Overlooking, Winnie the Pooh's 100 Acre Wood: The Ashdown Forest

Gills Lap, perched on the wide, wind-combed expanse of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, is one of those places that seems purpose-built to make you feel both insignificant and rather charmed at the same time. From its modest rise you can gaze out over the very real landscape that inspired Winnie-the-Pooh’s very fictional 100 Acre Wood—proof, if ever it were needed, that geography occasionally moonlights as children’s literature. In the Pooh stories the spot becomes Galleons Lap, an “enchanted place,” which is exactly how it feels, though not in the sparkly-wand sense. Rather, it’s the sort of enchantment produced when you realise—after considerable effort—that you still can’t decide whether there are sixty-three or sixty-four trees. (Christopher Robin tried, you’ll recall, and got precisely nowhere.) It also holds the distinguished honour of being just about the only perch in the Forest where one can sit without being prodded, jabbed, or otherwise impaled by the local plant life, which shows a rare moment of mercy. It was from this gentle summit that the great expedition to discover the North Pole set forth—a bold adventure undertaken largely by individuals who weren’t entirely sure what a North Pole was but were nonetheless keen to find it. Before we follow in their valiant, if geographically uncertain, footsteps, we make a small detour—because this is England, and detours are practically a national pastime. #winniepooh #forest #sussex