Hampshire

3 miles north of Pordingbridge

A Saxon thurch, a maze, a 16th-century manor open to the public and a countryside museum combine to make Breamore - or ‘Bremmer’ as it is pronounced locally - a splendid visitors’ village. Most of the cottages, built of typical New Forest brick and tile and with neat garden hedges and paddocks, cling to lanes fringing the common, known as the Marsh, though it is not at all soggy. Local tradition has it that Henry II instigated the murder of Thomas Becket while riding across the Marsh, even though most historians assert that his fateful raging against ‘that turbulent priest’ took place in France.

On the higher ground behind the Marsh lie the farms of the Breamore Estate and the Elizabethan Breamore House, home of the Hulse family since 1748. It contains a fine collection of paintings and furniture, and an absorbing Countryside and Carriage Museum has been established in the grounds and in the old stables.

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