Welcome to Owl’s House website

Our holiday let is designed to provide the discerning guest a comfortable time away from home. Whether on holiday, visiting friends or family, interested in our beautiful rural countryside or needing somewhere to return on a business trip, we hope your stay will be pleasant and successful.

Because of our unique connection with Christopher Robin (he and his Nanny used to buy Bullseyes on their weekly trip to the shop) and due to the location above the famous Pooh Corner shop, we offer something special for the Pooh fan. Situated in the heart of Pooh Country you will be able to find all the original Pooh Places including the iconic Poohsticks Bridge.

Your host Mike Ridley met Christopher on a number of occasions. Notably on the famous bridge and at the unveiling of the memorial to his father A.A.Milne, who wrote the original Pooh storybooks, and to E.H.Shepard who drew the illustrations. You can visit the memorial and nearby, you can discover ‘Roo’s Sandy Pit’, ‘Galleon’s Lap’ and a location thought to have inspired ‘The Heffalump Trap’. A bit further away in the adjoining valley you can also go on an ‘Expotition’ to find, ‘Where the North Pole Was’.

Unfortunately, we can not guarantee that you will chance upon Pooh Bear or Piglet. Sadly, you may not bump into Kanga or baby Roo. Tigger is unlikely to bounce across and say, ‘Hello’ and Rabbit tends to keep himself to himself these days although sometimes, you can see his friends and relations! You might spot Owl fly past of course, and I often see someone that looks very much like Christopher Robin from time to time. Be that as it may, you will certainly be where they were and when you pick up a pine cone from the forest floor, ‘it’ will be a direct decedent of the first pine cone that Pooh dropped over Poohsticks Bridge all those years ago.

The Ashdown Forest and the area called Pooh Country, retain the tranquillity that we derive from reading the wonderful Winnie-the-Pooh Books. There is a timelessness that we can embrace every time we wander around and admire the landscape. It is exciting to recall the history that the Forest has in regard to generations of Kings and Queens who hunted the deer. Henry V111 met Anne Boleyn not far from Hartfield. Her family home was at Hever Castle. It may not have been the perfect marriage but on the plus side of their relationship, Anne gave birth to a baby girl who became the great Queen Elizabeth the first.

Now ‘The Hundred Acre Wood’ is once more in the news with the new book written by David Benedictus. David visited us before he wrote, ‘Return to the Hundred Acre Wood’ and the BBC recorded their interview with him when its publication was announced. Then, on the 10th of October 2009, within a week of the Launch on the 5th, David came back to Pooh Corner and delighted us with a reading. How lucky we are to live and work in such a beautiful place. Now you too can experience living at Pooh Corner in our wonderful, ‘Owl’s House’.


Mike and June Ridley