Ashdown Forest

Ashdown was a medieval royal hunting forest, and forest in that sense meant land under forest law rather than woodland; grazing and cutting rights held by commoners kept it open, so most of it is heather, gorse and bracken rather than trees, one of the largest surviving lowland heaths in southeast England. A A Milne bought Cotchford Farm on its southern edge in 1925, and the landscape went into the Winnie-the-Pooh books almost unchanged: Gills Lap became Galleons Lap, the Enchanted Place is a memorial to Milne and the illustrator E H Shepard, and Poohsticks Bridge, rebuilt in 1979 and again in 2022, is a real bridge that people still play the game on. The heath supports Dartford warblers and nightjars, and it is grazed and burned in rotation to stop it turning to woodland.

What you actually see

• Poohsticks Bridge - the real bridge, rebuilt twice, still used for the game.
• Gills Lap - the Enchanted Place, with a memorial to Milne and Shepard.
• The open heath - heather and gorse kept treeless by grazing and cutting.
• The heathland birds - Dartford warblers and nightjars in season.

When to go

August and September for heather in flower, which turns the heath purple; April to June for birds. The forest is open year-round and free, with numbered car parks along the roads.

Honest expectations

Poohsticks Bridge is a twenty-minute walk from the nearest car park and is a plain wooden footbridge; visitors bring sticks because none are left nearby. The heath looks bare and brown outside the heather season. Adders are present and dogs should be watched.

Nearby

Sheffield Park garden lies south; Tunbridge Wells and East Grinstead are on either side.