Warren Wood

Walk into Warren Wood and you're immediately swallowed by proper Sussex woodland - the sort of place where the canopy does most of the talking. It's a straightforward forest, dense with mature trees and crisscrossed with paths that feel genuinely wild rather than manicured. The undergrowth is thick, which means mud after rain, but that's half the appeal for families who don't mind getting their boots dirty.

You can wander for anything from thirty minutes to a couple of hours depending on which routes you pick. There's no visitor centre, no facilities that I'm aware of, and that's rather the point. It's free to access and feels refreshingly uncommercial - just trees, birdsong, and the occasional muddy patch to navigate around. History buffs might appreciate being near Battle, but this wood isn't really about what happened where. It's about the walk itself.

Children tend to love the scramble through undergrowth and the feeling of being properly lost in a forest, even when you're nowhere near actually lost. Older walkers get decent routes through here, and it's close enough to several local holiday parks - Crowhurst is only 2 miles away - that you could easily slot a couple of hours here into a wider day out. The wood sits well within easy reach of Battle itself, so you're never far from a cup of tea and a sit-down if the legs need a rest.