Midhurst & Cowdray
Our market town: the Cowdray ruins, polo in the park and streets H.G. Wells would still recognise.
Read the guide →Area guide
Explore the area
Hawksfold sits at Fernhurst, just north of Midhurst, deep inside the South Downs National Park. Everything below is within half an hour of your cottage door.
From the estate
A weekend is never quite enough
The estate sits in a lucky spot. Walk north and you are in Midhurst, a proper market town with a ruined Tudor palace on its doorstep. Head south and the chalk of the South Downs rises to meet the sky at Cocking Hill, carrying the South Downs Way east and west along the ridge. West of us lie the heaths of Iping and Stedham, purple in August and churring with nightjars on June evenings. And beyond the Downs the land runs out gently to Chichester, its cathedral and its huge, bird-filled harbour.
We have written these short guides for guests: where to walk, what is worth booking ahead, where the birds are, and when to time your visit. Distances are given from Midhurst, a few minutes from the estate. Pick one and start planning.
The guides
Where to next?
The South Downs Way
A hundred miles of chalk ridge from Winchester to Eastbourne — and the best of it crosses Cocking Hill.
Read the guide →Serpent Trail & the heaths
Iping and Stedham Commons, Woolbeding and 64 miles of winding heathland trail.
Read the guide →Goodwood
Horses on the hill, historic cars on the circuit, and the Trundle for the view over it all.
Read the guide →Petworth
Turner on the walls, seven hundred fallow deer in the park, and a town full of antiques.
Read the guide →Kingley Vale
A twisted grove of yews that may be among the oldest living things in Britain, crowned by Bronze Age barrows.
Read the guide →Chichester & the Harbour
Cathedral, theatre and galleries, then Bosham, East Head and West Wittering where the land meets the tide.
Read the guide →Eating out
Coaching inns, village greens and farm-shop lunches — where we send guests when they ask.
Read the guide →