Ashdown Forest - A magical forest in East Sussex that collects writers.

Writers from England, Scotland, Ireland, America and South Africa have all fallen under the spell of these woods, heath and gorse clad hills: A.A. Milne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, W.B. Yates, Ezra Pound and now Julian Roup

Ashdown Forest in East Sussex is home to Winnie the Pooh, the famous children’s book that will be 100 years old in 2026. But this is just one of the books that have emerged from this magical wood.

Winnie-the-Pooh, the 1926 book by author A.A. Milne and illustrator E.H.Shepard is set in Hundred Acre Wood and tells of the adventures of Pooh, his owner Christopher Robin, and their friends Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo.

Other writers who were drawn to Ashdown Forest include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; author of the Sherlock Holmes books. He lived next to the forest for 26 years in Crowborough and called the area Scotland in Sussex for its 1,000 ft above sea-level landscapes in the heavily wooded High Weald of East Sussex. The moods of the forest imbue the Sherlock Holmes books with some of their spookier landscapes.

During WW1 Irish poet William Butler Yates and his American friend, the poet, Ezra Pound escaped from London for three consecutive winters 1913-1916, basing themselves in Stone Cottage near The Hatch Pub on the forest. They found it ever more difficult to drag themselves away from the place. Their soundscape on the forest included winter storms that charged up the Channel and then funnelled up the 1000 ft heights of East Sussex, matched in ferocity by the booming artillery fire from across the Channel in France.

In recent years another writer has fallen in love with Ashdown Forest, myself!. South African born, a horseman, I arrived on these shores in 1980 and  when I discovered the forest I knew I’d found a new home. It’s weiters have helped me settle in. Now the Forest stretches through four of my books – A Fisherman in the Saddle; Into the Secret Heart of Ashdown Forest – A Horseman’s Country Diary; Life in a Time of Plague (a Covid diary); and Travels with Callum will be available in the Autumn. I like to describe these books as love letters to Ashdown Forest after a forty-year affair.

Some readers have been kind enough to say: “His gift is the ability to take you deep into the landscapes that make this place resonate in his heart: its streams, woods, heathlands. You meet its literary residents A.A, Milne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ezra Pound and W.B. Yeats. You get beneath its skin among the networks of fungi that allow the trees to speak. You taste its foods, meet its locals both the living and the ghosts, and see its huge importance during the plague year 20-21 through the pandemic lockdowns.”

Others add: “His passion for horses shines through these pages and his writing is, as he himself says, a form of ‘moving meditation’. He takes you under the soil of this place and he leaves a soft glow on the landscape when he is gone.”

The essays in the book are, I like to think, small narrative jewels of landscape, horses, friendship, and a search for belonging - what it means to feel part of a place, having lost the one I was born to in South Africa’s Cape.

Book reviewers have said: “In him Ashdown has found a new voice. Having read this book you will see the forest through his eyes as a place of magic. This is nature writing at its best, echoing that of Roger Deacon and Robert Macfarlane.”

I would say of my book Life in a Time of Plague: “After the best part of a year in lockdown thanks to Covid-19 it became clear to me as never before how much I owed to the place that has been my home for 40 years - Ashdown Forest in East Sussex - and to my horses who have carried me across its green miles. The forest and the horses have brought me health and peace and contentment when in fact life offered just the opposite. The pandemic truly brought it home to me how important nature is to our wellbeing. So, this book is a thank you to the Forest and to the horses, particularly my newest horse, Callum, the big chestnut Irish Sports Horse who has been my salvation during this plague year.”

My most popular book, Into the Secret Heart of Ashdown Forest, comes closest perhaps to explaining the enchantment to be found in this hill country, a kilometre high above the Channel and France, a balcony on the world of Southern England.

The book is illustrated by the talented East Grinstead artist & horsewoman Abbie Hart.