HOLIDAYS::
ınspıre
New Forest splendour at Exbury Gardens
room you won’t forget in a hurry. There’s also a dramatic Armada frieze in the main dining room, carved over a period of nine years from a single block of oak four feet thick. It certainly provides a dramatic backdrop for a candle-lit dinner. Rhinefield House is well equipped with a small health club offering a gym, small pool, jacuzzi, steam room and sauna, and this is free to residents. There are also a variety of massages and treatments available which you do pay for. Outside there’s a larger open air pool, open during the warmer months. The food on offer both in the main
restaurant and the smaller brasserie/ grill was excellent, and the hotel makes a point of sourcing venison, game and lamb from local farms and woodland. We enjoyed two superb dinners, featuring both fish and meat dishes, and particularly liked the Taste of Hampshire menu.
You feel like you’re entering a magical kingdom somehow apart from the rest of the world
And the cooked to order breakfast
delivered everything you’d hope for in advance of an active day’s walking, with continental, full English and everything in between on offer. Lyndhurst is the nearest small town, with a mix of tearooms, antique shops and little craft places, as well as a New Forest visitor centre and museum, giving an interesting introduction to the area and its history. We also popped
into St Michael and All Angels Church to gaze at the carved angels inside, and also to see the grave in the churchyard of Alice Liddell, Lewis Carroll’s inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. We particularly enjoyed walking the
six-mile round trip to Brockenhurst, across the moors. The scenery was lovely, the walking not too onerous and the New Forest ponies plentiful. Arriving in the village it soon became apparent that the ponies wander wherever they want – cattle grids permitting – and the traffic sometimes just has to wait! There are lots of routes on offer for
walking or cycling, and loads of Forest to explore. We plan to return to look further afield, as well as heading down to the coast for some clifftop walks. On our final day we drove down to
Exbury House & Gardens, a superbly laid out mix of shrubs, flowers and trees, complemented by a fun little steam railway much loved by children and grandparents (judging by the passengers). It was a timely reminder of the amazing beauty of God’s creation, and how the natural world plays a key role in helping us recharge our batteries.
Info
Rhinefield House, near Brockenhurst, Hampshire is part of the Hand Picked Hotels chain and is off the A35 to Christchurch. Call to book on 0845 458 0901 or visit
www.handpickedhotels.co.uk
www.inspiremagazine.org.uk 21
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