Visit the home of Winnie-the-Pooh
Do you fancy visiting the home of Winnie-the-Pooh?
Following the release of the film Goodbye Christopher Robin, Hannah Stephenson joins AA Milne biographer Ann Thwaite in Ashdown Forest – the ‘Hundred Aker Wood’.
There’s no shortage of British locations which have become well-trodden tourist paths thanks to their celebrated authors.
But just 40 miles from London, Ashdown Forest in East Sussex – where scenes from Goodbye Christopher Robin were shot and where Winnie-the-Pooh creator AA Milne and his son Christopher Robin had their happiest times – has remained blissfully unmarred by tourism.
Here Ann Thwaite, the film’s consultant, is helping me retrace the steps that father and son took in the 1920s on their many walks along this 10 square mile stretch of countryside, the little boy carrying his eponymous bear and his innocent pals Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl and Eeyore.
Yet there’s not a sign, a playground, or any hint of a Disney-esque homage to the most famous bear in the world in sight, as we venture into this gloriously untouched ancient forest, much of which is tranquil, open heathland.
Anyone who doesn’t know of Ashdown Forest’s connection with Winniethe-Pooh or his creator will be little the wiser once in the “Hundred Aker Wood” which is in reality called the Five Hundred Acre Wood.
Ann, a sprightly 84-yearold and expert on all things AA Milne, takes fans on the paths trodden by the most lucrative children’s author in the world.
“The landscape hasn’t changed in all those years,” says Ann.
“You can’t even hear any traffic. It’s very sandy, too. There’s a scene in Winniethe-Pooh when Roo is playing in a sandpit, and if you look at the books you can see where Shepard (illustrator EH Shepard) was drawing the actual place.”
She leads us to a shady circle of pine trees in Gills Lap (renamed Galleons Lap in the books), in Milne’s words an “enchanted place” which is apparently popular with fans.
Just out of the trees, there’s the most spectacular view from the High Weald of the Downs, a patchwork quilt of green fields, divided by forest, with hardly a trace of visible civilisation.
It’s where AA Milne took his son on walks for precious time out and where he later took his illustrator, Ernest Shepard, who recreated Ashdown as the background in the Pooh books.
On the rock where they sat – and where the actors who play them are featured in the film – there’s a commemorative plaque to AA Milne and EH Shepard who “captured the magic of Ashdown Forest”.
The most visible sign that we are in Pooh territory is a wooden signpost to Pooh Bridge, which features in the film.
Here we stand, twigs at the ready, chucking the thin wooden sticks in the river, a tributary of the Medway, before darting to the other side to see whose twig appears first.
Christopher Milne, who died in 1996, did much for the restoration of the bridge, Ann recalls.
“He also led the fight to save the forest from development and oil exploration. He said he took the playground of his Sussex childhood with him wherever he went.”
Today, the area is highly protected
“The whole thing is a celebration of outdoor play and imagination,” Ann enthuses. “Christopher Robin, the real boy, was very keen on climbing trees.
“Trees were a very important part of his life and the great outdoors was a great therapy for Milne when the whole of England was trying to recover from the effect of war.”
For more information on Ashdown Forest, visit ashdownforest.org and ashdownforest.com