Avon Heath

I have mentioned before the convenience of National Trust places as alternatives to the service areas provided on motorways. You get parking, cafeterias and all the necessary facilities, often not that much further off the road than the service areas. No petrol, but that is not usually the service sought.

We had been to this particular one at least once before, Avon Heath, in Dorset, with the nearest town being Ringwood in Hampshire. South west of the famous Rufus Stone, the Rufus who was son and heir to the conqueror. I had thought that I had noticed it here, but search fails to find anything.

On this occasion we stopped for our picnic lunch and a short walk to stretch the legs. A very pleasant place, although it might have been less so in the school holidays or during the weekend with there being lots of stuff for children to do, apart from soaking up the natural beauty of the place.

While there were some older trees, they were mostly younger, say not more than fifty years old, and we thought that the heath had probably been an army camp during the second world war, perhaps for troops waiting for the off for Normandy.

Reference 1: https://www.dorsetforyou.gov.uk/avonheath.

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