UK villages for pre and/or post cruise stay?

[Bookishcruiser]

Hi all,

 

I am in search of a lovely village to stay before and after (a week each) pre and post British Isles cruise. Flying in and out of Heathrow.  Cruise from Southampton.  Looking for some place with good public transportation options since I don't intend to hire a car. I may do some sightseeing.  Have been to the UK several times, so no particular must dos.  I know it is a bit random and subjective , but I am looking for a place to start!! Appreciate the assistance. 

 

Anne

[racephoto]

Well, I'm not sure it qualifies as a village, but I was looking at Brighton on the south coast. Easy train connections to both Southampton and London, and I love beach towns. I probably would've went with that but I found a cute narrowboat in London on Airbnb and booked that instead.

[turnip eater]

Train Southampton to Brockenhurst.16 minutes.

Careys Manor Hotel. In the New Forest.  Don’t worry, not literally in the middle of a forest. 

https://www.careysmanor.com/

🙂

Trains from Southampton link to other parts of the country, including London, Winchester and further North.

Edited May 21, 2022 by turnip eater

[Harters]

We're booked into Carey's Manor for a night pre-cruise next month. Hotel looks fine and has three on-site restaurants. And a lot more reasonably priced than soem we looked at.

 

Leisurely breakfast the next day and it's then just a 30 minute drive to the port for us.

[turnip eater]

Just now, Harters said:

We're booked into Carey's Manor for a night pre-cruise next month. Hotel looks fine and has three on-site restaurants. And a lot more reasonably priced than soem we looked at.

 

Leisurely breakfast the next day and it's then just a 30 minute drive to the port for us.

We’ve stayed at Carey’s Manor. If you like Thai food, the Thai restaurant is very good.(Bit hot for me, but my husband likes it). The French restaurant is in a separate building and is good. 
Good Luck. 🙂

[John Bull]

5 hours ago, Harters said:

We're booked into Carey's Manor for a night pre-cruise next month. Hotel looks fine and has three on-site restaurants. And a lot more reasonably priced than soem we looked at.

 

Leisurely breakfast the next day and it's then just a 30 minute drive to the port for us.

 

5 hours ago, turnip eater said:

We’ve stayed at Carey’s Manor. If you like Thai food, the Thai restaurant is very good.(Bit hot for me, but my husband likes it). The French restaurant is in a separate building and is good. 
Good Luck. 🙂

 

 

Yes, if you like a quiet and attractive village near Southampton and with good public transport options, Brockenhurst nicely fits the bill

It's in the New Forest National Park, Carey's Manor is on the edge of the village just a ten-minute walk from the railway station and village centre.

The other well-known hotel in Brockenhurst is Balmer Lawn, a further 5 - 10 minutes walk & surrounded by the New Forest.

Or the Thatched Cottage hotel is a quintessential English period property, just a two-minute walk from the station.

We've not stayed at any of the hotels, but we know the village fairly well. 

Brockenhurst has several decent pubs, restaurants, a couple of tea-rooms, and local shops.

 

Altho it's only a small village (it'd bore you after a day or two), mainline trains stop here because it has a branch line to Lymington.

So half-hourly -or-better (or poorer-on-sundays) direct mainline service west to Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester & Weymouth and east to Southampton & Winchester (and other routes like Portsmouth or Salisbury with a train change at Southampton)

Plus half-hourly trains on that branch line to the Solent coast at the yachting town of Lymington - and a ferry from there across to Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight.

Any of those places fit comfortably into a day trip.

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

 

Brockenhurst is also on two of the three New Forest ho-ho routes. The New Forest isn't just forest, it's a mix of woodland and heathland with wild ponies plus a smattering of cattle, pigs, asses, deer etc. Lots of walkks, cycle hire at the station.

https://www.morebus.co.uk/about-NFT

 

About 5 miles from Brockenhurst is the village of Beaulieu, home of a complex which includes the National Motor Museum, The Bishop's Palace, the Abbey ruins, and a small "secret army" museum - this was a training school for spies who were parachuted into France in WW2 to liaise with the French resistance.

https://www.beaulieu.co.uk/

 

Or for something completely different - for a  base with everything pretty-well on your doorstep consider the conjoined cities (only locals know where one ends & the other starts) of Portsmouth & Southsea.

Portsmouth - home of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard is worth a full day and more with visits to The Mary Rose, Nelson's HMS Victory & Warrior, the workshops & sheds, plus outliers by boat to https://www.nmrn.org.uk/our-museum/submarine and https://www.nmrn.org.uk/our-museum/explosion

Pubs & fortifications of Old Portsmouth, shopping & entertainment complex and Spinnaker Tower at https://gunwharf-quays.com/, fast-ferries to Ryde, Isle of Wight.

Southsea - holiday resort, seafront esplanade with Henry V111's small Southsea Castle, adjacent D-Day museum & other attractions, views and hovercraft ferry across the Solent to Ryde, on the Isle of Wight.

