A MAJOR investigation was launched after a woman’s body was found at a New Forest beauty spot.

A man was walking his dog near the Balmer Lawn hotel yesterday when he found the woman floating face down in the Lymington River.

Last night police were still trying to identify the body, said to be that of a white, middle-aged person with short dark hair.

A post-mortem examination will be carried out to determine the cause of death, but there were no signs of violence and the incident is not being treated as suspicious.

The body was found a few hundred yards from the four-star Balmer Lawn Hotel in Balmer Lawn Road, Brockenhurst.

It was near a small gravel car park and a bridge that carries the busy A337 Lyndhurst to Brockenhurst road over the river.

A red jacket and a pair of flat, black shoes were found on the river bank.

A woman living nearby said: “I got home just after 9am after doing the school run and then going for a ride on my horse.

“When I saw the ambulances and police cars I assumed it was a suicide. It’s very sad.”

Cllr Russell Horne, chairman of Brockenhurst Parish Council, added: “I was driving past and saw two firemen holding up a white sheet.

“I wondered what was going on and heard later that a woman’s body had been found in the river. It’s always disturbing when something like that happens.”

Police said the alarm was raised just after 9am by a 37-year-old Aldershot man who was walking his dog.

The hotel is on the opposite side of Balmer Lawn Road and was not affected by the police investigation.