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Ashdown Forest
Ashdown Forest photos
Displaying the first of 18 old photos of Ashdown Forest. View all Ashdown Forest photos
Ashdown Forest maps
Historic maps of Ashdown Forest and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Ashdown Forest maps
Ashdown Forest area books
Displaying 1 of 19 books about Ashdown Forest and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Ashdown Forest
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East Sussex memories
Life on The Forest, 1940s on
We moved to Yew Tree Cottage, out on the Forest, in December 1940, when I was 20 months old, and my father finally sold up in the early 1980s. I loved the Forest, and was allowed to roam free from an early age. I have many memories of the wide open spaces [yes, they were then, when the smallholders cut and gathered the vegetation for their animals' food and betting, and cut birch for firewood]. Once, when I'd wandered off [aged about 4] to meet the postman, who came from the Forest Row direction, when he didn't come apparently I just kept on walking. I remember feeling sleepy and lying down by a bridge to sleep, and being woken by the search party, probably Dad [Tom Townsend], Mr Card and Mr Everest. I wasn't at all bothered, just loved the attention. Everybody knew everyone in those days, and houses weren't generally locked up. If you went to see anyone and they weren't in, you just went in... Read more
Sweet Memories
Living at Forest House - just up the road from the post office. The school coach would drop us off at the bus stop, and on our way home we would stop in to what our family called "the little shop" to stash up on sweets. The shop was run by Barbara and Len Waghorn.
Wrens Warren Camp School
In 1949 I was a pupil at Wrens Warren Camp School near Colemans Hatch. The school was housed in long huts which I believe to have been used in the war. It was a school for children who had been ill and needed some form of convalescence whilst still able to attend lessons.
The headmaster was a Mr Punch, and the head for the girls was a Miss Hoad. We slept in long dormitories and the whole place was quite austere.
I would love to hear from any other member who was there.
The School Journey
I was a pupil at Michael Faraday at Westmorland Road, London SE17, at about 1953 when we went on the 'school journey'. I will add to this my first holiday away from home. One evening at just before bedtime after a few nights there in the dormitary one of the boys was very irritable and kicked another, which resulted in him crying followed by most of the rest of us because boy, were we suddenly homesick. The teachers must have been used to it I suppose... more to come.
Happy Holidays
I attended Southfield School in Gravesend, Kent and we had a week's summer camp at the Isle of Thorns, what an adventure, we were away from home for the first time, it was a holiday never to be forgotten even after all these years. I remember walking through the woods to the local shop to spend our money on Cydrax and sweets, kids today do not realise what delight can be got from simple pleasures.
Lt Spencer Baker - Died at Passchendaele 1917
Spencer Baker was my grandfather's cousin. He grew up at Forest Farm, Chelwood Gate, son of Spencer snr and Susan Baker (née Lindfield). Spencer was a building contractor and at the age of 29, in 1909, he left Chelwood Gate to work in Saskatoon, Saskatchawan, Canada. Although this 1927 photograph of the Red Lion was taken 10 years after his death on 26th October 1917 in the mud of Passchendaele, he would have recognised it.
Spencer enjoyed cricket and in Canada he joined the Saskatoon Cricket Club. In 1914 he enlisted in the Canadian army as a reservist in the Saskatoon 29th Light Horse and in 1917 he applied to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force, the CEF, to the western front. He was then 37, but to appear younger he falsified his age as 34 on his attestation papers. He went to France as a Lieutenant in the Canadian Infantry, 46th Battalion. Along with his company commander, Capt Kennedy, Spencer led... Read more
Herons Ghyll R.C.Primary School
My memories are of Herons Ghyll R.C. Primary School, as I attended between 1949 and 1956,w hen Mrs Mary White was the headmistress, and Miss Duval was the teacher of the juniors. I shall remember also, Mrs Goody who was the lady in charge of meals that used to arrive from Uckfield. She lived near the school and I was able to visit her in the early 1970s before she passed on. Mrs White lived, as I remember, not far from Tonbridge. The days at this school were a joy, and I still have programmes of some of the plays we performed, including "Boots and the North Wind"! We as a family lived in Alderbrook Close in Crowborough, before moving to Mid Wales in 1956.
