Wild in the Country

On my way home at dusk, recently, I was driving up the curving incline of the road between Little Iwood and Great Iwood, just outside Rushlake Green. As I came around the bend, something large was in the road up ahead of me but the brief sweep of my headlights failed to reveal its true form. As I got nearer and slowed to a halt, I realised it was a buck, an adult male fallow deer, and it was showing no intention of getting out of my way.

Not for nothing have my children nicknamed this stretch of road, Deer Country. Since I left London over ten years ago, I have seen more deer on the roads in my part of East Sussex than I have seen foxes. I was given some early advice by a neighbour on the matter: if a deer runs across the road in front of your car, stop and wait; others will be sure to follow. It has turned out to be good advice: many times, I have stopped at the sight of a running deer only to see two or three follow in its wake. Stories of fatal accidents – both to driver and deer - are legion in this area.

The closest I have come to a deer-related accident was when I used to travel to work on a motor scooter. It was dark, and I thought I had seen something whizz across the road in the distance. I slowed, stopped and waited - but nothing happened. Then, just as I was about to pull away, there was what can only be described as a stampede of deer – some, adult males - across my path. Had I not stopped, I would surely have been trampled underfoot.

Deer roam wild in the countryside of East Sussex, particularly in large and sparsely populated areas; but they are also found close to towns and villages. They are overwhelmingly fallow deer, although there are some roe deer living in Ashdown Forest. The fallow deer population has increased dramatically in the last thirty years due to milder winters, falling demand for venison and the changing attitudes of landowners: more farmers are prepared to tolerate grazing deer in woods and fallow fields.

Back at my most recent encounter, the deer was snuffling at something on the road surface. He did not seem to be alarmed by the glare of my headlights or the idling of my engine. Just as I was wondering what to do next, he lazily looked up and stared in my direction. Illuminated in the bright light, with his stately posture and towering antlers, he looked magnificent. After a few more seconds of stand-off, he then sauntered away into the wood. I waited a few moments, and then drove away slowly, happy to have shared the road with such a beautiful creature.

Blasted Heath

Ashdown Forest is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, covering roughly ten square miles, on the higher ground right at the top of East Sussex. Stretching from Hartfield in the north to Maresfield in the south, from Wych Cross in the west to Crowborough in the east, it was originally an enclosed forest that was the preserve of the hunting nobility in the centuries after the Norman Conquest. Commoners were allowed to use the forest to collect vegetation for firewood and animal bedding, and to graze their livestock. Access was not open but was strictly limited via a series of gates, or hatches, that are still seen in existing place names, such as Coleman’s Hatch and Chelwood Gate.

There were constant tensions over Ashdown Forest, as landowners’ attempts to deny access were strongly resisted. This came to a head in the 17th century when the forest was divided, with just under half granted to commoners and the rest falling into private hands. To further protect the land for the people, Parliament introduced legislation in the 19th century and, at the end of the last century, East Sussex County Council obtained the freehold of the remaining common land and established the Ashdown Forest Trust to protect, in perpetuity, one of the largest open public spaces in the south east of England.

The ‘forest’ part of the area’s name is something of a misnomer, however: the areas of woodland are limited and, in the main, Ashdown Forest is not just open in terms of access. Writing in Rural Rides in 1830, the brilliantly acerbic reformer William Cobbett observed, “the forests of Sussex: those miserable tracts of heath and fern and bushes and sand, called Ashdown Forest”. Clearly not a fan, Cobbett is probably not alone in his initial reaction. There can be something of the blasted heath about the place, particularly on a day like yesterday when I was there: a fierce wind and a drop in temperature had turned July into September; but the views across the countryside were spectacular, the sense of space inspiring and kids and dogs ran free and untamed.

Ashdown Forest is probably best known today as the thinly disguised setting of A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. The forest’s Five Hundred Acre Wood became the Hundred Acre Wood in Milne’s series of books and many of the landmarks in the stories – the Enchanted Place, Roo’s Sandpit, the bridge where Pooh and Christopher Robin played Poohsticks – can be easily located. Something of a Pooh tourist industry has grown up in Hartfield, the nearest village to Cotchford Farm, Milne’s home when he wrote the tales in the 1920s. Forty years later, the same house would be the scene of the death, from booze and drugs, of ex-Rolling Stone Brian Jones just one month after being booted out of the band for hedonistic excess. There is no Jones memorabilia in the local Pooh-themed gift shops.