Milford on Sea

Milford on Sea
Milford-on-Sea, village green
Milford on Sea Location within Hampshire
Population	4,660 (2011 Census including Downton)[1]
OS grid reference	SZ291919
Civil parish	Milford-on-Sea
District	New Forest
Shire county	Hampshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LYMINGTON
Postcode district	SO41
Dialling code	01590
Police	Hampshire and Isle of Wight
Fire	Hampshire and Isle of Wight
Ambulance	South Central
UK Parliament	New Forest West
List of places UK England Hampshire 50°43′34″N 1°35′20″W / 50.726°N 1.589°W / 50.726; -1.589

Milford on Sea, often hyphenated, is a large coastal village and civil parish in the New Forest district, on the Hampshire coast, England. The parish had a population of 4,660 at the 2011 census and is centred about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Lymington. Tourism and businesses for quite prosperous retirees as well as the care sector make up large parts of its economy. Businesses include restaurants, cafés, tea rooms, small shops, garden centres, pubs and camping/lodge/caravan parks, bed-and-breakfasts and a few luxury hotels. Shops cluster on its small high street, which fronts a village green. The western cliffs are accessed by flights of steps. In common with the flatter coast by the more commercial and eastern part of Milford, they have car parks with some facilities, which, along with many apartment blocks and houses, have close views of The Needles, which are the main, large chalk rocks immediately next to the Isle of Wight.

Its western coast is a large bank of shingle below green cliffs. Bathing, when seas are calm, is favourable as tides are relatively muted for the coast at this point and thin sandbanks are nearby at lower water. The eastern part of the place culminates in Hurst Castle, Hurst Point which is a 16th-century defensive fort with later modifications, which has a museum, visitor tour rides and amenities for tourists.

Much of the land of the parish has been recognised and protected from dense habitation by a surrounding green belt buffer zone of land, recognising its heath soil associated with the New Forest, its biodiverse wet woodland in the west (a local nature reserve which hosts badgers, fish and many bird species) and various water type marshes including an RSPB reserve in the east.