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Ashdown Forest

Coordinates: 51°02′31″N 0°04′01″E / 51.04206°N 0.06695°E / 51.04206; 0.06695
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Ashdown Forest is in the county of East Sussex, in South East England is an open area of 6,500 acres (2,630 ha) of heathland together with pine, birch and oak woodland in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is famous as the setting for the "Winnie the Pooh" stories written by A. A. Milne. There has been debate as to whether it should become a national park. Ashdown Forest is part of the what was once the great forest of Anderida, now known as the Weald[1]. Locations in the forest have been used for filming Television programmes and films, such as HBO/BBC's mini series Band of Brothers.[1]

Forest use and conservation

Ashdown Forest was first enclosed as a royal hunting park in the thirteenth century. The "pale" fence enclosed an area of over 50 square kilometres within which red and fallow deer were hunted [2]. The forest was used for deer hunting by King Edward II of England. Iron has also played an important role in the history of the area.

During the 1800s the people living in and around Ashdown forest grazed their animals in the forest, and regularly cut the bracken, heather and gorse (called the "litter") to use as fuel for burning and thatching on building roofs and animal pens. On 13 October 1877 John Miles was cutting litter on Ashdown Forest on behalf of his landlord Bernard Hale, barrister, J.P, Deputy Lieutenant of Sussex, and Ashdown commoner. William Pilbeam, one of Earl De La Warr's keepers, told him to stop cutting. Miles refused, thus initiating the Ashdown Forest case,[2] brought by Reginald Sackville, 7th Earl De La Warr, as Lord of the Manor of Duddlewell against Hale and Miles, to test the extent of Hale's right to use the forest's common land.

Various trees in Ashdown Forest

In 2007 the Forest was again the centre of a dispute between some local residents and the forest's governing body, the Board of Conservators (who are working on behalf of the owners East Sussex County Council). The Board wish to return the area to as it was before the Second World War, a blend of heath and woodland, lost because "the advance of woodland into traditional heath areas after the Second World War, when returning soldiers gave up trying to scratch a living out of the forest. Whereas once hundreds of commoners used the wood and heath - their livestock obliging by chewing down young tree shoots - today there is only one commercial grazer."[3] The residents complain that the results look like a First World War battle field. This is not a problem restricted to this common, but according to Jonathan Brown writing in the Independent on 21 April 2007 "similar debates are raging between locals and the authorities at other heathland areas in the New Forest and Surrey".[3]

A gate into Ashdown Forest at sunset

Another dispute, this time from cyclists, is the lack of cycle routes over the forest. Whilst horse riders can roam the 130km of trails over the forest the same rights have not been extended to the growing number of cross country cyclists. Notices have been posted to enforce the 'no cycling' by-law, which makes cycling on the forest a criminal offense, relating to the supposed erosion caused by the activity; in fact the very authority posting these notices at public expense has acknowledged that erosion is not the issue, just that it's easier to use the excuse than admit fear over inability to manage and control an activity.

The Forest was at one time home to a number of Red-necked Wallabies, the result of an escape from a captive colony in what was probably a farm. By the 1940s these were believed to be fully naturalised and breeding; numbers declined, however, and the last confirmed sighting was in 1972. Its importance to wildlife is recognized by its designation as a Special Protection Area[4] and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).[5]

Tourist attractions

Gills Lap

The Plaque commemorating A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard at Gills Lap

Gills Lap (at 51°04′05″N 0°05′41″E / 51.068°N 0.0948°E / 51.068; 0.0948) is a roundel of fir trees located on the site of an Iron age fort at the top of Ashdown Forest. It appears in the Winnie the Pooh books as "Galleons Lap" or the "Enchanted place". A stone axe, dated to 50,000 years BC. was found near here[6].

Winnie the Pooh

It is famous as the setting for the "Winnie the Pooh" stories written by A. A. Milne for his son Christopher Robin. Poohsticks Bridge, Galleon's Lap, Roo's Sandpit, the North Pole, the Hundred Acre Wood, Heffalump Trap and The Dark and Mysterious Forest can all be found on Ashdown Forest. Ashdown Forest was once a royal hunting ground and was originally protected by Act of Parliament in 1885.

Friends Clump

The Ashdown Forest Llama Park, which opened in 1987, is located in part of the Forest.

Ashdown Forest in the media

In 2001 rare archival cine film footage, in the possession of the South East Film and Video Archive (now known[3] as Screen Archive South East), depicting a school pageant held in Ashdown Forest in 1929 came to public attention when details from Christopher Robin Milne's autobiography prompted a closer examination of the film, and it was discovered that a child clearly identifiable as him could be seen in it.

If anyone had asked me would this film exist I would have said no. Eighty per cent of the films from the 1920s have been lost. This is the only film we have of the Ashdown Forest from that period, so for this one film to be the film that also showed Christopher Robin was virtually impossible. -Frank Gray, Director of the South East Film and Video Archive[7]

This archival footage was shown in a documentary by the "Southern Eye" programme of the BBC Two television channel, which aired at 1930 hours GMT on Tuesday 27 November 2001. During the documentary, 10-year old presenter Joel Pitts navigated his way around Ashdown forest using a map of the "Hundred Acre Wood" drawn by E. H. Shepard (illustrator of the "Winnie the Pooh" books) and found that Roo's Sandy Pit, Galleon's Lap and various other landmarks can be located with it.

As well as this documentary, areas and locations in The Forest have been used in television and film productions. Films include Colditz, the 2002 version of The Four Feathers, Under Suspicion and Flyboys. Notable television shows filmed in the Forest include The Railway Children, which was filmed using the Bluebell Railway as a location, and Band of Brothers, made by HBO and the BBC was filmed on the Forest.[1]

Notable people

Major Edward Dudley Metcalfe lived in a grey stone house in the forest. He was the best friend and equerry of Edward VIII.[8] Author A.A. Milne lived in Hartfield which is located on the edge of the forest. Many places in his Winnie the Pooh stories were based on locations in the forest. Another author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, lived in a town on the forest, Crowborough. Locations within the forest such as Groombridge Place were used as settings in Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series of books.[9]. The nature writer Richard Jefferies also lived in Crowborough for a period while he wrote some of his famous essays.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b "Film and Television locations in the area". Ashdown Forest Tourism Association. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
  2. ^ Professor Short, Brian (1997). The Ashdown Forest Dispute 1876-1882. Sussex Record Society.
  3. ^ a b Jonathan Brown Oh bother! Nimbies do battle with council over Pooh's forest, The Independent, (section:This Britain), 21 April 2007
  4. ^ "Walking Guide:Ashdown Forest - Pooh Corner, East Sussex". The Guardian. 2006-05-20. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
  5. ^ "Natural England - SSSI". English Nature. Retrieved 2008-05-25.
  6. ^ http://www.ashdownforest.org/history/history_pre_roman.php
  7. ^ "Christopher Robin revealed". BBC News. BBC. 2001-11-27.
  8. ^ "Good Old Duke". TIME. 1939-09-25. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
  9. ^ "Some of the Literary Connections with the area". Ashdown Forest Tourism Association. 2005. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
  10. ^ "Jefferies, John Richard". The Weald of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Retrieved 2008-01-11.

51°02′31″N 0°04′01″E / 51.04206°N 0.06695°E / 51.04206; 0.06695

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