Pre-History and the Romans

The first evidence of habitation around the village dates back 3,000 years. Then, a few tumuli, thought to be burial mounds, were dug and built up on Setley Plain just south of the village. These bronze aged ‘disc-mounds’ are unusual for the New Forest, but others have been found in North Dorset, and near Stonehenge. All have relatively small mounds with an area of level ground between the mounds and surrounding ditches, and earthen banks outside the ditches.

Later, from around 100AD, Romans had camps in the Brockenhurst area. Most relics have been found towards Southampton Water and in the north of the New Forest, but there’s evidence they had camps at Setley and at Balmer Lawn. 

Brockenhurst was a crossing point for the Lymington River and places such as this attracted settlers. This was on the route north from Lymington (where salt was refined by evaporating sea water) to the rest of Britain. Some reports say there was a pagan or Roman temple where St Nicholas Church is today, but firm evidence is absent. 

Medieval Brockenhurst

There is medieval evidence on Setley Plain of square enclosures of farmland. It’s thought these were made following annexation of forest land by an adjacent manor and possibly Beaulieu Priory or Netley Abbey, which owned Royden at this time. The most likely reason was to grow crops.

It’s likely the modern village name derives from the Broceste manor and has evolved since the 10th century. There are records before 1066 of the place name being Brocenhyrst, which would be a largely wooded hill with clearings (‘hursts’). It’s tempting to think the village name relates to local badgers, and even though that’s the nickname of the football team, but  any relationship is unlikely. 

St Nicholas Church is without doubt the oldest church in the New Forest. It pre-dates the Domesday Book of 1086. The Domesday Book records the church as being in ‘Brocaste’, which is in the ‘ownership of Alruic who owns one hide, and there is woodland of 40 pigs.’  A hide was about 50 hectares, so would have encompassed much of the modern village. In St Nicholas church there is evidence of Saxon and Norman work and outside the magnificent Yew tree is believed to be more than 1000 years old.

By the 12th century, most of the land of modern Brockenhurst was in two manors called called Brochelie and Broceste. These were two of four local manors with others at Hincelveslei and Mapleham. The Brochelie manor likely comes down the centuries as Brookley. The modern Hincheslea derives from Hincelveslei. The Mapleham manor has been erased over the years.  

In the 14th century, a licence was granted for a market to be held at Brochelie. This is the first sign of local commerce being established. 

From William the Conqueror (who established the Nova Foresta – the New Forest) to King Charles II, the Brockenhurst area was popular for hunting. The visitors stayed at hunting lodges around Brockenhurst such as at Ladycross (Beaulieu Road), Royden, and New Park. 

A growing village

New Park, to the north of Brockenhurst (like the ‘New’ Forest) is not actually ‘new’ at all. In the 1480’s there were references to New Park the name being used to differentiate it from Lyndhurst’s medieval Old Park, a deer park with even greater pedigree. New Park was a favourite hunting lodge of King Charles II who in 1670 extended the grounds to accommodate a herd of red deer brought over from France.

Brockenhurst’s growth, though, from a tiny hamlet to today’s substantially sized village, was more closely associated with improved transport links, than with church, parks or manor houses.

In 1765 the turnpike, a fee-paying road, arrived in Brockenhurst. It was run by the Lymington, Lyndhurst and Rumbridge Turnpike Trust, along the route of the current A337. Later another turnpike road led west to the village of Sway.

Close to St Nicholas Church (the official Parish Church) is Brokenhurst House (sic), set apart from the village in a parkland environment. By the 1760’s most of the village was here, along the road (more accurately a track) stretching North of the house to the turnpike road. This settlement included a court house. Brokenhurst House itself was essentially a large farmhouse, to the west of the current property. 

In 1770 Edward Morant bought the house, and also a year later, nearby Roydon Manor. His family were plantation owners in Jamaica, though Edward was educated in England, graduating in Oxford, and he became a politician. He replaced the existing Elizabethan farmhouse with a palatial Georgian structure. (In turn this was enlarged in the 1860’s and then demolished in the 1960’s and replaced by the present house). 

