Once a royal hunting ground protected by Act of Parliament in 1885, the area is now known as Pooh Country.  The Milne family moved to Hartfield in 1925 and bought Cotchford Farm as a weekend retreat from the bustle of Chelsea in London. As young Christopher explored, he began discovering places that would eventually become landmarks of the world of Pooh. 

Although the forest is really called the Five Hundred Acre Wood, Christopher (who Christopher Robin was based on) wrote in his 1974 book The Enchanted Places, “Pooh’s forest and Ashdown Forest are identical.”

Word of his adventures soon spread through the family. Christopher’s nanny would accompany him into the forest and would relay their escapades to his mother, who would then tell Christopher's father AA Milne.

The Enchanted Places are therefore the actual settings for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories and in due course AA Milne compiled them into his famous books, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House At Pooh Corner (1928).  It was also at Cotchford Farm that Christopher’s stuffed animals became models for the characters in the stories.

Famous landmarks

Much of the forest is the same now as when EH Shepard first sketched it more than 80 years ago. Some places, such as Cotchford Farm and the tiny shop where Christopher Robin and his nanny travelled in search of sweets, are well marked and easily accessible, although some, like the North Pole, are on privately owned land.

Poohsticks Bridge is probably the most famous real-life place featured in the stories. It was where AA Milne first played the original game of Poohsticks with Christopher Robin. It was later immortalised in the second of his two Pooh storybooks The House At Pooh Corner.

Poohsticks Bridge can be found in the village of Upper Hartfield, to the west of Tunbridge Wells. Posingford Bridge, as it was originally called, was built in 1907 by John Charles Osman and his team of 13 workers, so that timber could be carried from Posingford to Cotchford Lane.

In the late 1970s it became obvious that Poohsticks Bridge was in need of urgent repair, so money was raised to restore the bridge and it was officially reopened by Christopher Milne in May 1979.

The year 1979 was also EH Shepard's centenary year and in July, a special game of Poohsticks was held on the bridge to celebrate both his 100th birthday and the issue of a GPO stamp featuring Winnie-the-Pooh.

At the end of 1999, Pooh's favourite bridge was forced to close because of the wear and tear caused by thousands of visitors. At the end of that year, the bridge was rebuilt at a cost of £46,000 with the help of a £15,000 donation from Walt Disney.

Hidden plaque

Also at this time, a bronze plaque was set into a rock on a hidden pathway near the summit of Gills Lap, (Galleon’s Lap in the books), the highest point of the Ashdown Forest that overlooks all the Pooh places, to commemorate the bear’s creation by Milne and Shepard.

There are purposely no signs to show the way, as it was felt that in keeping with the spirit of the books, the memorial should be informal and discreet. Gills Lap is also the spot where Christopher Robin and Pooh went in the last chapter of The House At Pooh Corner, when they both knew their lives were about to change as Christopher grows up.

As well as Poohsticks Bridge and Galleon’s Lap, other places from the stories can be found in Ashdown Forest, including Roo's Sandpit, the Heffalump Trap and The Dark and Mysterious Forest.

Glimpse into the past

There is rare snippet of footage from 1929 showing what Pooh Country looked like when the Milne family spent time there. It shows Christopher Milne leading a parade in Ashdown Forest followed by local schoolchildren dressed as characters from the Winnie-the-Pooh books. It was shown in 2001 as part of a BBC documentary.

Helen Kent, who discovered the film, read Christopher Robin’s autobiography in which he describes taking part in the pageant when he was nine. She rang the South East Film and Video Archive and it found the matching footage. 

Frank Gray, director of the archive, was amazed at the find. He said, "This is the only film we have of Ashdown Forest from that period, so for this one film to be the film that also showed Christopher Robin was virtually impossible. It's a wonderful piece of film because it links the world of Winnie-the-Pooh to Ashdown Forest and Christopher Robin."