BREDE

 I've not explored the village of Brede yet, but one of my favourite roads comes out at Broad Oak Brede cross roads, just on the edge of Brede village. So meanwhile........................

If you're a biker, you'll know.....................you'll go through those lovely sweeping bends, get to the other end, and think 'sod it' and turn around and go back the other way

This is Brede High Woods, the largest area of ancient woodland in the care of the Woodland Trust charity. Brede Hill covers an enormous 747 acres (about 262 hectares),and is situated some six miles north of Hastings in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The High Woods are part of the forest that used to cover the High Weald of Kent and Sussex. Indeed, the name 'weald' means woodland. 

The Saxon weald once stretched from the Kent marshes to the forests of Hampshire - 120 miles long and 30 miles wide. The Romans knew it as the Anderidan forest, taking its' name from the Roman name for Pevensey - 'Anderida'. 

The term 'High Woods' is because what remains is not one huge forest, but 10 distinct ancient woodlands, separated by open spaces. 

Despite the name, the woods is not one forested area, and open ground located on the edge of Powdermill Reservoir. but 10 distinct ancient woodlands.

The Brede High Wood area contains diverse ecosystems, ranging from ancient woodland to farming, coppiced woods, and conifer plantations. The oldest woodland areas retain their original broadleaved trees, especially sweet chestnut and hornbeam.

You can see traditional coppiced woods, where trees are cut and stump level to force slender new shoots to grow from the stump. The stems are cut every 6-20 years, in an endlessly sustainable form of woodland management that has been carried out here for thousands of years. Most of Brede High Woods and similar areas across the High Weald were coppiced to create a steady supply of firewood, hop poles (using chestnut trees) and charcoal (mainly using hornbeam).

In the 1930s the Hastings Corporation purchased the Woods and planted the farm fields that separated the woodlands with large numbers of beech, pine, larch, and sycamore. These woodland plantations are typical of the High Weald; small fields and wooded areas divided by sunken tracks, banks, and boundary ditches.

Brede High Woods is a wonderful array of wildlife and a Roman and Iron Age site. The woods offer a home to herds of fallow deer and a rare variety of beetle once thought to be extinct. A huge wildlife population lives in the mixed field and woodland, open heath, and acidic grassland areas within the woods.

In the heart of the Woods is the site of Brede High Farm. The far was first recorded in 1639 and was finally torn down in the 1930s. You can see the farmhouse site and nearby remains of 17th-century buildings including an oast house and a pigsty. Most of the farm buildings were demolished in the 1930s when Powdermill Reservoir was created.

The farmhouse site was excavated in 2012 when local volunteers aided by a team of archaeologists unearthed pottery, glass, metal objects, and coins dating to the reign of George III. An interpretive panel at the farmhouse site tells the story of Brede High Farm and tells stories from its past.