan exterior has chimneys copied from Hampton Court and each balcony represents a Shakespeare play.

The house, now a hotel and time share, stands in gardens that have been replanted in the original formal style. This includes over one mile of clipped yew hedges, a maze, croquet lawn and an outdoor theatre linked by corridors of paths and canals.

Being built on a mound, the house has three vistas, to the south, east and to the west. The Forestry Commission, which is responsible for the trees of the forest, has to keep these vistas free of high growing trees. This makes the house useful as a landmark for many parts of the forest locally.

On leaving Rhinefield House, the walk continues along a gravel track lined with rhododendrons and other shrubs. In late May and early June, the rhododendrons are in flower and add clouds of colour, appearing in shades from palest lilac to deep purple. Narrow tracks lead off the path to either side, and in wet weather cloven hoof tracks are clearly visible, highlighting the facts that these are well used deer routes in this area.

Back in the car park, if you have energy left, a short excursion of 1.5 miles takes you along a Forestry Commission wpath. The walk gives you a chance to admire the noble conifers on either side of Rhinefield Drive without walking along the road. This walk leads from the north end of the car park. On the route you can see a short section of bank and fence, built in the style used in 1700, when the first New Forest enclosures were created here to keep the commoners stock from eating the growing trees.