Walk Sea, Salt and Smuggling

Tales of smuggling and rogueing!

Take this walk along the waterfront and find out how important the river has always been to the town. Before the 1960s and the coming of tourists to Lymington, the Quay was a very rough working area. Ships brought coal to fuel the sea salt industry, and shipped the salt out to ports all over the world. Smugglers plied their trade, and in the 1700s the writer Daniel Defoe visited and reported that the town was "teeming with smugglers and all sorts of desperados".

Lymington also tried its hand at being a spa with fashionable salt water bathing. Bath Road is so called because it led to the Baths, and we walk its length to see the old Bath House at the end of the walk.

This walk starts outside the Ship Inn on the Quay and ends at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club, Bath Road.