Ashdown Village and the Old Stables

Over the years I've done a number of blog posts about Ashdown village, the old farmhouse and the stunning Victorian stables. (You can find the posts if you search on Ashdown village in the search box top left). The village is to the south of the white gates at the bottom of the drive and it's possible to do a circular walk from the house, down the drive, out of the picket gate, turn right past what is left of the village, and right again up the ha ha to Alfred's Castle where there is a footpath taking you back into the woods. It's a fantastic walk and there is so much history to see on it, but it's not publicized because I imagine the National Trust doesn't want hordes of people walking through the village. However with an OS map it's easy to follow the paths and although there isn't a guided walk, you can look out for the following landmarks along the way:

1. The white gates at the bottom of the south avenue are modelled on the original ones which can be seen in early paintings, such as the Kyp drawing of Ashdown House from 1708 and the series of paintings by Henry Seymour.

2. Opposite the gate at the bottom of the drive is a paddock where once there was a pond. This has dried out in the last century but it was once the place where the ice was cut to be stored in the ice house.

3. Immediately opposite and to the right of the paddock is the old stable yard which is now the National

Trust's site office. These are old barns and stables dating to the 18th century in some cases. The barn that borders the road has been restored and is absolutely beautiful (see picture above). Some of the old beams still remain. Behind the southernmost stables is the kennel where the hounds were housed for the Vine and Craven and the Old Berkshire Hunt when these were based at Ashdown. 

4. The biggest and most impressive building to the left of the road is the red brick Victorian stables, which were built in the mid 19th century in a gothic style. Look out for the little clock tower and the Earl's coronet and horse and carriage on the weather vane. The Craven initials and coronet are also on the rainwater heads on the downpipes. Very smart! I've had the pleasure of seeing inside the stables on a couple of occasions and whilst they are in dire need of renovation, you can see what a prestigious building it once was, with huge box stalls for the most valuable horses. The grooms lived on the floors above; the censuses from the 19th century give details of who they were. Look out for the magnificent chimneys as well.

5. The small set of stables to the right of the square is much older. They are the original early 18th century stables with a Flemish Bond pattern to the brick on the north side. Look out for the ghost sign on the wall that dates from when the stable block was used to store ammunition in the Second World War. "No Smoking." Good idea.

6. Beyond the stables there is the village green with the old farmhouse, incorporating an earlier medieval forester's cottage, a grain store standing on staddle stones (those ones that are shaped like mushrooms) and a laundry. It's probable that the green was originally a tenter ground where the washing from the house was dried in the open air.

7. Before you get to the end of the road, where you turn right to go up the ha ha path, there is a  paddock on the left with a huge wall in which you can still see the outline of a hearth. This was the heated kitchen-garden wall, where espaliered fruit trees would grow. There were also mushroom houses and vegetable beds to supply the house in the 19th century. In the field in front of the wall there was once the Ashdown House Chapel but no trace of this remains now.

8. There is a T junction and the road turns left, up towards what was the gamekeeper's cottage and the

choristers' lodge. This is private although you can continue walking straight up the path along the edge of the upper wood. This is the line of the medieval park pale and it takes you to the top of the hill and some spectacular views. In order to do the circular walk, though, you need to take the path that goes straight on at the gate and then bend to the right, keeping the house on your right as you go up the hill towards Alfred's Castle. Here you pass the ha ha at the end of the West Avenue. When the house was originally built, the west avenue stretched across the field as far as the coppice on the left. You will reach a gate that takes you into the hill fort and from there another that takes you back to the Ashdown House woods.

Enjoy the nature, the views and the history along the way!

The medieval hunting lodge

We've reached M in the A - Z of Ashdown. M is for the medieval hunting lodge that stood on the site long before the current house was built.

The pre-Restoration history of Ashdown Park is fascinating. The name Ashdown is an ancient one. It is first mentioned in a chronicle of 777AD when King Offa of Mercia advanced as far west as the nearby village of Ashbury in his battles against the West Saxons. It is, as previously mentioned, also a strong contender for the site of King Alfred’s Battle of Ashdown of 871AD when he defeated the Vikings. 

