COTCHFORD FARM, the childhood home of Christopher Robin Milne and the setting for the Winnie the Pooh stories is for sale for the first time in 40 years.
The picture-postcard perfect house in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, was the Milne family home for over three decades and the inspiration for many of the poems and stories written by AA Milne featuring his young son and what was to become the most famous teddy bear in the world.
Selling agent Savills is stating a guide price of £2 million for the historic home.
A statue of Christopher Robin as a child and a sundial carved with Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit and Owl – both commissioned by Dorothy Milne for her husband – still stand in the garden she created. Dating from the 16th century, the six-bedroom house has seen vastly contrasting owners.
In 1968 Brian Jones, founding member of The Rolling Stones bought Cotchford Farm, dying tragically a year later at the age of 27.
The script couldn’t be better written for the sellers: Christopher Robin himself committed his own endorsement of the property to literary history when in his autobiography The Enchanted Places he wrote: “Cotchford was different. . . Cotchford was ours and on an autumn morning in 1925 we . . . drove down to take possession. No, I have got it wrong. It was Cotchford that took possession of us”.
Robert Jacobs of Savills Tunbridge Wells office says the house is still having the same effect: “This is the most idyllic house in an exquisite setting and captivates everyone who sees it.”
