If you go down to the (100 Acre) Woods today...

Winnie the Pooh and the 100 Acre Woods

In the words of Winnie the Pooh himself " I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen" and that's how I felt when driving into Hartifield and stumbling upon Pooh's Corner, a delightful Winnie the Pooh shop and Tearoom. According to their website the shop was opened in 1978 and has become home to the world's largest "pooh-phernalia." I love buildings which are soaked in history and I was thrilled to find out that the original owner of the shop (Mr Ridley) had met Christopher Robin Milne on a number of occasions. In fact this is the area were the real life Chrisopher Robin and Pooh bear had their adventures and provided inspiration for the classic books.

The shop is beautiful and sells every Winnie the Pooh item imaginable. The staff are really friendly and helpful- offering information and directions to some of the most famous (real life) Winnie the Pooh locations. After purchasing a 'Poohstick Bridge map' (for the bargain price of 50p) and some 'Hunnycombe' we decided it was time for a little something so headed for a smackerel or two in Piglet's Tearoom.

One of the beautiful shop window displays

We settled ourselves at a cosy table and studied the menu - it's huge! Sandwiches, cream teas, cakes, pies- even the famous bear himself would struggle to polish off this menu. I decided on Pooh's cream tea (which consisted of two fruit scones, jam, clotted cream and a pot of tea) and Matt choose a turkey, brie and cranberry wrap. The staff promptly brought over our tea and I almost squealed in delight when I noticed that even the cups were Pooh themed. Soon followed by our food, the potions are heffalumped sized (sorry I couldn't resist! but seriously, the portions were enormous.)
My fruit scones were lovely and came with plenty of clotted cream and jam ( they were huge I couldn't manage to eat both) and Matt really enjoyed his turkey wrap. I loved the décor here, the walls are full of Pooh themed memorabilia and photos of A.A Milne and Christopher Robin. At 2 o'clock one of the wall clocks started to play the Winnie the Pooh theme, straight after this another clock played a slightly different Pooh tune and then another ( I suspect this happens every hour, on the hour) it was fun to watch and added even more to our 100 Acre Wood adventure.

This place is great, the prices are SO reasonable, the setting is lovely and the staff were really friendly and welcoming ...

And as we were leaving I spied a man with Winnie the Pooh shaped toast and honey! I am definitely going to come and order that toast!

Heffalump sized scones

After our delicious lunch we followed our map to the 100 Acre woods to play a game of Poohsticks. (Now, those of you who aren't familiar with this Winnie the Pooh based game it is NOT as disgusting as it sounds! The rules are simple, players choose a stick, they drop it into the river facing upstream, then look to see which stick comes out the other side of the bridge first.)
The 100 acre woods were only a few minutes away by car and had lots of parking. It took us about 10 minutes to find the famous bridge, I heard that the bridge had so many visitors it had become unsafe so Disney paid for the bridge to be rebuild.

The Famous Poohstick Bridge

About 100 yards past the river is a tree said to be 'Pooh's home' it seems to have become a shrine to Pooh enthusiasts.

It was fun to walk through the woods and imagine different homes for the characters.

Who lives in a house like this?

We had a fantastic adventure and are keen to return to try 'Pooh Toast' and hunt for Heffalumps and Wozzles and what great adventure doesn't end with a souvenir to take back home?