Situated between Mount Kearsarge and Lake Sunapee, New London offers residents and visitors rare scenes of natural beauty. Such vistas have contributed to New London's status as a popular summer retreat. The town was the inspiration for the famous Kate Smith song "When the Moon Comes over the Mountain" and the work of Thornton Wilder. Annual events such as Hospital Days in summer and the historical society open house in December are as faithfully anticipated as the arrival of the Potter Place stagecoach was in the 1880s or the cornet band concert was in the 1860s.