Lepe Country Park
Children will love the play area and a walk that largely follows a beach.
The Basics
Time: Up to 2 hours
Distance: 5 miles
Terrain: Beach, quiet country lanes, fields, woodland paths
Pushchair: No
Dogs: The country park and the café are dog friendly but the woodland and play area are closed to dogs, as well as the family beach from May to September
Refreshments: The Lookout Café is on a raised platform with floor to ceiling windows giving views and there are also plenty of beach side picnic benches and BBQs for hire.
Toilets: Beneath the lookout beside the family beach
Parking: Three car parks, in April to September prices range from £2.50 for an hour up to £9.50 for a full day, prices are reduced in winter (Postcode: SO45 1 AD - W3W: appointed/wishing/brimmed)
The New Forest National Park stretches down to the coast where you will find this country park, which makes a great starting point for some wonderful seaside walks. It also has other excellent facilities including a café and play area. The Lepe Loop is a circular walk that starts from the country park, following the beach before circling inland via woodland, streams and paddocks.
The Route
The Leep Loop is a walk best enjoyed at low tide. Although there is a high tide alternative, we feel that there is a lot less incentive for children if they do not get to walk along the beach. You can view the tide times here.
The whole route is marked on fingerposts by little circular ‘Lepe Loop’ signs.
From the area below the lookout, leave the country park along the road with the water to your left. Continue until the road begins to climb and you see a path heading along the top of the beach towards The Watchhouse. Walk along the path and behind The Watchhouse. On the other side, the path follows a wooden walkway until a little light house on the hill to your right, then you will need to walk on the shingle.
For the low tide route, continue along the beach. You need to keep going along the shore until you reach a point where you cannot walk any further and you will naturally be brought up to the road. For the high tide route, you will need to exit the beach just past Lepe House and before the yellow beacon. Look out for the footpath on your right that leads to the road. When you get to the road, turn left and stay on the road, passing Inchmery House, until it drops down towards the salt marsh. This is where the low and high tide routes reconvene.
Follow the road up hill, passing a house with an impressive vista from its terrace and then look out for the footpath on your right at the point of a sharp bend. It is not well signed from the road, but you will see the Lepe Loop signs when you get closer to the gate.
The path will lead into woodland and over a little boardwalk. Continue and then dip down to cross a little wooden footbridge. Climb out of the dip, bearing left, and then at the top go over another wooden footbridge and through a gate into a field.
Turn left and follow the edge of the field. You will see the well worn path. The path will curve around to the right towards a gate. Go through the gate into the next field and then head towards another gate on your left. This will take you past woodland again before meeting a T-junction of paths. Go right here through the gate into another field.
Stay close to the hedge on your left until you reach the road. Cross the road and take the gravelled track opposite until you reach East Hill Farm.
At the farm, continue straight, passing all the farm buildings and a couple of smaller houses. At the end, the footpath narrows and heads past a field before entering woodland.
As you enter the woodland, you will almost immediately reach a T-junction, where you should turn right. The path steadily climbs with a pretty stream to your left. Bear left as the path continues to climb and then takes you out into a crop growing field. Cross the field in a straight line ahead of you.
On the opposite side, go through the gap in the hedge and into another crop field. Continue straight until after joining a hedge on your left you see a fence leading away from you. Go left of the fence to stay on the footpath.
The footpath will take you to a gate and into a pony paddock. Stay in a straight line and cross the paddock, heading down hill with a dividing fence to your left. Go through the gateway at the bottom passing a large metal trough and an area of wetland. Go over the stream and through another gate.
Bear left through this next pony paddock towards another gate beside a Lepe Estate noticeboard. On the other side of the gate, follow the worn path diagonally across more grazing land and head to a kissing gate to the left of the Coast Guard Cottages. The path will drop down into the Western car park before exiting to the beach at Lepe Country Park again.
If you don’t want to do such a long walk, there are two other marked routes which we didn’t try. One is a short walk around the woodland, close to the play area and the other is a there and back again along the beach in an eastern direction towards some World War Two remnants.
Did you know?
There is so much for families to do at lepe including a sensory cottage garden, a boardwalk, children’s trail packs, a bird hide, downloadable scavenger hunts and historical links to WW2 and smugglers to learn about.