Hollow Wood

The forest floor here is properly soft underfoot, a carpet of leaf litter and moss that muffles your footsteps as you push deeper into Hollow Wood. Near Battle, this Sussex woodland isn't some manicured nature reserve with signs and visitor centres - it's the real thing, a working forest where you'll find yourself surrounded by ancient oaks and the kind of quiet that makes you realise how little of it exists anywhere else.

Walkers are the people who'll get the most from this. There are paths through the trees, though nothing particularly marked or formal, which is either brilliant or frustrating depending on your mood. If you're after a long tramp with proper woodland atmosphere - not a themed woodland experience, but actual trees - you could easily spend two hours here. Families with young kids might find an hour about right before boredom sets in and someone needs a snack.

What you won't get is facilities. No car park that I could identify with certainty, no café, no visitor information. It's free to access, which is how most woodland should be. The nearest sensible base would be one of the holiday parks clustered around Battle - Coghurst Hall or Combe Haven are within a few miles, putting you well placed for exploring the area properly.

It's a solid addition to a Sussex break if you're already walking around Battle itself, rather than a destination on its own. The kind of place you'd revisit because it's on the way somewhere else and you've always got an hour to kill.