Bus for 'Winnie the Pooh Country'

One of the routes includes a stop-off at the "Enchanted Place"

A special tourist bus will take passengers around "Winnie the Pooh Country" on weekends over the summer.

The bus will visit sites in the Ashdown Forest in Sussex, made famous in AA Milne's stories about Pooh Bear.

The services will operate every weekend until 25 September after receiving £90,000 of government funding.

A 16-seat bus will follow three different 90-minute routes, all starting from the Ashdown Forest Llama Park in Wych Cross near Forest Row.

'Distinctive landscape'

One of the routes stops for a half-hour walk around places mentioned in Winnie the Pooh stories, including the "Enchanted Place".

Another stops at the Ashdown Forest Centre for a viewing of drawings by EH Shepard, the man who originally created illustrations for the Pooh stories.

The bus service is being run by the Ashdown Forest Tourism Association (AFTA), which has been given £90,000 by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), through its England Rural Enterprise Scheme.

AFTA chairman Linda Johnson said: "The tours are a must for anyone who appreciates the distinctive, nationally-valued landscape of the Ashdown Forest and who wants to experience the places where Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore and their friends played."