Edward Morant and his heirs not only owned large amounts of land in and around Brockenhurst, but also extensive parts of Ringwood and Fordingbridge, and other properties such as a public house in Farnborough and in London.

Valuing both his privacy and wishing for a greater view than the old village, Edward Morant and his successor (also Edward) encouraged the village to move north, along the Lyndhurst Road. The homes and buildings in the park were demolished. The family later paid for Mill Lane to be built, diverting travellers to Beaulieu away from the track to the manor house.

The Railway

Then the railway arrived in 1847. It was part of the Southampton to Dorchester line, at that time routing north from Brockenhurst to Ringwood and Wimborne before continuing south to Dorchester. The line had been promoted by Charles Castleman, a Wimborne solicitor, and the winding route quickly became known as Castleman's Corkscrew. It opened for business in June 1847, following the earlier opening of the line between London and Southampton in 1840, and creating a direct route. 

In 1858 the branch line to Lymington opened, and finally 1888 saw the opening of the current main line linking Brockenhurst to Bournemouth, via Sway and Christchurch. The railway was, with forestry, the main employer from the 1890’s for several decades. Castleman’s original line shut in 1964 as part of national railway closures. 

The railway brought many visitors from towns along the route and this meant the local businesses expanded leading to the creation of Brookley Road as the ‘high street’ from about 1860. The population also rose from the 1841 population of 928, to 1,585 by the end of the century.

Leisure also attracted visitors to the many new hotels such as the Balmer Lawn Hotel (operating as The Holt from 1880); the Forest Park Hotel (1905), the Brockenhurst Hotel (1910), which is now apartments on Rhinefield Road and Carey’s Manor (1935). Stables operated next to the station where horses could be hired for the day, and early motorised (and open-topped) coaches regularly bought tourists to the village.

This also led to structural changes in Brockenhurst. Significantly the new owners of Rhinefield House, Edward and Mabel Walker-Munro (the house was built as their wedding present from the coalmine owning father of Mabel) desired their own church, and paid for St Saviour’s Church to be built, opening in 1905. 

The World Wars
During World War One, wounded soldiers from the trenches were brought to Brockenhurst to be treated. The first patients were Indian, but after their units moved to Africa in 1916, the hospital became the New Zealand army’s prime medical centre in Britain. Both the Balmer Lawn Hotel and Forest Park Hotel were converted into medical facilities. The graves of almost 100 New Zealanders who sadly didn’t survive are in the parish churchyard as an official War Graves Cemetery. You can read more about Brockenhurst's remarkable role here. 

Between the wars Brockenhurst continued as a ‘destination’. The many halls and clubs held regular dances and other events. In the summer a large tennis tournament was held annually at the Brockenhurst Club (in Lyndhurst Road, now Sutton Place). This was the run-in event to Wimbledon and attracted all the stars of the day. Brokenhurst Golf Club likewise attracted national tournaments. 

Brockenhurst played its part again in World War Two. The Balmer Lawn Hotel was pressed into service as a Staff College, and later the Divisional Headquarters of the Canadian Army planning the invasion of Normandy. South of the village at Setley was a large Prisoner of War camp, initially for Italians captured in North Africa, and later for German prisoners. Some of these prisoners remained here after the war. 

The modern day

In the 20th century, the Morant Estate sold of large parcels of land in the village. From 1900, the roads south of Sway Road (then called Wide Lane) were opened up for housing. In the 1960’s and 1970’s further housing as New Forest Drive, Rhinefield Close and The Coppice were built. In 2021 the population of the village was 3448 persons, the largest village in the New Forest. 

The 'Beeching' cuts meant the closure of the under-used branch line to Ringwood and Wimborne, the original 1840s route, in 1954. 

Today the village is busy. More than a million passengers use the rail station each year. Brookley Road continues to thrive with a wide range of shops and activities, which benefit greatly from the large numbers of visitors in summer, as do the first class hotels. Elsewhere the village hall, the churches, and other groups provide a wide ranging set of activities, and the village comes together to celebrate national occasions. National studies have judged the village to be Britain’s ‘most beautiful to live in’. Long may it remain so!