The historic Montagu Arms in Beaulieu has heritage in abundance: with its oak panelling and roaring log fires, it transforms at Christmas time into a haven of warmth and wonder, where timeless tradition meets the sparkle of something new.
Breaks away aren’t just made for summer days. Weekends away during the autumn and winter can be extra special; think crunchy amber leaves under foot; pumpkin spice and cosy jumper afternoons; hot soup lunches, crisp morning walks and hot chocolates aplenty.
As the vibrant greens of summer soften into the golden tones of autumn, SenSpa at Careys Manor, a luxury Hampshire spa retreat, invites you to pause, reset, and reconnect. This autumn, the much-loved Sen Sound Sessions return with a powerful new twist – a focus on chakra alignment and lunar energy.
Careys Manor Hotel & SenSpa in Brockenhurst have lined up a host of laid-back, flavour-packed events that capture the best of summer in the New Forest: take your pick - and pick several!
It doesn’t get any more family-friendly than a ‘Kids Stay for Free’ break, this summer at the fabulous Montagu Arms Hotel in Beaulieu, perfectly situated for coast and country explorations and surrounded by nature.
To mark 10 years of Cambium, Careys Manor Hotel is teaming up with the Festival, to find the New Forest’s most talented amateur chef. If you love cooking and have a passion for local flavours, this is your chance to step into the spotlight, show off your skills, and compete for the crown in the very first Big Careys Cook Off. Read on!
This Mother's Day (30 March 2025), it's time to celebrate the incredible women in our lives, and what better way to show appreciation than with a thoughtful gift or a memorable experience? Read on for suggestions from the Montagu Arms and Careys Manor Hotel.
Ed note: My friend Clare wrote this article for us some time ago. Its main message about the many benefits of swimming is as true as ever, meanwhile, open water swimming particularly is a rapidly increasingly popular activity which is well suited to many of our New Forest beaches. So having republished it once two years ago we've made some more updates and republished it for the second time, for 2024.
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"Swimming - rejuvenate, revitalise and relax. Swimming will improve your strength, stamina and suppleness. It uses every muscle in your body and exercises your joints. The effects of buoyancy in holding the body up in the water make it an ideal activity for people with injuries and disabilities. Swimming and being in the water is great medicine for stress. Swimming is an activity suited for the whole family. All ages of the family can participate in some shape or form.
Swimming keeps us safe, the ability to swim and being aware of a few personal survival techniques is an essential life skill. This awareness and knowledge keep us safe around water.
There are many places around Lymington and the surrounding local area where you can swim. The previously New Forest District Council-run centres are now all managed by Freedom Leisure and there are 5 centres in the area. They are Applemore, Lymington, New Milton, Ringwood and Totton. Each centre has a 25m indoor pool and a learner pool. They have a range of sessions to suit everyone’s needs, from aquababes, children and adult lessons, rookies and lifesaving, aquafit, swimfit, therapy, disability swimming and triathlon training to inflatable fun time. They also have swimming clubs using the facilities for both training and competing.
Additionally, a number of hotels in the area have swimming facilities which non residents can also use (often as part of a Membership); click the links to visit the relevant sections of their websites.
Careys Manor has its famed SenSpa - a place of calm where water therapy, sensory experience and Thai tradition combine to renew and refresh the mind and body. A range of Membership and Guest options are available.
Balmer Lawn Hotel has both indoor and outdoor pools and a Leisure Membership which includes a host of discounts and other benefits at the hotel.
Lime Wood Hote has indoor and outdoor pools, and its fabulous Herb House Spa offers a range of membership options. Explore the website to find out more.
Chewton Glen's award winning spa includes a beautiful indoor pool, there is also an outdoor pool at the hotel.
Rhinefield House is a member of Hand Picked Hotels; click the link to see the spa options available.
New Park Manor invites you to retreat to its newly-refurbished spa, with or without little ones in tow. Large heated indoor pool and heated outdoor pool, steam room, adults only sun terrace featuring two outdoor hot tubs and forest views, .
Several other hotels have pools including Forest Lodge Hotel, Elmers Court, Passford House, Moorhill House, Sway Manor, Bartley Lodge Hotel and Burley Manor Hotel.
If you enjoy the open-air experience we in Lymington have our own salt water baths. Open May to September, operating a full programme of activities from triathlon club to kayaking. What a great place to spend the day in the sun and water with the safety of lifeguards around.
Open water sites in our area are numerous, participation in open water swimming has grown rapidly in the past few years, and open water swimming is one of the fastest growing sports. The benefits of seawater bathing have been recognised for centuries, the Romans enjoyed it, and the Victorians developed many of our coastal towns in order to participate in such a pastime.
Sites such as Milford on Sea, Hordle, Barton on Sea, Highcliffe, Calshot and Lepe, are perfect locally for sea swimming. It doesn’t matter if you are an 80-year-old taking a dip, a 3-year-old taking a paddle, a 10-year-old playing in the waves, or a seriously keen triathlete, it is all the same. The sheer sense of sea space, allows the mind and body to relax, sea swimming is never a constant, the range of variables wash around you; waves, wind, seaweed, sunshine, tide and salt. It is a far more rewarding and challenging environment to swim in than a pool. The water makes you more buoyant and invigorates you.
