Poohsticks

[4][5] Milne first played the game at a bridge located in Ashdown Forest, close to the village of Upper Hartfield, East Sussex, England.

[2] The bridge maintained the public's interest and a campaign to rebuild it in the late seventies was considered important enough to feature on the BBC Nine O'Clock News.

[7] The site was so popular that, in 1999, the East Sussex county council made an appeal to Disney as the old wooden bridge had been worn down by an overwhelming number of visitors.

[6] The game can still be played in Ashdown Forest to this day and the site regularly attracts tourists from as far afield as the United States and Japan.

[2][10] The 'original' Poohsticks Bridge, reconstructed from parts of the original supplemented by similarly aged timber, and located near Penshurst, Kent, was sold at auction for over £131,000 (equivalent to about £156,000 in 2023) in October 2021.

The buyer, Lord De La Warr, intends to give it "pride of place" on his estate, Buckhurst Park, Sussex.

[2] He noticed that people occasionally snapped sticks from nearby hedges to play the game and he then came up with the idea of a competition to aid the charity.

[16] Twenty years after its first edition, the event had grown in popularity, attracting visitors from across the globe, and had been broadcast on television in countries including Russia, Japan and Czech Republic.

[21] The Championships were at risk of decline when, in 2008, Sinodun Rotary Club declared that its members were simply too old to stage an annual event of its size.

The President of Oxford Spires for 2008–2009, Liz Williamson, stressed that it should continue as the event was popular locally and demonstrated quirky English nature to a worldwide audience.

[5] The organisers announced in January 2015 that they had decided that the Little Wittenham site was no longer suitable, citing increasing logistical difficulties as the event had become more popular and the use of the land had changed.

In June, the World Championships were held at their new home, one of the cycle-track bridges over the River Windrush on Langel Common, near the Cogges Manor Farm Museum in Witney, Oxfordshire.

[5] