Rockford

The Hamlet's Only Pub

The Alice Lisle sits on Rockford Green with the Blashford lakes in front of it, and it is the only pub in the hamlet — which, for a scattering of houses on the western edge of the New Forest, is one more than you'd expect. It's a Fuller's country inn in a Grade II listed building from the mid-18th century, reputedly the old village school. The kitchen does hand-battered cod and chips, gambas, lamb shoulder, beef and raspberry trifle, with a prix fixe menu if you want it. Children are welcome until nine.

The beer garden is large, has a play area and a view of the water, and the taps run to Gales HSB, London Pride and Fuller's Oliver's Island, with a changing beer and a real cider alongside. Dogs are allowed. There are beer festivals over the summer bank holidays and, indoors, a real fire and games of cribbage and dominoes.

Commerce, Arrival and the Commons

That is the extent of the commerce. There are no shops; for a butcher or a market you drive the 1.8 miles south to Ringwood, which holds a street market on Wednesdays. There's no station — the Ringwood line closed years ago — so you arrive by the A338 or a bus, and the nearest trains are at Brockenhurst or Bournemouth.

The reason to be here is the walking. From the National Trust car park on Rockford Common — dug out as a sand pit in the 1950s — a loop climbs onto open heathland with views across the Avon Valley. On a clear day you can see Martin Down, Cranborne Chase, Somerley House and the chalk ridgeways of Purbeck in Dorset. In late summer the heather turns pink and purple, and there are ponies grazing and brooks running through it.

Wartime Traces and Blashford Lakes

The "Huff Duff" walk goes up Ibsley Common to what remains of a secret wartime radio station — a High Frequency Direction Finding tower, three storeys of it, now reduced to an octagonal blast wall. Elsewhere stands the Moyles Court Oak, marked on an 1872 map as the "King of the Forest" and possibly older than the more famous Knightwood Oak.

Blashford Lakes, the water that separates Rockford from Ellingham, was gravel pits until the 1950s and is now a 150-hectare nature reserve with six bird hides, eight kilometres of surfaced trails and mobility scooters for hire. Kingfisher, lapwing, goosander, goldeneye and wintering Bewick's swans. Assistance dogs only, and it shuts at half past four.

Church and Dame Alice Lisle

Rockford has no church now. The parish church, St Mary & All Saints, is across the lakes at Ellingham — 13th-century, Grade I listed, with stained glass by Kempe and a barrel-vaulted roof. In its churchyard is the chest tomb of Dame Alice Lisle, after whom the pub is named.

She lived at Moyles Court. In 1685 she sheltered two fugitives from the defeated Monmouth Rebellion, and was tried at Winchester before Judge Jeffreys; the jury reputedly returned "Not Guilty" three times before he forced a guilty verdict. She was beheaded in Winchester marketplace, the last woman in England beheaded by judicial sentence. Her house is now Moyles Court School, and is reputedly haunted by her.

A Grave That Draws Visitors

Of the grave, the Ringwood Benefice notes that "her grave stone is well preserved and the object of attention for many tourists each year."