Parking
Free parking at the Hightown National Trust car park on Hightown Hill, BH24 3HH. The loop starts and finishes here.
Overview
About A Short Stroll Around Hightown
Why go
- A quick loop with grazed lawn, gorse, a hidden pond and ancient birches.
Heads up
- A road crossing and a boundary stretch shared with property-access vehicles.
Map & elevation
The route
Loading the New Forest map
Full mapElevation72–84 m
Plan your hike
Before you go
Parking
Safety
1 active New Forest alert
- CautionNew Forest outdoor-fire restrictionDo not use BBQs, campfires, stoves, outdoor camping equipment or other naked flames on the open Forest.Official details
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
New Forest Tour Guide
Your drive to A Short Stroll Around Hightown, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for New Forest National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
Recorded for this trailhead
Hightown Common Short Walk0:00 / 0:22
“Up ahead is Hightown Common, where a short loop crosses grazed lawn, gorse and a stand of ancient birches.”
Plays as you drive up to this trailhead in the Parkwolf New Forest Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- The Scent in the Gorse
- The Bird That Drums with Its Tail
- The Shrub That Flavoured Beer
- Picket Post Heath Walk
- 283 audio storiesacross New Forest’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Red Deer, White-tailed Eagle, Harbor Seal, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 70 trails, 48 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Trail guide
Hiking A Short Stroll Around Hightown
A quick lap of the commonThis 1.2-mile (1.92 km) loop starts and finishes at the Hightown National Trust car park.
This 1.2-mile (1.92 km) loop starts and finishes at the Hightown National Trust car park. Allow 20 to 30 minutes for this easy walk through grazed lawn, gorse and woodland. It suits a short stop when you want time on the common without committing to a longer hike.
Where the path goesHead north across the lawn, pass a concrete bench and follow a gap in the gorse toward the A31.
Head north across the lawn, pass a concrete bench and follow a gap in the gorse toward the A31. The path tracks the road edge with the A31 on your right, then turns along the common boundary under trees. A short side branch reaches a pond hidden in scrub. After a road crossing, the route follows another boundary path lined by ancient birches. One stretch is also used by vehicles accessing nearby properties. By a gated entrance, turn onto a gravel track and climb steadily; the common opens to a southward view over the Forest before the track leads back toward the road and car park.
Footing and accessIt’s flat and easygoing, with gravel and grass and no steps or stiles.
It’s flat and easygoing, with gravel and grass and no steps or stiles. Wet ground can be harder to cross. Dogs are allowed; keep them back from livestock and on a short lead or under close control during ground-nesting bird season (March to July). Parking is free. There are no toilets or catering on the walk.
Wildlife
Wildlife in New Forest
28 sightingsRed DeerMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
10 sightingsWhite-tailed EagleMost seen around 10 AMSighting map
14 sightingsHarbor SealMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
176 sightingsEuropean Fallow DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
93 sightingsWestern Roe DeerMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
54 sightingsMute SwanMost seen around 6 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across New Forest. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
