WHATEVER IMPACT PEOPLE AND animals may have on a landscape, the basic outlines are set by its physical features, its location, geology, topography, soils and drainage – its natural capital. This natural capital is drawn upon by humans over time: soils and vegetation, for example, can be seen as the outcomes of intervention over either long or short timescales.

TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY

Ashdown lies on the High Weald, a ridge arcing from around Horsham in the west eastwards to coastal Hastings, a region of valleys and watersheds (Figure 2.1). Altitudes can reach above 600 feet, as at Crowborough Beacon (792 feet), Gills Lap (670 feet), King's Standing (716 feet) and Wych Cross (658 feet). Much is between 300 and 450 feet, and a central watershed, marked locally by the Stonehill Road, sees the north side falling to the Medway Valley, thence northwards to the north Kent coast, with quite steep slopes dissected by numerous small valleys with springs. The south side has gentler slopes and drains to the River Ouse, flowing south through Lewes to the Channel. The Millbrook stream, rising in a boggy area at Wych Cross, originally formed part of the Ouse headwaters, but has been captured by the Medway headwaters, leaving a sharp elbow of capture as the stream now turns northwards, passing through the Isle of Thorns, Pippingford, Newbridge and under Poohsticks Bridge before joining the Medway at Withyham.

The Forest is centred on two main massifs, one around Wych Cross and the other from Camp Hill to Gills Lap, the massifs being separated by the lower ground of the Millbrook valley. Much of the land below 450 feet comprises valley slopes of varying degrees of steepness. Although this High Weald ridge stands above the surrounding Low Weald clays to north and south, the bedrock is by no means resistant to erosion. Indeed, small headwater streams have cut back through headward erosion to produce quite steep-sided valleys around the edges of the Forest.