The village at Pooh corner

It was an unassuming spot, and we probably would have walked right past it if we hadn’t known what we were looking for: a clump of about five dozen trees perched on the top of a blustery hill.

But when we walked up, there was no mistaking it: There before us lay the Enchanted Place, also known as Galleons Lap, a resting ground for childhoods the world over.

(Paige McClanahan/PHOTO BY PAIGE MCCLANAHAN) - Pooh Corner, a shop and Pooh information center, lies on the main street in the village of Hartfield in southern England.

It’s the spot where Christopher Robin, no longer a little boy, and his beloved companion Winnie-the-Pooh came to say their fumbling goodbyes.

Being enchanted, its floor wasn’t like the floor of the Forest, gorse and bracken and heather, but close-set grass, quiet and smooth and green. . . . Sitting there they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them in Galleons Lap.

This story, which appears in the final chapter of A.A. Milne’s “The House at Pooh Corner,” will always bring tears to my eyes. Walking into that small, sun-dappled glade as a grown woman, holding my husband’s hand, almost felt like coming home.

We were on a pilgrimage of sorts on that cool, sunny September morning. We’d driven down to East Sussex, about 35 miles south of London, to follow in the footsteps of Winnie-the-Pooh, perhaps the world’s most famous teddy bear.

It was here in the quiet, forested hills of southern England that Milne wrote and set the adventures of Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Owl, Eeyore, Rabbit and, of course, all of Rabbit’s Friends and Relations. Having grown up with the stories — like so many millions of others — we wanted to see the place for ourselves.

Entering Pooh country

We started our morning in Hartfield, a cozy little hamlet with two pubs, one church and one village shop. Milne, who was born in London in 1882, bought a second home in Hartfield in 1925 and came to the area regularly until his death three decades later. His former home isn’t open to the public — it isn’t even marked — but his influence in the village is palpable.

Our first stop was the Pooh Corner Shop, where you can pick up everything from Winnie-the-Pooh lunchboxes to stuffed-animal versions of Eeyore to little pots of local honey, Pooh’s favorite snack. We sat down for a coffee in Piglet’s Tea Shop, a sunlit room in the back of the store, and asked the friendly staff for some Pooh-tracking advice.

We’d come to the right place. The Pooh Corner Shop is owned by Mike Ridley, a Pooh fanatic who has devised a guided tour of local Pooh-related sights, complete with step-by-step directions and relevant excerpts from the Milne stories. We bought a copy of his pamphlet, titled “Two Expotitions to the Enchanted Places” (an “expotition” being Pooh-speak for an adventure), and set off on our way.

Destination No. 1: The Poohsticks Bridge. For those who may need a refresher, Poohsticks is a game — invented by Pooh — in which the participants drop twigs off the upstream side of a bridge, then race to the downstream side to see whose stick floats through first. The original bridge is at the bottom of a wooded hill a couple of miles outside Hartfield, not far from Milne’s old farm. Visitors are encouraged to visit the bridge and try their hand at the sport.