| Date: Location: Walk Leader: Participants: Distance: Parking: Lunch: | 19th March 2014 Burley Clive Clive, Peter, Ray, Rob 7.8 miles Woods Corner Queens Head Burley ★★ |
Ever since we met a cyclist, who told us that there was a good walk along Sir Dudley's Ride, Clive had it in mind to check it out. So he planned this walk. Well he planned some of it - but he suffered from a lot of unsolicited interference! In spite of this it turned out to be an excellent tour around this part of the forest.
The Ride was named after Sir Dudley Forwood, 3rd Bt. He was born in 1912, the son of Sir Dudley Baines Forwood, 2nd Bt. The Forwoods were an old Lancashire family who made their money from shipping in Liverpool. Sir Dudley was the sole equerry to the Duke of Windsor after his abdication in 1937 until the outbreak of war in 1939. After the war he became a farmer in the New Forest and succeeded in the baronetcy on his father’s death in 1961. He was a New Forest verderer, the Master of the New Forest Buckhounds and chairman of the New Forest and Hampshire County Show.
Having arrived at Woods Corner car park we decided to go through the woods to reach Sir Dudley's Ride. The path is a bit obscure but technology helped! We came on to the Ride to find a lot of billowing smoke coming from some controlled burning of the heathland. It was however not enough to spoil the very pleasant views across Harvest Slade Bottom. This is a pretty easy part of the route to follow . The panorama below was taken just before Soarley Bottom and the very active ant nest we found there.
We reached Woolfield Cottage just after 12:30 and decided that we would go off piste and find a way back via Anderwood, Dames Slough and Burley New Inclosures. The OS MapFinder Maps proved themselves again but it's a shame the app still keeps freezing.
We avoided the made up cycle tracks where we could and this made the route back interesting but a bit tricky. It was quite wet in places and wading was required at one point. Still nobody got wet socks!
It did however mean that everyone was happy to get back to the car and have a rest.
Lunch at The Queens Head in Burley (Old English Inns) was pretty good and the pensioners deal was worthwhile. Unfortunately they don't have any tea pots!
A thoroughly good day that was enjoyed by everyone.
The Ride was named after Sir Dudley Forwood, 3rd Bt. He was born in 1912, the son of Sir Dudley Baines Forwood, 2nd Bt. The Forwoods were an old Lancashire family who made their money from shipping in Liverpool. Sir Dudley was the sole equerry to the Duke of Windsor after his abdication in 1937 until the outbreak of war in 1939. After the war he became a farmer in the New Forest and succeeded in the baronetcy on his father’s death in 1961. He was a New Forest verderer, the Master of the New Forest Buckhounds and chairman of the New Forest and Hampshire County Show.
Having arrived at Woods Corner car park we decided to go through the woods to reach Sir Dudley's Ride. The path is a bit obscure but technology helped! We came on to the Ride to find a lot of billowing smoke coming from some controlled burning of the heathland. It was however not enough to spoil the very pleasant views across Harvest Slade Bottom. This is a pretty easy part of the route to follow . The panorama below was taken just before Soarley Bottom and the very active ant nest we found there.
We reached Woolfield Cottage just after 12:30 and decided that we would go off piste and find a way back via Anderwood, Dames Slough and Burley New Inclosures. The OS MapFinder Maps proved themselves again but it's a shame the app still keeps freezing.
We avoided the made up cycle tracks where we could and this made the route back interesting but a bit tricky. It was quite wet in places and wading was required at one point. Still nobody got wet socks!
It did however mean that everyone was happy to get back to the car and have a rest.
Lunch at The Queens Head in Burley (Old English Inns) was pretty good and the pensioners deal was worthwhile. Unfortunately they don't have any tea pots!
A thoroughly good day that was enjoyed by everyone.
Soarley Bottom
 Sir Dudley's Ride |  Smoke - Controlled Burning |  Ants - Soarley Bottom |  Anderwood Cottage |
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