Buildings on this site at the foot of the South Downs were created from timber grown here, and visitors get to chop their own logs or learn a woodcraft
on’t come to Wilderness Wood and expect to lounge around in your lovely cabin all weekend. Lounging was certainly at the top of this townie’s list, until I was informed that guests on the 62-acre site in East Sussex are asked to contribute towards the maintenance and understanding of the woodland by joining a woodworking, woodblock printing or carving session, a tree walk or an outdoor qigong lesson.
Owners Emily Charkin and Dan Morrish looked at 125 woodland plots around UK before choosing this one in the village of Hadlow Down in 2014. It was the only one that met their criteria for a small building project: woodland that could be managed sustainably, a mix of soft and hardwood timbers at the right age and a felling licence.
“Finding this place was a bit of a miracle,” says Dan, an architect and builder. “It had been managed for 40 years by a forester who had always intended to plant to provide wood for a small building project. But then he reached 70 and wanted to sell. So when we bought it, it had exactly what we needed: sweet chestnut coppice for the building frames, plus stands of beech, scots pine, douglas fir, cedar and giant sequoia.
To minimise damage to the forest floor, they use shire horses to pull the sawn trees across the site, and the cabins are built on stilts to avoid having to dig foundations. To make good use of the site’s predominant timber, the cabins’ design is based on aA beautifully designed half-built stone bridge crosses a stream that will soon be dammed to create a lake
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