Ashdown Forest North West tour, Sussex

Ashdown Forest is not one continuous block, but a series of very large expanses of heath and woodland, interspersed with private land and link routes. In April, I led a walk which covered some of the South and East of the forest and much of this was across open heathland. Today we shall be exploring the North West area, between Chelwood Gate and Forest Row, which will involve far more actual woodland as one might expect from the term ‘forest’ although that word actually refers to traditional hunting ground and has little to do with trees.

We shall leave the forest almost as soon as start the walk, as we cut between the Pippingford Park military training area and the Ashdown Forest Llama Park, heading down to revisit the Chelwood Vachery Forest Garden, with its lakes, ponds and miniature gorge, the latter of which was made with limestone boulders brought from Cheddar Gorge in Somerset. The forest garden was created in the early part of the Twentieth Century but subsequently became overgrown and neglected. It was acquired by the Conservators of Ashdown Forest in 1994 and major restoration works commenced in 2008. Nestled in a quiet secluded valley, it is a pleasant place to visit.

After this we shall go up to the cross the main road at Chelwood Gate, then descend again via the hamlet of Birch Grove, which is where the late Harold MacMillan used to live. The walk takes us close to and sometimes beyond the edge of the forest here and we then walk through wooded valleys up to a high point near to Wych Cross. Plunging once again into lower ground near Forest Row, we loop back through more woods to reach our start point and have a wander around the Ashdown Forest Visitor Centre. This walk does not take us to or near any of the places made famous by AA Milne in his Winnie the Pooh stories, but there will doubtless be reference to them at the centre.