The Rising Sun, Bashley, New Milton

There has been an Inn on this site in the New Forest for well over two hundred years, extensively updated in Victorian times, The Rising Sun has been a welcome sight to New Forest visitors for many years, offering customers a wide and varied choice of fine wines and locally brewed beers. Our dining facilities include an indoor restaurant for those cold winter days and a large family outdoor area that includes dining facilities with children’s play area adjacent.

The New Forest is a unique environment; its boundaries enclose 145 square miles of some of the most beautiful countryside anywhere in the world. Originally established as a Royal Forest by William the Conqueror more than 900 years ago, mainly as a preserve for deer, few other places combine so remarkable a history with such an immense diversity of landscapes. There are ancient woodlands, open foreshore, heath land and bogs, an intricate network of rivers that wind their way to sea.

Over the centuries travelers, merchants, foresters, Lords and their Ladies hunting in the Royal preserve, and even highway men and smugglers for which this area was renowned, would have stopped for a drink or a bite to eat. It is believed that for many years the French brandy that was sold here was supplied by the smugglers or “Gentlemen of the night” as they were known. When a nearby cottage was demolished a smugglers hoard of French gold coins was found in the roof space.