In 953AD the manor of Ashbury including the lands that were then known as Aysshen Park came into the possession of Glastonbury Abbey.  They remained part of the Abbey’s lands until the Dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1539. We know that there was a house built for the Abbot in Ashbury as early as the 13^th century and that Ashbury Manor was built in 1488 as a guesthouse for travellers and pilgrims from Glastonbury to Canterbury. At the same time, Ashdown Park was being developed as a hunting ground for the abbey. The King granted the abbot a licence of free warren at Ashbury in 1330 and also a licence to hunt which meant that he could both breed and hunt game on the site.

Documentary evidence tells us that by 1204, Ashdown Upper Wood was surrounded by a park pale, a high ditch and bank to keep the deer inside. You can still see the remains of the park pale in the fields to this day. Inside medieval deer parks there were areas of woodland, spinneys and lawns or grassy clearings, very similar in fact to the way that Upper Wood still looks today.

There was also a hunting lodge. We don’t know what it would have looked like. Most medieval hunting

lodges of this sort are lost to us now; either they fell into ruin or they became part of larger buildings. This picture is of a 14^th century hunting lodge in East Anglia that belonged to an abbey so it gives us an idea of what the Ashdown hunting lodge might have looked like. It would have been a substantial building that demonstrated the wealth and social standing of its owner – exactly like the current Ashdown House. Ashdown Park would have been a target for armed poachers so the lodge would need to be defensible. It would also have provided accommodation for the abbot’s gamekeeper and also possibly for hunting parties.

One final question remains. Where was the Ashdown hunting lodge located? Hunting lodges were often on the highest part of the hunting ground, which would have put it at the top of Upper Wood. However, English Heritage records suggest that there was an earlier building on the site of the current Ashdown House, which is another alternative. The farmhouse in Ashdown village, which dates from 1617, also incorporates a medieval core so that is a third possibility. It is another Ashdown mystery. 

Ancient Trees of Ashdown

There are many old trees in the woodland at Ashdown Park and two that The Woodland Trust has identified  as being officially "ancient.". There is no precise definition of an ancient tree but there are some guiding factors: They are trees of interest biologically, aesthetically or culturally because of their age, they are trees that are in the ancient stage of their life, and they are trees that are old relative to others of the same species. Trees grow at different rates and so a 100 year old willow or birch tree would be ancient whilst a 200 year old beech would be only just starting to age, a 200 year old oak would be beginning to mature and a 200 year old yew would be very young!


At Ashdown our two ancient trees are both beeches. One has a girth of 4.96 metres, the other a girth of 5.15 metres. It's difficult to assess the age of a beech on the basis of girth alone but both of these trees are several centuries old and may well have been standing when the house was built 350 years ago. Accordingly, as a tribute to Ashdown's anniversary this year, we have unofficially named them the Elizabeth Beech and the William Beech. Elizabeth stands on the back boundary of Hailey Wood. William stands at the back of Upper Wood. Both stand beside the medieval Park Pale. According to the Woodland Trust this is no co-incidence; many of the surviving ancient trees in the UK stand in what were once Royal hunting forests and medieval deer parks. It's wonderful that at Ashdown we have this link with the early history of the estate.


The Ashdown Park Pale was built in 1204 when the Ashbury estate belonged to Glastonbury Abbey and Ashdown was a hunting forest. Park pales consisted of a bank and ditch with a wooden palisade, or fence, 
on the top. They were designed to let the deer in through gaps in the pale called deer leaps, but once inside the emparkment the deer could not get out again. At Ashdown the entire existing wood was emparked.  Changes to the estate and the parkland during the 18th and 19th centuries have altered the appearance of the landscape, and the park pale that surrounded Middle and Hailey Woods has mostly been either ploughed out of the fields, demolished or worn away, although the later ha-ha is still visible. 

