Chawton Park Woods
On this walk, children will enjoy the open access woodland, bluebells in spring and good chances of seeing deer.
The Basics
Time: 55 mins
Distance: 2.7 km
Terrain: For our bluebell walk you will find a mixture of gravelled paths, firm woodland paths and some muddy and rutted paths. However, if not coming to see bluebells, you could do a longer linear route on just gravelled paths.
Pushchairs: As above, the area with the bluebells has some rough and muddy paths, but if you are coming during other seasons, you could take a pushchair along the central, gravelled path on a linear route.
Dogs: Yes. On both occasions we have walked here we have seen deer, so please be mindful if dogs are off leads.
Refreshments: None
Toilets: None
Parking: Free car park, Boyneswood Road (Postcode: GU34 5ED - W3W: reshaping/mows/thigh)
Nearby Chawton is synonymous with its most famous resident, Jane Austin. She was known to regularly walk these woods, among the mighty beech trees. You can follow in her footsteps along well maintained forestry paths, and if you do so in late spring, you will find carpets of bluebells.
The Route
There are plenty of paths and longer walks you could take through these woodland, but here we will describe one that passes the best of the bluebells and is a nice and easy distance for children.
Begin the walk by crossing the grassy lawn beside the car park where a large trunk makes a good balancing beam for children to play on. On the other side of the grass, turn right to hit the stony forestry track. The track will begin to descend into the forest with mainly tall conifers on either side. The gravel on the path is quite chunky initially, so may give a bumpy ride for pushchairs!
At the bottom of the hill you will come to a T-junction and for the bluebell loop you should turn left. (If you are coming at other times of the year, and have bikes or pushchairs, you may prefer to go right here and continue along the gravelled forestry track. This section is flat and the gravel more compacted making for a smoother ride. We didn’t fully explore this direction, but it is our understanding from the map that you could continue along the same path until you get to the edge of the woods).
After turning left for the bluebell route, you should continue until the path forks. Keep right along the grassier, rougher looking path. As you walk along this path, you should start to see some bluebells in the woodland away to your left and right.
Continue and ignore the path going up to your left. When you reach a little crossroads of bridlepaths and footpaths around a very muddy section (in winter), turn left up the hill. You will see lots of bluebells here to your left.
Continue along the path as the tree variety changes before returning to more beech trees and more bluebells away to your left.
After this point, the edge of the woodland will start to come into view on your right and you will pass a paddock with some little shetland ponies in. Soon after this you will come to a gravelled parking bay for forestry vehicles. Turn left here and follow the path as it brings you back to the grassy area beside the car park.
We recommend viewing the map as a ‘Trails Map’:
Did you know?
Chawton Park Woods were a place that author Jane Austen would regularly walk and it is thought that she would use the woods when drawing upon inspiration for her novels.
Forestry England is slowly trying to remove some of the conifer trees to begin to return this to the native broadleaf woodland it once was.