Chewton Bunny Nature Reserve — Attraction in Highcliffe and Walkford

Having walked along this nature reserve taking photos and videos which appear on youtube this Chewton Bunny Nature Reserve is an ancient wooded river valley which forms the county boundary between Dorset and Hampshire. The Walkford Brook flows alongside this very popular walk, entering a culvert and eventually flowing out to sea at Highcliffe Beach. A chine is a steep-sided river valley where the river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding coastal cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word chine originates from the Saxon Cinan meaning a gap or yawn. The word is in still use in central Southern England, in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight to describe such features. However, bunny is also used to describe a chine in Hampshire, Chewton Bunny is designated as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest and is rich in woodland wildlife, including a number of Ancient Natural Woodland Indicator species. The mill house in the centre of the nature reserve, once used a waterwheel in the Brook to mill grain and the cover given by the many trees and shrubery made it a convenient smuggling route for contraband, smuggling was rife around Dorset at this time. At the north end of the site, A337 road end, the Brook passes under the first ever reinforced concrete bridge. Highcliffe lies close to the historic town of Christchurch, the resort town of Bournemouth, and the New Forest National Park. Highcliffe's position on the middle of England's south coast gives it a climate with milder winters than inland areas and less rainfall than locations further west. This helped establish the town as a popular health and leisure resort during the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras. What is now regarded as Highcliffe has developed over the last several hundred years from the hamlet of Slop Pond, the Chewton Estate, and Chewton Common. The latter two also contained large farmsteads. Slop Pond was a collection of thatched cottages, named from the large pond on its common. The cottages were occupied by farm workers and fishermen, who engaged in the smuggling and poaching trade now notorious in local history. When the area became a more popular tourist destination in the Victorian era, Slop Pond was renamed Newtown. It was later then changed to Highcliff, after the first High Cliff house, and soon became known as...

A very peaceful and lovely walk from the bottom of the steps down from the Cliffhanger Restaurant and then up away from the beach. A lovely stream makes a glorious sound on it's way to the sea. Very tranquil and unspoilt. If you get to the road at the top, take the footpath that points to the Lymington Road and that will lead to the waterfall....

Just been for a walk along the sea front and back up to the main road i was shocked by what i saw and smelt as sewage was coming over the top of the waterfall all the way down the river to the sea how can this be allowed to happen it could be a...