Self Catering Hampshire Holiday Cottages
 

Hampshire

A popular holiday area, with tourist attractions including its many seaside resorts, the maritime area in Portsmouth, and the motor museum at Beaulieu. The New Forest National Park lies within the borders, as does a large area of the South Downs, which is also scheduled to become a National Park. The area has a long maritime history and two of England's largest ports lie on its coast. The county is famed as home of the writers Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

The terrain is undulating and is crossed by two chalk downs, rising in places to more than 800 ft (244 m). The rivers Test, Itchen, and the Avon run through Hampshire and enrich the natural beauty and fertility of the land. This is an agricultural county, devoted to corn production and dairy farming as well as market gardening. Three of the U.K.’s leading ports are here too at Gosport, Southampton, and Portsmouth. Evidence of prehistoric and Roman settlement is found in the county and this was once part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. It has numerous historical and literary associations.

Winchester

An unspoilt cathedral city on the edge of the South Downs, Winchester is England's ancient capital and former seat of King Alfred the Great. Today, Winchester combines the best of city life with the freshness of the surrounding countryside. One hour from London, this is England as it ought to be.

Popular for its shopping streets and architecture, its floral summer season and quirky open air events, Winchester is most well known for its eleventh century cathedral and for the Great Hall which for over 600 years has housed the mysterious Round Table. Winchester College is the oldest continuously running school in the country, whilst the Hospital of St Cross - a medieval almshouse - still offers the Wayfarer's Dole to travellers as it has done for more than eight centuries.

Home of good food, birthplace of the modern game of cricket, resting place of author Jane Austen and inspiration to the many craft-makers and artists who live here, Winchester is truly a destination for all seasons.

Southampton

The city's waterfront is home to Europe's biggest on-water Boat Show, which arrives in Southampton for ten spectacular days every September. Rich in maritime history, Southampton was the place where the Pilgrim Fathers stepped aboard the Mayflower for their voyage to the New World in 1620.

The sea-going tradition has continued since then. This is the place to discover more about the tragic events that befell hundreds of Southampton citizens when they boarded the Titanic here in 1912. More recently, the Queen Mary 2 made its maiden voyage from Southampton docks.

Southampton prides itself on being a diverse city, a home for people from a variety of different cultures and faiths. With magnificent parks and The Common at the heart of the city, Southampton can boast more open spaces than any other town outside London.

By night, the city has something for everyone - from elegant dining at some of the region's best restaurants, to fabulous live music from top name bands who regularly make a trip to Southampton a highlight of their tour.

The New Forest

The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heath land and old-growth forest in the heavily-populated south east of England. The contiguous New Forest habitat covers south west Hampshire and some of south Wiltshire. As a National Park the New Forest is mainly in Hampshire, but also covering some of Wiltshire. Additionally the New Forest local government district is a subdivision which covers most of the forest, and some nearby areas. There are many small villages dotted around the area

The highest point in the New Forest is Piper's Wait, just west of Bramshaw. Its summit is at over four hundred feet.

As well as providing a visually remarkable and historic landscape, the ecological value of the New Forest is particularly great because of the relatively large areas of lowland habitats, lost elsewhere, which have survived. The area contains several kinds of important lowland habitat including valley bogs, wet heaths, dry heaths and deciduous woodland. The area contains a profusion of rare wildlife, including the New Forest cicada, the only cicada native to Great Britain. The wet heaths are important for rare plants, such as marsh gentian Gentiana pneumonanthe and marsh clubmoss Lycopodiella inundata. Several species of sundew may be found in the Forest, and the area is also the habitat of many unusual insect species, including the Southern damselfly, and the mole cricket (which is rare in Britain).

Three species of snake inhabit the Forest. The adder is the most common being found on open heath and grassland. The grass snake prefers the damper environment of the valley mires. The rare smooth snake can be found on sandy hillsides with heather and gorse.

Numerous deer live in the Forest but are usually rather shy and tend to stay out of sight when people are around, but are surprisingly bold at night, even when a car drives past. Fallow deer are the most common followed by roe deer and red deer. There are also smaller populations of sika deer and muntjac. There was a program to liberate mink into the New Forest as well in the late '90's, but they have been largely culled due to the surprisingly devastating damage they did to some livestock. The semi-wild ponies and horses mentioned earlier are possibly the New Forest's most famous common animals, however.