I was on child minding duty today. We had to pick up a parcel from the UPS depot in Southampton so decided to carry on to Buckler’s Hard, the maritime museum and old ship-building hamlet on the Beaulieu estuary; somewhere I haven’t previously been in my 17+ years in Southampton.
We started out in the museum which the children quite enjoyed despite (or maybe because of) missing out on the children’s quiz (the cashier was on the phone when we arrived). The contents is fairly eclectic, covering life in Buckler’s Hard over the centuries including naval ship building and the involvement of the area in preparation for Operation Overlord in WWII, Sir Francis Chichester’s circumnavigation in Gipsy Moth and the sinking of the SS Persia. We then wandered down the ‘street’ to the river where the ship-building would have once taken place. There was, unfortunately, a cold breeze blowing in off the water and we quickly repaired to the tearoom for lunch.
After lunch I attempted to persuade the children to do the woodland walk but instead we returned to the museum to let the rain pass. When I eventually succeeded in getting them to the woods it took us less than five minutes to get round!
My recommendation would be to make sure it’s a warm, sunny day if you’re planning a trip so you can enjoy the wide open spaces and the vista. The latter you can, however, get from the public footpath that runs along the foreshore so, having ticked it off the list, I’m not sure we’ll be rushing back.