Direct trains to Southampton, Chichester, Arundel, Brighton

But this ain't no country village, it's very much a city break

 

JB 🙂

 

 

 

 

[Bookishcruiser]

thank you all so much!  appreciate all the input, especially the notes on the rail lines.  Would welcome additional ideas! 

[John Bull]

10 hours ago, Bookishcruiser said:

thank you all so much!  appreciate all the input, especially the notes on the rail lines.  Would welcome additional ideas! 

 

There are lots of beautiful villages within about a 20 mile radius of Southampton - including in the Test Valley, in the Meon Valley, in the New Forest, even across the water on the Isle of Wight.  And many are IMHO more attractive in themselves than Brockenhurst.

They're fine if you just want to relax.

But unless you rent a car you'll find yourself rather trapped in most of them because few have a rail station (and express trains don't stop at the few which do, so the service isn't frequent).  And rural bus routes are very limited, slow, convoluted & infrequent. I lived in a village in the Test Valley - no railway, the bus service close to my home was just twice on tuesdays & twice on thursdays, and the service on the main road about a mile from home was every two hours - that was all just to go five miles to the nearest town.

This is where Brockenhurst scores so highly - a pleasant little rural village in beautiful surroundings and with excellent transport links.

 

Three other options ..........

1. Cities.  Lots to see & do  - without any transport, or use frequent city buses, or the occasional short taxi hop. And rail services for more-distant day-trips.

Hence my suggestion of Portsmouth & Southsea, which has enough to keep you occupied for a week or more. And if it doesn't, there are direct hourly-or-better trains to Southampton, Winchester, Chichester, Salisbury, Arundel, even bohemian Brighton and a dozen other places plus ferries to the Isle of Wight.

The ancient cities of Winchester or Salisbury or even Georgian/Roman city of Bath  are other possibilities - all have a direct train service to Southampton but limited other direct services, and the cities themselves are rather limited for a 7-day stay.

Or Southampton itself - not a tourist city, but has a few sights worthy of interest and the wide selection of hotels, restaurants, pubs, shops etc that you'll find in most cities. But as a railway hub its major attraction for visitors is as a base for easy visiting of numerous places on day-trips.

http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/Reviews/Resources/SWRNETWORK Dec 2021.pdf

 

2. Village locations further from Southampton but with the same transportation advantages as Brockenhurst - perhaps in the West Country or Cotswolds. I'll leave others to suggest places.

 

3. Rent a car.  This would allow you the freedom to choose a multitude of village locations on the Jurassic coast, in the Dorset downs, up on Salisbury Plain, in those New Forest, Test Valley & Meon Valley villages, the South Downs behind Arundel, or the Isle of Wight. And the opportunity to explore places off the beaten track.

 

I hope this helps more than it confuses. 😉

 

JB 🙂

Edited May 22, 2022 by John Bull

[Bookishcruiser]

JB, thank you.  That is incredibly helpful.  

[Alaskanb]

I would love to stay in Chichester and go to their wonderful theatre, explore the Roman ruins at Fishbourn, wander around the cathedral and the town's art galleries then hire a car and visit the coastal wetlands and Weald and Downland Living Museum. https://www.wealddown.co.uk

https://www.thegreatsussexway.org/places/chichester/

Appear to have a good bus system https://www.thegreatsussexway.org/getting-around/

[Globaliser]

4 hours ago, Alaskanb said:

I would love to stay in Chichester ...

 

Chichester is great for all the reasons you mention, but there is one thing that it is not: it is not a village.

[Harters]

8 hours ago, Globaliser said:

it is not a village.

It's one of England's 52 (?) cities.  In fact, it's one of our oldest cities, predating 1189, according to Wikipedia.

[Alaskanb]

10 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Chichester is great for all the reasons you mention, but there is one thing that it is not: it is not a village.

As JB had mentioned cities I thought I would mention my reasons for Chichester. 

[John Bull]

46 minutes ago, Alaskanb said:

As JB had mentioned cities I thought I would mention my reasons for Chichester. 

 

Yes, a city - but quite an attractive one.

And with direct trains to Portsmouth, Southampton & Brighton. Slightly longer journey times & slightly higher fares because it's further east.

As a base for a week you'd need to build in some day-trips .... 

Hourly bus service from Chichester to the Weald & Downland open-air Museum, linked in Alaskan's first post, and well worthwhile. Created by dismantling historic buildings in the south of England that were in the way of road improvements & such, transporting them to the site at Singleton and faithfully re-building them. One of the buildings, Court Barn, is from my home village and features in the TV series "The Repair Shop".

And a short train ride to Arundel. Lovely little town. Its castle, built in 1067 (one of the first castles of William the Conqueror) has been extended over the centuries so it incorporates elements from pretty-well every century, making it a great place to understand the evolution of castles.  https://www.arundelcastle.org/

Portsmouth is another easy and good day-worth, or even two https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/site-attractions

 

JB 🙂

Edited May 23, 2022 by John Bull