Around the Ashdown Forest - Monday 30th July
A Bright sunny start as become our expectations. We set out from Ivan's house around 10-00 as he had planned the route. Had we known earlier what he had planned for us we might have driven back home again!
Starting right at the highest point in Sussex there was really only one way to go - downhill - and for the first couple of miles the walking was scenic, varied and downhill. The plan was simply to walk almost directly North-West aiming for "Chuck Hatch" and beyond.
Ivan led us across a stream via an old Pack-Horse bridge built to transport iron from the old medieval iron smelting works situated a little further up the stream. The stream itself was dammed to form three holding lakes that were used to provide water wheel power to the fans that blew into the charcoal fires that smelted the iron ore. Way back in the Roman Era but especially in the 1500's the Ashdown Forest was a principal source of Iron because the Iron Ore was abundant; the trees provided the charcoal and the rivers the motive power. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_industry_of_Ashdown_Forest
The old stone "Pack-Horse" bridge now buried deep within the trees and undergrowth of the forest. Its easy to see from the colour of the stream that it runs over Iron Ore.
After a mile or so we hit "100 Acre Wood" and met up with an old friend, the Wealdway path that we had walked a couple of months ago and we followed this for about another mile before we peeled off left heading out towards Coleman's Hatch.
From here the walk took us through a mix of farmland and woods and just in time for lunch we reached "The Hatch Inn", a marvellous old pub nestled deep in the forest. (http://www.hatchinn.co.uk/)
A well earned pint in this very old Sussex pub.
Fully refreshed we set out on the loop route back fully in the realisation that the next 7 miles or so would be almost entirely "uphill". Just up the road from the pub we picked up the "Vanguard Way", another well known long distant path and this was to be our guide back to Kings Standing at the top of the Forest. Except that this part of the path seemed to be very poorly way marked so we had to resort to map watching for a few miles. Soon we had risen above the tree line and the walk up the west side of the hill was rewarding in its wonderful views if not in its leg strain.
Not long after we came across the memorial to A A Milne set up high and overlooking the Hundred Acre Wood, home of Winnie the Pooh.
E H Shepard who together created Winnie the Pooh tales.
The wonderful view across the hundred acre wood
Pulling up over the top of the first big hill we passed a car park with an ice cream van. Tongues hung out but Ivan assured us that the next car park a couple of miles further on after yet another up-hill slog also has an ice cream van and the treat would be even better for the wait.
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| The long pull up the hill! |
Damn the man - 2 miles later when we arrived at the next car park there was no ice cream van! By this time we had clocked up a total of 10 miles and the last 4 were all uphill. Crowborough and Ivan's house was still 4 miles away and between where we were and where we wanted to be was a big valley. So down we went for another 2 miles, crossing the stream again that fed the Iron Smelting site (and the dams that built up the lakes and water head for the powerful water wheels), before climbing up another very steep two miles. The legs for the last couple of hundred metres were exceptionally wobbly!
For those interested the key Google Earth points are ...
Started and finished walk at Lat 51.057096° Long 0.152398°
The pack-horse bridge Lat 51.064730° Long 0.130766°
Hundred Acre Wood Lat 51.075443° Long 0.114687°
The Hatch Inn Lat 51.081693° Long 0.072371°
A A Milne Memorial Lat 51.070008° Long 0.096304°
I have decided, from avidly reading the progress of all the interesting walking that you folk have done over these last few months, that this last trip was a little escape from the rational, more geared towards Olympic athletes, not grown men!
ReplyDeleteWell done, I know that I could not have kept up.