The Sale of Ashdown Forest

... and how it was saved for the nation


Spring Eexhibition Poster

In the 1980s Ashdown Forest came within a whisker of being broken up and sold off piecemeal to private investors, with potentially devastating consequences for the preservation of its cherished landscape and continued public access.

In 1987 the Lord of the Manor of Duddleswell, the 10th Earl De La Warr, announced that he had decided to sell the freehold of Ashdown Forest. He offered first refusal to East Sussex County Council, but the council was unable to meet the asking price, thus triggering an urgent campaign, led by the Friends of Ashdown Forest, to raise the funds required to ensure the purchase of the Forest by the council and preserve it in public ownership for posterity.

The high profile appeal to save the Forest in the Autumn of 1987 excited national and international media attention, and attracted the support of celebrities like Christopher Robin Milne (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) and the film star Dirk Bogarde, both of whom knew the Forest well from having grown up close to it. The appeal was a success. Donations flooded in from far and wide, and with the help of the funds raised through the appeal the county council was able to purchase the freehold of Ashdown Forest in November 1988 and thereby ensure its preservation as an intact, unspoilt open space that the public could continue to visit and enjoy.

The Ashdown Forest Research Group's interest was originally sparked by the discovery of a book among the Conservators' archives that listed the names of the almost two thousand people and organisations who contributed to the appeal. We decided to find out more about the people who supported the campaign and what motivated them to do so. This led to an exhibition at the Ashdown Forest Centre in Spring 2022 which told the story of the successful fund-raising campaign. The exhibition also explored two other major challenges that Ashdown Forest had faced at this time — the threat of oil exploration and the devastating impact of the 'Great Storm' of October 1987, and also set the issues surrounding the sale of Ashdown Forest in the context of the Forest's history: its emergence as an empaled deer hunting park in the Middle Ages; its formal division in 1693 that saw tracts of the Forest designated in perpetuity as private land for commercial exploitation separated from the remaining commons that we can roam across today; the establishment of the Board of Conservators by Act of Parliament in 1885 to oversee and regulate the commons for the public good; and the financial, environmental and other challenges faced by Conservators today.

An accompanying article about the sale of Ashdown Forest and the fundraising campaign was published in Ashdown Forest News, the magazine of the Friends of Ashdown Forest. Click here to view.

 

Ashdown Forest Research Group © 2025