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Charming Countryside

Visit the official tourism website for Hampshire's Countryside, featuring accommodation and attractions in North Hampshire, East Hampshire and Test Valley.

Hampshire is a haven for nature lovers as well as those who simply appreciate beautiful and varied countryside.

The New Forest National Park, with its free grazing deer, ponies and cattle, is a unique landscape of ancient woodland, heather-covered heath, gentle farmland, coastal salt marsh and picturesque villages and with its vast size offers visitors a rare sense of wildness and tranquillity.

The South Downs is soon to become Hampshire's second National Park and includes the East Hampshire Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The picturesque villages and meadows of the Meon Valley are well known but in this area you will also find magnificent chalk downland and open hilltops as well as a wealth of nature reserves with rare butterflies, wild flowers and birds.

Equally rewarding are three other Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty bordering with Hampshire - the North Wessex Downs, Cranbourne Chase and the magnificent Chichester Harbour.

Visitors to the Hampshire countryside can enjoy its pretty market towns and villages with ancient buildings made from flint, cob and thatch as well as the many welcoming pubs serving local food and traditional ales.

There are miles of tempting trails for cycling, from safe routes through country lanes to off road tracks, while Hampshire is also a paradise for walking and horseriding, with guided walks as well as long distance trails such as the Test Way.

Hampshire's biggest country park, the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, has 1,400 acres of open access woodland and downland within the East Hampshire Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, while other country parks, such as Manor Farm, with its working farm from a bygone age, are also well worth a visit.

The Solent coastline borders some beautiful countryside and offers many opportunities for walkers, including the spectacular Solent Way, linking Milford on Sea and Emsworth.

Also on the coast, birdwatchers and nature lovers can marvel at the variety of wildlife at Titchfield Haven nature reserve, where there may be sightings of roe deer, Mediterranean gulls, black-tailed godwits and hawkmoths.

And don't miss the lively country shows in the New Forest, Alton, Romsey, or Alresford.