Ashdown Forest is an ancient area of open heathland occupying the highest sandy ridge-top of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is situated some south of London in the county of East Sussex, England. Rising to an elevation of above sea level, its heights provide expansive vistas across the heavily wooded hills of the Weald to the chalk escarpments of the North Downs and South Downs on the horizon.
Ashdown Forest's origins lie as a medieval hunting forest created soon after the Norman conquest of England. By 1283 the forest was fenced in by a pale enclosing an area of some . Thirty-four gates and hatches in the pale, still remembered in place names such as Chuck Hatch and Chelwood Gate, allowed local people to enter to graze their livestock, collect firewood, and cut heather and bracken for animal bedding. The forest continued to be used by the monarchy and nobility for hunting into Tudor times, including notably Henry VIII, who had a hunting lodge at Bolebroke Castle, Hartfield and who courted Anne Boleyn at nearby Hever Castle.
Ashdown Forest has a rich archaeological heritage. It contains much evidence of prehistoric human activity, with the earliest evidence of human occupation dating back to 50,000 years ago. There are important Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Romano-British remains. The forest was the centre of a nationally important iron industry on two occasions, during the Roman occupation of Britain and in the Tudor period when, in 1496, England's first blast furnace was built at Newbridge, near Coleman's Hatch, marking the beginning of Britain's modern iron and steel industry. In 1693, more than half the forest was taken into private hands, with the remainder set aside as common land. The latter today covers and is the largest area with open public access in South East England. The ecological importance of Ashdown Forest's heathlands is reflected by its designation as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, as a Special Protection Area for birds, and as a Special Area of Conservation for its heathland habitats. It is part of the European Natura 2000 network as it hosts some of Europe's most threatened species and habitats.
Ashdown Forest is famous for serving as inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories written by A. A. Milne. Milne lived on the northern edge of the forest and took his son, Christopher Robin, walking there. The artist E. H. Shepard drew on the landscapes of Ashdown Forest as inspiration for many of the illustrations he provided for the Pooh books.
Settlements
Ashdown Forest notably lacks any significant settlements within the large boundary defined by its medieval pale. There are however a number of villages situated on the edge of the forest adjacent to the pale or close to it. These include Nutley, Fairwarp, Danehill and Maresfield to the south and Forest Row and Hartfield to the north. The town of Crowborough abuts the forest on its eastern side while the town of East Grinstead lies to the north-west.
Toponymy
Ashdown Forest does not seem to have existed as a distinct entity before the Norman Conquest of 1066, nor is it mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. The area that was to become known as Ashdown Forest was merely an unidentified part of the Forest of Pevensel, a Norman creation within the Rape of Pevensey that had been carved out of a much larger area of woodland, the Weald, which itself was a part of the prehistoric forest cover of the British landmass, the British wildwood. The first recorded reference to Ashdown Forest by name is in the period 1100–1130, when Henry I confirmed the right of monks to use a road across the forest of "Essessdone", a right which the monks claimed to have held since the Conquest.
"Ashdown Forest" consists of words from two different languages. The first word, Ashdown, is of Anglo-Saxon origin. It is probably derived from the personal name of an individual or people called Æsca, combined with dūn, Old English for hill or down, hence Æsca's dūn—the hill of Æsca. It has no connection with ash trees, which have never been common given the soil conditions.