The trees have been described as rubbing shoulders with the cottages that nestle below the hills. Christ Church is just around the corner and directly opposite can be found almshouses that were designed by William Butterfield in 1864.

Christ Church		The Post Office and cottage in Silver Street
One of the pretty little cottages in Silver Street		The Forest Inn
Swan Green the cottage on the right is Beehive Cottage

The village has links with crime and fame as it was here that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who was the author of Sherlock Holmes, lived here and wrote his New Forest based novel The White Company (1891).

The village was also the home of Admiral Frederick Moore Boultbee (1798 -1876) who after his retirement in 1841 and having lived near Salisbury he decided to settle down at Emery Down in 1856. Here his niece Charlotte Anna a daughter of his brother Richard cared for him. The house was known as The Cottage and until the 19th century it was the Running Horse, the village inn. When Charlotte died in 1896 it became the vicarage and its thatched roof replaced with a tiled one.

Admiral Boultbee was not one to sit and relax and even though retired he still continued to support the local hunt and rode to hounds until his doctor forbade him to hunt any more, and no wonder as he was over seventy! His niece Charlotte his all his hunting gear but he soon discovered their hiding place and one morning after she had gone up to the village he got them out, saddle up his horse and went happily rode off to the hunt! It was dark when he got home having ended about 15 miles away and was severely reprimanded by Charlotte.

But he was not satisfied with this and set himself to indulge in some charitable work in the village. It was in 1864 that he decided to built a church after Emery Down became a separate parish and got William Butterfield to do the design for a church to seat around 140 people. He endowed the living and held the advowson until his death. He was also responsible for the building of the school which stands near the church and the five almshouses know locally as Boultbee Cottages (as mentioned above).

A marble table can be found in the church to the memory of the Admiral that was put there 50 years after the church was consecrated by the grateful parishioners of Emery Down in recognition and appreciation of his benefactions to the church and the parish as a whole.

The hamlets of Emery Down and Bank were taken from the Parish of Lyndhurst with Christ Church as its Parish church.