If the sea is not for you, we also have the New Forest Water Park at Ellingham lake, where a range of activities take place, from swimming to wakeboarding and water skiing to triathlon training and kayaking."
Clare Poynter for lymington.com, originally published in April 2014, now updated for 2024
Dogstival, the two day festival for dogs, takes place this year on Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 June in beautiful Burley Park in the New Forest, with dog-friendly accommodation nearby at the Montagu Arms Hotel and in cosy cottages from New Forest Cottages.
By Mark Symons with cartoon by Hugh Lohan; photo above by Tanya
"Do you remember the days when you went as a family to Cornwall? A small hotel perhaps or a cliffside chalet? I do. My family used to holiday there every year without fail and I remember the beaches of Whitsands Bay so clearly. When I was a schoolboy the steep cliff path was a doddle but, back then I was whip thin, agile and darted amongst the barnacled shoreline rocks as if they were my natural home. Time and cider have taken their toll though and when I re-visited the bay two years ago the cliff path was, shall we say, a little more challenging. The air ambulance crew were very sympathetic.
But here’s the thing, it was the sea! After all, you can’t go to the beach and not swim! It would be like going to Lymington market and returning with nothing, simply not the done thing!"
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"Imagine you are on holiday in Cornwall, hand in hand with your youngest you have walked the two hundred metres to the sea (it’s easily that far at low tide). Then your toes are caressed by the freezing cold water and they curl involuntarily. Your youngest tugs impatiently saying “Come on mummy!”
You are dragged a few more steps. The sand which, ten feet previously, was dry, fluffy and warm but is now ferociously cold and as hard as iron. You eye with trepidation the incoming waves which are about to strike your white, trembling legs. So far, so terrible, but then, the torture ratchets up from unpleasant to agonising. The next enormous wave of, ooh, three inches in height, completely submerges your ankles. The pain is a throbbing unpleasantness and for a moment you consider running, sobbing, back to the safety of the beach towels and wind breaks that Hugh has carefully arranged, not forgetting the carefully prepared white wine spritzer concealed in the thermos flask at the bottom of the picnic bag. You look back with yearning, praying for succour as the fresh sea breeze cuts through your thin swimsuit. Hugh waves from his windless idyll, how helpful. Suddenly you realise that your daughter has let go of your hand and walked two paces further, she is practically knee deep, and, horror of horrors, she is smiling gaily! For a moment you had dreamed that this would end quickly, that your daughter would scream at the first touch of the cold water and run back to sanctuary but no, it continues. You set your chin and bravely and selflessly follow your giggling and happy child into the depths where soon you are holding hands again, she is up to her tummy and you are up to your knees. Naturally you quickly acclimatise to the change and you too begin to grin and, like your daughter, splash and laugh.
Once, when we were there in our clifftop chalet it rained almost incessantly for the whole two weeks. It’s a wet county, Cornwall. My dear departed mother swore she would never holiday there again, and we didn’t. We might take a moment to remember though that the luxury of paid holiday time is relatively new. These days we think nothing of flying away for a holiday, or two, or for some, three! Perhaps we might take a moment to think back a mere ninety years when the idea of going abroad for a holiday was as outlandish as the idea of a woman Prime Minister. Thankfully times have moved on. Now, we head for the sun, the Med, warm seas, foreign food, ice cold beer and interesting wine. Before we took whatever the English weather hurled at us, braced ourselves against freezing cold seas, ate fish and chips and drank warm beer. Perhaps we have become a little soft?
Beaches, certainly the shallow sloping ones, can be treacherous, especially on an ebb tide. Many have lifeguards who do all they can to try to keep us out of danger and well away from dangerous rip tides.
Imagine then being able to take the family to a sea pool? A pool filled with filtered sea water, a pool with a constant level, with no waves or tides. Added to this the convenience of male and female changing rooms, good food from an on-site café, toilets and sunbathing facilities.
Perhaps this might go some way to explaining the incredible popularity of the Lido in the thirties, they were packed! There was one thing that didn’t change and that was (shudder) the water temperature. Heating water is expensive and, generally, it simply didn’t happen.
(NB This article was written in 2020!)
There is a lot of talk in the media at the moment concerning holidays. Many have lost sizeable sums of money through cancellations and there are many more yet who are likely to suffer the same fate. In addition, the recent problems might have given us all a bit of a shake-up. The next pay cheque might not be guaranteed. Flights might not always be a certainty. Things might not always be as we expect them to be tomorrow. I wonder if people are going to be more cautious in 2021 and possibly for a few years more? Instead of living for today and possibly extending credit a little in order to buy that lovely Joules jacket today instead of next month, I wonder if recent events will make us more cautious? I wonder if we will now perhaps count our blessings instead of our credit card debts and look towards holidays in this country? The incredible Uffa Fox, the Isle of Wight based sailing boat designer and racer used to scorn foreign holidays saying that we knew far too little about our own island to go gallivanting off to some foreign shore.
With this in mind I predict a bumper year for our Lymington Sea Water Swimming Baths!
We could also consider a recent innovation that might make the experience a little less toe curling. A wet suit! Loads of people wear them!
Take care and mind the goose bumps."
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