The rules of ‘Poohsticks’: Two or more competitors must drop their stick from the up-stream side of the bridge to the downstream, to see whose appears first.
This is a tale of two bridges.
The first bridge was built in 1907, in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex and was called Posingford Bridge. This is where the author of the children’s classic ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’, A.A. Milne, first played ‘poohsticks’ with his son Christopher Robin Milne. The game then finds its way into his fiction. Poohsticks first appears in ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ (1928) played by the fictional Christopher Robin, along with Pooh and his friends.
So powerful did the fiction become, that this real bridge transformed into its fictional counterpart. After a campaign to rebuild it in the 1970’s, it was re-opened by Christopher Robin Milne and renamed ‘Poohsticks Bridge’.
It was re-built again in 1999, after not being able to withstand the weight of visitor traffic to the site. Now visitors must bring their own sticks, as early fans of the book plucked nearby trees bare, gathering material for the game!
What became of the original bridge?
Happily, the wood was saved from the heap in which it was discarded, the bridge was re-constructed, and auctioned in 2021 for £131,000 to a local buyer.
Below I attach the song ‘Bridge’ by the Canadian singer-songwriter Lucy Wainwright-Roche. I love the contrast between the child-like innocence of her voice (and album cover art) and the darker, adult themes of the song.
