How many people live in lymington

One of the stand-out establishments in Lymington is The Elderflower , serving gourmet cuisine with tasting menus encompassing everything from rabbit with violet sauce to their signature dessert, Close But No Cigar, a combination of coffee ice cream, chocolate and whisky mousse and cigar-smoked chocolate.

Housed in a converted chapel, Lanes is another popular choice, serving dishes such as guinea fowl and red mullet. For a real atmospheric experience, try the Fleur de Lys , a cosy pub housed in a thatched building. The Kings Head is another popular choice in the heart of the town, with a choice of ales, wines from around the world and homemade food. Meanwhile, Lounges of Lymington is a traditional tearoom perfect for a bite to eat, serving great coffee as well as a selection of homemade cakes and other snacks.

For something a little different, try Maison Cuisine , tucked away in the Angel Courtyard. Lymington is in a prime position near both the South Coast and the New Forest National Park, meaning there are plenty of fantastic places nearby worth a visit.

Hurst Castle at nearby Milford-on-Sea. Milford-on-Sea is one of the last remaining seaside villages in Hampshire, boasting its own stony beach. Nearby lies Hurst Spit, a mile-long shingle bank leading to Hurst Castle , a 16th century artillery fortress. Owned by the Montagu family for hundreds of years, Beaulieu is a village and estate packed with attractions. Roam along the idyllic 16th century high street or by the riverbank, where you may even see New Forest ponies and donkeys roaming freely.

You can also explore Beaulieu by monorail, or tour the grounds on a replica open-topped bus. Find out more about the area in our guide to Beaulieu. Beaulieu's Palace House. From Lymington you can travel directly to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight by ferry, with the journey taking just 40 minutes. You could even explore the whole island from here, heading further afield to explore popular seaside towns such as Cowes and Shanklin.

One of its main attractions is seeing a variety of animals, including ponies, deer, cows and pigs, wandering and grazing freely around the village. Evidence shows that at the peak in around there were pans in the Lymington area. Between and Lymington exported 4, tons of salt in 64 ships to destinations including Newfoundland, America, Norway, Ireland and the Channel Islands. By the middle of the 19 th century the coastal salt production industry died out because of the cost of fuel and because cheaper rock salt became available from Cheshire.

The last salt works in the UK closed here in Lymington in , in the part of the town now known as 'The Salterns'. Lymington was a small but very busy port. Wine was imported from France and cloth which was woven in Salisbury was exported. Much to the annoyance of the people of Southampton. In time of war, ports were required to provide the king with merchant ships, which could be easily converted to warships. Ports like Lymington were also required to provide crews for the ships.

During the Hundred Years War which dragged on through the 14 th and 15 th centuries the French attacked and burned Lymington twice. The first time in and at the same time they also attacked Southampton and Portsmouth and the second time was 32 years later in , But this was not the last time that Lymington was attacked The first mention of a mayor of Lymington was in In the French attacked and burned Lymington again.

The townspeople wholeheartedly supported the Duke. They raised a troop of cavalry who were led by the mayor. However the rebellion was crushed.

In the late 17 th century a boatbuilding industry began in Lymington. Celia Fiennes, a travel writer said of Lymington: 'Lymington is a seaport town. It has some few small ships and some little trade but the greatest trade is by their Salterns'.

In the early 18 th century Daniel Defoe said that all of Southern England obtained its salt from Lymington. By the early 18 th century another industry was flourishing in Lymington - smuggling! In one tale about smuggling in Lymington, it was said that some weeping passengers and downcast crew came ashore from a ship that was moored here with the sad news that the captain had died whilst at sea. A doctor was called, and he duly certified the captain as deceased, and called the undertakers.

Soon a sombre procession including the local customs men headed up the main high street, to drown their sorrows. There is good reason to believe that this ruse would have been successful even if the customs men had not had their brains fuddled by drink, The vicar was in league with the smugglers too, and he allowed the tower of St Thomas' church to be used for storage.

Lymington's most famous smuggler must be Tom Johnstone. He was born here in and was brought up as a fisherman by his smuggling father. By the age of 12 he had already developed formidable skills of seamanship, and knew the south coast of England well enough to act as a pilot to virtually anywhere. By 15 he was a smuggler himself. When he was 21 he was taken prisoner by the French, and briefly languished in a French prison. He soon negotiated release, agreeing to carry messages on board a smuggling cutter to a spy in England.

However, his jubilation at being released was short-lived, for the cutter was intercepted by a naval vessel during the crossing. Though Johnstone managed to avoid arrest by handing over the package of letters, he was grabbed by the press-gang as soon as the ship docked at Southampton.

He fought free of the press gang and escaped, He then volunteered as a navy pilot in the campaign to drive the French out of Holland. In his creditors caught up with him, and Johnstone was thrown into the Fleet prison.

No prison could hold him for long, though. This report soon appeared in a newspaper: 'Johnstone, the notorious smuggler, this morning effected his escape, notwithstanding he was confined in a strongroom with a double door. Eddie Gershon, a spokesman for Wetherspoon's, does not want to talk about snobbery, but points out that the chain has pubs in affluent Fulham, Oxted in Surrey and Petersfield in Hampshire. The chain is now considering an appeal.

Wetherspoon's is not considering alternative sites. For Lymingtonians, the town's rejection of Wetherspoon's may not be a high-minded declaration of war against the homogenisation of the high street. Is it, more positively, a statement of the town's admirable contrariness and independence of spirit? It's like Alice in Wonderland gone wrong. I call it the lunacy of Lymington.

It's stinking of money but there's one problem — it's aged money and they don't spend it. There's a fortune floating in yachts down there, but very little money comes into the town.

We've got to get real. Is Lymington the snootiest town in Britain? The Hampshire town of Lymington knows what it doesn't like: it's already rejected an Argos and now it's fighting plans for a JD Wetherspoon's on its high street.

But is it just snobbery? The shop at the centre of the trouble in the Hampshire town of Lymington. Photograph: David Mansell for the Guardian. Topics Communities Pubs Supermarkets Retail industry features. A fire brigade was formed in In the baths, an open-air swimming pool, opened. In the poorhouse was rebuilt. This time it was called the workhouse. In the first paddle steamer traveled between Lymington and Yarmouth. The railway reached Lymington in In the early 19th-century salt making was still a flourishing industry.

The seawater was boiled using coal brought in barges by sea. But in the early 19th century the salt trade declined. For one thing, Lymington was further from the coalfields than other places where salt was manufactured and the cost of transporting the coal had to be passed on to the consumer. Then in the midth-century mineral salt was discovered in Cheshire, which provided a cheap new source, and the Lymington industry promptly died out.

The last salt works closed in There had been a boat-building industry in Lymington since the late 17th century. From the early 19th century there was a specifically yacht-making industry. The population of Lymington was 4, in but it hardly changed in the second half of the 19th century. In it stood at 4, The end of population growth was mainly because of the death of the salt trade.

But in the 20th century, new industries came to Lymington and population growth began again. In a hospital was opened in Lymington.

The money to build it came from voluntary donations. A new Town Hall was built in It was demolished in to make way for the Earley Court shopping precinct. A cinema called the Lyric was opened in Lymington in