Winnie the Pooh is one of the most beloved and recognized characters around the world. The books appear in at least 25 languages and it’s estimated that more than 70 million copies have been sold of A.A. Milne’s original books about Winnie the Pooh and his friends, including Tigger, Piglet, Owl and Eeyore, and their adventures, which often began with a simple quest for hunny and end with the whole gang on a mission to save Christopher Robin from a tight spot.
Yet Winnie the Pooh is also a very British bear and his local fans have a special advantage when it comes to tracking down some of the real places that inspired the stories and discovering the history behind them. Here’s a handy guide if you fancy having a Winnie the Pooh day out. And remember, if you’re having a picnic, don’t forget the hunny...
Ashdown Forest
Winnie the Pooh’s author, A.A. Milne owned a country house right on the edge of Ashdown Forest in Sussex and its beautiful countryside inspired him to create the fictional Hundred Acre Wood, which is home to Winnie the Pooh and all his friends.
Even today visitors to the area can see the very same open heathland and hilltop clumps of pine trees that artist E.H. Shepard depicted in his illustrations for Milne’s books and find the real-life settings of some of Winnie the Pooh’s most famous adventures. Ashdown Forest covers an area of about 10 square miles and highlights for Winnie the Pooh fans include:
-- The real Poohsticks Bridge, which is not far from the village of Hartfield and just beyond the real-life Five Hundred Acre Wood (which Milne called the Hundred Acre Wood).
Visitors can take a 20-minute walk through the beautiful local countryside to the bridge over a tributary of the River Medway where A.A. Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, used to play Poohsticks, a game in which competitors drop sticks over the side of a bridge and race to the other side to see which stick comes out first.
These days so many people come here to play Christopher Robin’s favourite game that it’s a good idea to take some sticks with you: you won’t find any lying around on the ground.
-- Gill’s Lap, which A.A. Milne rechristened Galleons Lap in the Winnie the Pooh stories. In the books Galleons Lap is described as a magical place because it contains a large circle of fir trees that no one has ever been able to count and it’s where Christopher Robin tells Winnie the Pooh he is going to leave the forest at the end of The House at Pooh Corner.
There are still lots of pine trees here, so you may want to try counting them for yourself. You can also try to decide which tree was the one Tigger fell out of when he demonstrated how good Tiggers are at climbing trees. Not very good at all, as it turned out
-- Carrying on from Gill’s Lap on a walk Pooh fans can also find a pit that may be the real-life equivalent of the Heffalump Trap where Piglet and Pooh try to catch the honey-loving and possibly dangerous heffalump.
If you’re not quite sure what a heffalump looks like but want to try and spot one on your walk, check the illustrations in the Winnie the Pooh books and you’ll find a picture of Pooh having a bad dream about a heffalump stealing his jar of honey.
-- Further along still, there’s a disused quarry that A.A. Milne used as the inspiration for Roo’s Sandy Pit, which is where Roo goes to practice jumping and sometimes falls down mouse-holes.
-- The next highlight, just beyond Roo’s Sandy Pit and right at the northern edge of the forest, is the Enchanted Place, a small grassy area containing several large stones. On one of stones there’s a plaque commemorating the connection between the Pooh stories and Ashdown Forest.
The memorial was opened in 1979 by the real-life Christopher Robin, Christopher Milne, who said he chose the place because it was where he would pause on his childhood walks through the forest and take in the incredible view.
-- Keep on walking and you will find the stream to which Christopher Robin leads an expedition and Pooh discovers the North Pole. In the stories the North Pole turns out to be a real pole and Pooh uses it to rescue Roo when he falls in the stream.
There’s no marker telling you where the North Pole is, so you will have to see if you can decide for yourself. Just be careful not to do what Roo did and end up falling in the water.
-- The next stop and a good place to pause for a rest (and some hunny) is the area of Ashdown Forest that really is a forest: the Five Hundred Acre Wood, which A.A. Milne renamed the Hundred Acre Wood. It’s here that Owl had his house (Wols House in the books) in a very large beech tree that blows down and causes Pooh to set off to find a new place for Owl to live.
There are various pathways you can use for exploring the wood though don’t get there too late. As Christopher Milne, the real-life Christopher Robin, wrote: 'You would need to be a very brave explorer to venture into the Five Hundred Acre at night.'
-- Finally, on the edge of the wood, there’s some open ground that is the location of Eeyore’s Gloomy Place. It’s described as 'rather boggy and sad' in the books and it’s where the mournful grey donkey goes to eat thistles and be alone.
It’s also the spot where Pooh comes to visit Eeyore one day and discovers his friend has lost his tail, which causes Pooh to go off in search of a new one.
If you want to learn more about Winnie the Pooh and his friends latest adventures, come and see Winnie The Pooh on April 15 in a cinema near you.
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