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Reader Survey >New Forest Hawthorn jacket review: £114.95 buys a lot of coat
- Last updated: 07/09/2026
A heavyweight ripstop shell built for pushing through thorn and briar, at £114.95. It undercuts most of the shoot-day field by a wide margin, and it stands up to rather more than the price suggests.
New Forest Clothing says its mission is to provide practical, durable and stylish clothing for outdoor enthusiasts, workers and adventurers alike, and does so at competitive prices. The Hawthorn is the test of that claim at the sharp end of the price list.
At an RRP of £114.95 it sits a long way below most dedicated shoot-day and beating coats, and it is pitched as a hard-wearing, uninsulated shell rather than a warm winter jacket. It was on test from an exceptionally hot, dry May through to June, which was hardly ideal weather for assessing a waterproof, so some of the wet-weather testing had to be improvised. Prices quoted are RRP at the time of publication and may have changed.
Out of the packaging, the first thing that stands out is the texture of the material. It feels tough, really tough. It is heavyweight ripstop polyamide and, like all ripstop, it has thicker reinforcement yarns woven in at regular intervals so that a tear or a snag is halted rather than allowed to run. The immediate thought was that this would be ideal for beating, because there is no hesitation about pushing through a thorny thicket with the Hawthorn as the outer layer.
The elbows, shoulders and rear seat carry reinforced panels, though they appear not to be additional layers of material but rather a different type of fabric.
Front, open and rear views, showing the mesh liner, the zipped inner pockets and the large game pocket.
There is no built-in insulation, which is a good part of the design rather than a shortcoming: it lets the wearer choose base and mid layers to suit the season, and it is what makes one jacket work across the year. In place of insulation there is a simple mesh liner to aid breathability, and ventilation is helped further by two underarm zips.
From a stowage point of view the Hawthorn has plenty. The hand-warmer pockets are fleece-lined and of a generous depth, which is a well-judged touch: far too many sporting jackets, including pricey top-end examples, skimp here, with hand-warmer pockets barely deep enough to keep your wrists warm. They are zipped, which slightly reduces comfort against a bare wrist but does offer security.
Next are two front cartridge pockets and, while the bellows section on them is quite slim, the overall size is ample. Inside are two capacious zipped pockets that offer good security for a phone, a wallet and keys, another sign that the design caters for the end user rather than being dreamed up at a marketing meeting. The rear game pocket is discreet to the point of being virtually invisible and, while it is rarely used for gamebirds these days, it is extra storage.
The Hawthorn carries a manufacturer’s waterproof rating of 10,000mm, which means the fabric will resist pressure equivalent to a 10m column of water before leaking. In plain terms it should withstand heavy rain and wet snow. As far as field testing went, the jacket arrived during an exceptionally hot, dry May and, though there was some rain in early June, conditions were hardly ideal for testing waterproofing.
To make up for the lack of rain, on a very hot June day the test moved to swim shorts, a T-shirt, the Hawthorn zipped and fastened with the adjustable peaked hood pulled tight, and a thorough soaking from the garden hose through its various spray modes. The jacket coped remarkably well. The T-shirt stayed completely dry. That is not eight hours of November rain, but it is a reassuring indication of its wet-weather capability.
True to the company’s mission statement, the Hawthorn is a practical, durable and stylish jacket at a very affordable price. It is a tough workhorse, the sort of coat you would happily leave in the truck or the tractor cab ready to grab for any eventuality, yet it is also good-looking enough for the village pub or an early-season country fair. It feels like a modern take on trusty old waxed cotton, with the benefits of contemporary fabrics.
It suits the beater, the picker-up, the keeper and anyone who wants a hard-wearing coat that lives in the back of the vehicle. Buyers who want a jacket that is warm straight out of the bag should look elsewhere, or budget for decent layers underneath, because there is no insulation here by design. For the money, though, there is very little to argue with.
It has an RRP of £114.95, which places it well below most dedicated shoot-day and beating jackets. Prices are RRP at the time of publication and may have changed.
It carries a manufacturer’s waterproof rating of 10,000mm, meaning the fabric resists pressure equivalent to a 10m column of water before it leaks. In practical terms that should see off heavy rain and wet snow. Breathability is rated at 10,000 MVP.
There is no built-in insulation, only a mesh liner, so warmth comes from what you wear underneath. That is deliberate: it lets you set the base and mid layers to suit the season, and the two underarm zips mean the jacket still works on milder days.
Yes. The heavyweight ripstop polyamide outer halts snags and tears rather than letting them run, and the elbows, shoulders and rear seat carry reinforced panels, so it stands up well to being pushed through thorn and thick cover.
It is sold directly by New Forest Clothing, which lists the Hawthorn in olive across a wide size range.
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