We’ve got two National Parks here in Hampshire with one of those, the New Forest, encompassing a large area just to the south and west of Southampton. It’s part of the country that we’ve travelled to many times over the years, particularly whenever I’ve bought a new lens for my camera as the tradition of hitting Beaulieu to shoot pictures of the cars there has become established.
Within the New Forest there is the village of Lyndhurst and in early 2011 we stopped off for a short visit. For some reason lost to the mists of time. Possibly just because we saw the sign to it and thought “Huh, we’ve not been there in a while.” And, as far as I can remember, we’ve not been there since, and that’s mostly because it’s a bit out of the way. And small. Villages, eh?
In this post I’m simply going to share some photos of the church in Lyndhurst, St Michael and All Angels. We didn’t go in, and I’d guess that’s because it wasn’t open at the time as we are fond of nosing around old buildings if we get a chance. The church dates from the late nineteenth century, replacing a smaller one from the early eighteenth century, although some form of church has apparently stood on or around this spot since the 1200s.
The minor claim to fame for this church, and for Lyndhurst in general, is that the grave of Alice Hargreaves is there. Before marrying the English cricketer, Reginald Hargreaves, she was Alice Liddell, sharing a name with Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, after whom some scholars believe the character was named. Some don’t, though, because scholars are argumentative and opinionated. Whether the naming is deliberate or coincidental, Lyndhurst has definitely decided that a connection is good for tourism as there’s a White Rabbit pub in the village and, at the time of our visit, the Mad Hatter Tea Rooms. This is now apparently closed, though.
