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 Barbara and I first sailed to Newtown in the summer of 1966. We had launched our Mirror dinghy 'Humble Bumble' from the hard at Keyhaven on a bright, brisk, Solent day with the cumulus hanging over the Island.
We had just learned how to set the Mirror’s diminutive spinnaker and we rustled over the tide in grand
style, feeling very adventurous as we passed the tracks of the great slab-sided
ferries, off Lymington, before setting course for Hampstead Ledge buoy.
We were enthralled by what we found inside the entrance to Newtown River. The brim full Lakes, the raucous cry of the gulls, the yellow sand and pebble foreshore below the sedge all under an azure sky with the gentle green swell of the downs
beyond.
Not so enthralling was our return passage. The breeze over the tide that had brought us so swiftly from Keyhaven had turned the Solent into a most unfriendly, short, sharp chop as we beat our spray battered way back. It was a chastening experience and we never returned to Newtown by dinghy
again.
In the early 1970s we acquired out first small cruiser and she was small. At 21 feet overall, our Finesse class centreboarder was every inch an east coaster and therefore ideal for wriggling up the creeks to find snug berths with nights afloat lit by the soft glow of oil lamps.
In “Giselle” we explored every nook and cranny of Newtown and most weekends would find us anchored in Western
Haven, Clamerkin or, perhaps tied up at Shalfleet Quay where we might, if the harbour master bothered to
remember, be charged the princely sum of 40p for the night.
A few years later we had a new Finesse built for us and enjoyed that very special experience of watching our little wooden ship grow from a pile of sweet smelling timber into a thing of great
beauty.
Although we cruised “Spirit of Hurst” across the channel on a few occasions and to the West Country and
savoured, long before the days of affordable Decca and GPS, the profound satisfaction
(and relief) to be had from making a decent landfall with not much more than a
compass, a log, a chart and a set of tide tables to help, Newtown was
still, and remains, our favourite anchorage and for us the jewel in the Island’s
crown.
There we have sweltered under an August sun, watching great Mullet seeking the shade of the hull and tickling our dangling feet. There we have frozen, when savage northerlies have blasted their boisterous way straight into the entrance of the creeks and, when we began cruising, we endured our first real gale whilst lying to a mooring in Shalfleet Lake.
It was only our second time away from our home mooring in Keyhaven and we found the dark night full of shrieking wind which made Giselle
charging round a mooring of uncertain strength, like a demented ballerina, to be a frightening ordeal. Strangely enough, and nearly 30 years on, we have never had such a bad night afloat since and, indeed, never want
one.
On happier occasions, we have, mid week, more or less had the place to ourselves. In May we have been serenaded by Nightingales and have found good populations of Early Purple Orchids in the lane behind Hampstead Ledge where adders lurk. In early June there are Common Spotted Orchids to be found although there is nothing at all common about their delicate
beauty.
Like so many
others, we have also dragged anchors in Newtown and have been participants in one or two of the notorious Newtown “pajama parties”
when, in the middle of a windy Saturday night, yachts and motor boats of all shapes and sizes begin to move inexorably towards their neighbours wrapping their anchor chains round one another like amorous reptiles. I also remember one occasion when we had a storm of almost tropical
intensity.
We were enjoying ourselves in the New Inn, at Shalfleet, when it was a simpler less sophisticated pub than it is now. We had suffered a power cut and there was a feel of wartime Britain about the place as we, and other marooned yachties, sheltered in the candle lit bar, long after closing time, waiting for the torrential rain to ease. I do not think that mine host would be quite so obliging
today.
Newtown is a great place for those who like to walk. On the foreshore towards Yarmouth, the coastal path will take you along the shingle beach and into the fragrant woods behind Hampstead Ledge. Or you can stroll to the strange little hamlet of Newtown itself once the centre of a substantial trade in salt as was Lymington on the opposite shore.
Shalfleet with its very old and beautiful church is mentioned in the
Doomesday Book and is the only place nearby where, in the mornings only, provisions can be obtained from the Post
Office.
One of the great advantages of having a boat based in a Marina, as we do now, is that we now can take advantage of those occasional crisp, winter days and sail the short distance from Lymington to Newtown.
There have been memorable times
when, with all the resident boats safely
laid up in Bob Woodford’s little yard on Shalfleet Quay, our “Stardust of Hurst” has been the only boat afloat in the whole spread of Lakes and
creeks. Then is the time to enjoy the flocks of Canada geese, the many waders
and, increasingly, the lovely Little Egrets that are now such a feature of the Solent harbours and
creeks.
There are plenty of shellfish too if you like them. We do! Cockles abound in the shoals
towards the entrance. They are delicious lightly cooked, stuffed with garlic
butter, sprinkled with grated cheese and given a good blast under a hot
grill.
There are vast quantities of winkles as
well. Boiled in salted water, laced with a little wine vinegar,
for strictly no longer than 10 minutes, they are excellent with brown bread and butter and a little
mayonnaise but do not forget to “purge” such shellfish in several changes of water before cooking
them - a process that should take between 12 and 24 hours.
For the those who prefer their shellfish to swim rather crawl, there are shrimps and prawns to be found near the entrance at low springs in the late
summer.
I am going to leave it to a pen far more eloquent than mine to have the last word about Newtown. I refer to one Aubrey de Selincourt, a yachtsman of an earlier generation whose prose is as elegant as as his name. He describes perfect summer weather in Newtown
thus:
“Sometimes on a still summer
evening, when the tide has brimmed level with the banks and the colour drained from marsh and
fields, the sky seems to descend into the water, its pearl tints and lingering
brightness, so that one’s boat is suspended in a new element magically compounded of the two and shining with an inward light like the inside of an oyster
shell.”
Perhaps an incurable romantic’s view and one certainly formed long before the days of Sun
Seekers: RIBs; Couldn't-Care-Less Charterers and small, bored boys let loose with powerful
outboards but, take my word for it, there really are times like that, even
now, and they are unforgettable.
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THE MAGIC OF
NEWTOWN
