Normandy and Pennington Marshes with Keyhaven Marshes extension

(S/E) From the Riverside car park, walk between the brick Royal Lymington Yacht Club building (left) and the RNLI Lifeboat Station (right).

(1) Take the path on the left with a sign for the Lymington Sea Water Baths and follow it as it winds round to the left of the baths, with yacht moorings on your left.
Cross the car park of the Haven Bar and then turn right, and shortly right again onto a gravel path that squeezes between two units to reach King’s Saltern Road.

(2) Turn left to the Haven entrance and follow a short signposted public footpath that leads between reedbeds to Normandy Lane. Turn left, then follow the lane when it bends right at Normandy Farmhouse. After a couple of left-hand bends, stay on the lane as it bends right by a gate, ignoring a path on the left.

(3) After a couple more bends, pass Lea House on your right, then turn left into another metalled lane. Ignore a path on the left, instead of following the road round to the right past Maiden Cottage. Continue to a large house, The Salterns (ignoring a path on the left), and follow the gravel path beyond.

The path runs between hedges and then passes some old brick barns on the left and in front of a house that looks down a narrow creek; continue ahead to the road (Lower Woodside), ignoring paths off to the left on either side of the creek.

(4) On reaching the road, turn left and follow the lane round to the right past a no-through-road sign. Pass Dukes Head Cottages on your right and Oxey Farmhouse on your left, and continue past a gate at the end of the lane onto a path.

(5) This path leads between hedges to Lower Pennington Lane, where you turn left; follow the lane round to the right, eventually reaching a small car park at the end. From the car park at the end of Lower Pennington Lane, take the wide gravelled path leading straight ahead, beyond a gate (not the path off towards the shore on the left, which is our return route).

Pass to the left of a large pond and follow the combined cycle and footway for almost a mile, ignoring turnings to left and right. Shortly after a path joins obliquely from the right, you meet a metalled lane beyond a gate.

(6) Follow the lane, keeping straight on at a junction with a private road, until you reach the harbour at Keyhaven. At the near end of the car park, turn left onto a path running along the sea wall with the harbour on your right. Follow the path along the shoreline as it curves left, with views to Hurst Castle and the Needles beyond.

(7) After half a mile you reach a lagoon on your left, where you can either continue past a gate and along the embankment or follow a lower path to the left.

(8) The embankment swings left then right and, after another lagoon, crosses a drain (where a path leading off to the left provides a shortcut back to the start).

Follow the embankment past a long thin lagoon on your left, then curve right round a second lagoon (ignoring the path between them). Follow the embankment as it winds round a broad inlet to the Moses Dock sluice, where you cross the creek and turn right.

(9) Keep along the embankment as it turns left then right to pass between Eight Acre Pond on your left and the muddy bay on your right. Beyond the pond, the path turns right after crossing a creek to skirt the wader scrapes of Normandy Marsh, overlooked by a tall bird hide.

(10) By a bench, the embankment turns left towards the masts of Lymington Marina, and then left again by another bench. When it next turns right, drop down some steps on your left onto a gravel path leading away from the shore to another set of steps.

(11) Turn left and follow this path along a reedy creek below the perimeter fence of the Haven boatyard. Turn right over the creek and follow the indicated right of way between the boats.

(12) Turn right to the Haven Bar, and retrace your earlier steps left and around the Sea Water Baths to the Riverside car park. (S/E)

It is a one-mile walk or drive from the Walhampton Arms. A level walk on gravel paths and quiet lanes after an urban start, with no stiles. This walk can be combined with the Keyhaven Marshes route (above) for a comprehensive 73⁄4-mile exploration of the wetland complex.

Pdf Link : http://walksfromthedoor.co.uk/i/walks/Ha...

• By car from the Walhampton Arms : Turn left out of the pub car park and follow the B3054 down the hill and across the river into Lymington. Cross the railway at a level crossing, then turn left at a mini-roundabout (signposted ‘Town centre’). Continue straight on (technically a left turn) at the foot of the High Street past the Kings Head Inn. Swing left into Nelson Place and then right into Bath Road. Pass the Berthon boatyard and a park on the left to reach the Riverside car park.

• On foot from the Walhampton Arms : Turn left from the pub car park into Monument Lane and follow it for half a mile, following the lane round a right-hand bend to the monument. Follow the footpath to the right of the monument down to Undershore Road and the river basin; turn right to the B3054 then left over the bridge. Cross the railway at a level crossing then turn left into Waterloo Road. Carry straight on into Mill Lane beyond the station. At the end of Mill Lane, turn left round the Fishermans Quay apartments to reach the Town Quay. Pass the long-stay car park and continue along Bath Road at the end of Quay Road. Continue past the Berthon boatyard and then cross Bath Road Recreation Ground on your left to reach the Riverside car park.

The Walhampton Arms
Walhampton Hill, Lymington SO41 5RE
Tel 01590 673113
Web www.walhamptonarmslymington.co.uk
Email contact@walhamptonarms.co.uk

• Hatchet Pond, the largest area of fresh water in the Forest, can be busy at times, but the western and northern shores are quieter.

• Most of the ponies you will see roaming wild in the Forest are mares, foals and geldings. The number of stallions is tightly controlled and their releases limited to spring and summer.

• The moist areas of the forest, such as this at the head of Hatchet Pond, are home to some of the more interesting species of flora and fauna. Sundew grows here, and Redshank and Lapwing breed.

• The oldest open-air lido in Britain, and also one of the largest, the Lymington Sea Water Baths

are Grade II listed.

• The marshes between Keyhaven and Lymington, many of them formed from the remnants of former saltpans, comprise one of the best birdwatching areas on the south coast. Key species include Avocet, Spoonbill, Marsh Harrier and Dartford Warbler. The whole area is an SSSI.

• Keyhaven and Pennington Marshes offer good views of Hurst Castle, built by Henry VIII, and the north coast of the Isle of Wight, including the famous Needles rocks and lighthouse.

• Reed Warblers and the rarer Cetti’s Warbler can be heard along the River Lymington.

• The Solent foreshore and Isle of Wight.

• The Burrard Monument, “one of Britain’s finest obelisks”, commemorates Admiral Sir Harry Burrard Neale (1765–1840), who is thought to have been born at Walhampton House.