Oh bother, Poohsticks Bridge might have to go over the water
AA MILNE’S Poohsticks Bridge may never return to 100 Acre Wood, after the aristocrat who bought the literary landmark a year ago said he is being forced to resell it.
Located in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, the bridge on which Milne, creator of Winnie-the-pooh, and his son, Christopher Robin, invented the game was declared unsafe and taken down in 1999 after suffering wear and tear.
The dismantled bridge was bought from the local council by a consortium that rebuilt it, replaced the rotten pieces of wood with oak, and put it up for auction in October 2021.
Worried that the landmark would be sold abroad thanks to Winnie-the-pooh’s global appeal, the 11th Earl De La Warr paid £131,000 – more than double the pre-sale estimate – to place the highest bid, saving the bridge for the nation.
But there are fresh fears that Britain may lose Poohsticks Bridge to an overseas buyer, as the 74-year-old aristocrat says that owing to a “family crisis” he has been left with no choice but to resell it – before he has even had the chance to return it to the place that inspired Milne’s 100 Acre Wood.
“I’m going to be forced for reasons I don’t really want to go into, a family crisis, to resell it,” Lord De La Warr said.
“And it upsets me because I’m quite certain it’ll be bought by America or Japan or Bulgaria, or the people who bid for it before,” he added. “It is generally a piece of cultural heritage and an awful lot of people know that.
“It saddens me a lot that it may have to go overseas.”
Lord De La Warr had planned to reassemble the bridge over a stream on his 2,000-acre Buckhurst Park estate, which includes an area that inspired Milne’s 100 Acre Wood.
He also has strong family connections to the bridge – his father was a childhood friend of Christopher Robin Milne and they used to play together in the woods.
Lord De La Warr had considered setting up a crowdfunder to raise money so that he would not be forced to sell the landmark, but has since changed his mind over fears of how the public would perceive an aristocrat landowner asking for funding.
“If I mention crowdfunding, it doesn’t look very good, does it? Everybody thinks that anyone with a fair amount of land is immensely rich.
“Well, unfortunately, that’s not entirely the case. Maybe rich in terms of land, but it doesn’t mean you’ve got any cash,” he said.
“You can see another newspaper picking it up and saying, well we know he’s a rich landed aristocrat, what’s he doing trying to get public funds? People
‘I’m going to be forced for reasons I don’t really want to go into, a family crisis, to resell it’
will say ‘he’s just trying to have his cake and eat it, just trying to recover the costs of the bridge’.”
Lord De La Warr added: “Unless somebody can persuade me that public funding is the right route then it unfortunately has to be sold. It distresses me a lot.”