Ashdown Forest - Eeyore In The Snow

The Sandy Pit (where Roo plays) According to local maps, the Sandy Pit was created as a quarry some time between 1884 and 1931. Photographs taken during World War Two show it surrounded by open heathland, apart from the nearby clump of pines at Gills Lap. Although some deciduous trees were cut from around the Pit in 2004/2005, many pine trees remain. The damp base to the Pit is now far from bare and has been colonised by grasses and rushes. Often there is a pond in it. Should the Conservators try to manage the Pit and other parts of the Pooh landscape so as to ‘re-create’ the look and the feel of the Shepard sketches – or let nature take its course and allow them to disappear under vegetation?

Illustration from: The House At Pooh Corner

‘Kanga and Roo were spending a quiet afternoon in a sandy part of the Forest. Baby Roo was practising very small jumps in the sand, and falling down mouse-holes and climbing out of them, and Kanga was fidgeting about and saying “Just one more jump, dear, and then we must go home.”’

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‘Pooh, who had decided to be a Kanga, was still at the top of the forest, practising jumps.’

Illustrations and passages from: Winnie-the-Pooh Text © A.A.Milne, line illustrations © the Estate of E.H.Shepard, colouring © 1970 E.H.Shepard and Egmont UK Limited.

This photograph was taken from location 2

Photography: David Gadsby, www.dgphotography.co.uk