However to the south of the sarsen field and most particularly around Upper Wood, the park pale is still a magnificent earthwork rising up to 9 metres high on the escarpment of the hill. The photograph above shows the remains of the park pale where it intersects with the Lambourn road to the south of the estate. There is a footpath that runs up the back of Upper Wood (where the William Beech stands) and around the top of the park pale and from this vantage point you get a superb view of the surrounding landscape. You can also see what a huge embankment the park pale originally was.

There is one other verified ancient tree at Ashdown that is currently not on the map. A couple of years ago English Nature paid Ashdown a visit to assess the elm avenues. In the course of their work they also discovered an oak tree on the edge of Upper Wood. Measurements taken showed that this oak was old enough to be part of the original 13th century hunting forest. In honour of its ancient status and the connection to Glastonbury Abbey this has therefore been named the Glastonbury Oak. We are very proud to have ancient trees at Ashdown. They are living relics that inspire awe and mystery and have helped to shape our history.

The Park Pale

The Ashdown park pale is a thing of beauty. Not only that, it is enormous and ought really to be an ancient monument in its own right. Built originally around 1300AD, it was intended to keep the deer within the bounds of the Ashdown hunting chase at a time when there was a hunting lodge belonging to Glastonbury Abbey on the Ashdown site.

Park pales consisted of a bank and ditch with a wooden palisade, or fence, on the top. They were designed to let the deer in through gaps in the pale called deer leaps, but once inside the emparkment the deer could not get out again. At Ashdown the park pale that surrounded Middle and Hailey Woods has mostly been either ploughed out of the fields, demolished or worn away, although the later haha is still visible. However to the south of the sarsen field and most particularly around Upper Wood, the park pale is a magnificent earthwork that still stands up to 9 metres high on the escarpment of the hill. There is a footpath that runs up the back of Upper Wood and around the top of the park pale and from this vantage point you get a superb view of the surrounding landscape and in particular the remains of the Romano-British settlement to the south. All part of the complex historical landscape in which the current house sits, and a reminder that though the history of Ashdown post 1660 may be a fascinating one it is matched in interest by what happened before the house was built.

Field of Dreams

To the south of Ashdown Park is a walk that takes you straight back into history. It begins, prosaically enough, in a layby near the water pumping station where you go through a gate into what I call the Field of Dreams. It's a bit like the Secret Garden; on one side you're standing by the road to Lambourn. On the other you're in Deep History.

On your right the remains of the medieval Park Pale of the Ashdown deer park sweep down the hillside, still imposing after hundreds of years. The park pale was erected in the Middle Ages when Ashdown was a hunting chase belonging to Glastonbury Abbey. It consists of a bank and ditch and in places it is still five feet wide and several feet high. Originally there would have been a paling fence on the top too high for a deer to leap.

As you cross the field, the remains of what look like a small camp come into view on your left. Some antiquarian books record this as a Roman fort although I have never been able to discover any details about it or find it on any maps. It's true that there were a number of Roman villas scattered across this part of the Downs, one of which was built into the centre of the Iron Age hillfort at Alfred's Castle. The current road along the Downs beneath the Ridgeway, the Portway, was a Roman Road to the major settlement at Wanborough. So it's possible there might have been a small fort nearby. As is the case with Alfred's Castle, you can see what look like banks and gateways, ditches, entrances and possibly the outline of internal walls.

A little further away across the field is an enormous barrow with a sarsen stone on the top and a ring of what I at first thought were sarsens around the base. On closer inspection they turned out to be tree stumps that looked almost petrified and I wondered if this had once been a site like Waylands Smithy that the Victorians had prettified by adding a ring of trees to complement the rugged beauty of the stones.

As you walk on across the wheat field you have a magnificent view of the park pale ascending the escarpment of Ashdown Upper Wood, a mysterious and ancient woodland with trees up to eight hundred years old and abundant wildlife. The path leads directly to a line of three Bronze Age barrows on the top of the hill. This was a Bronze Age tribal boundary and there are actually four barrows but one of them was sunken and now it is a pool in the winter. As you stand on the top of the hill looking at the sun on the gold dome of Ashdown House you can feel the years roll back. This is a place to come to dream.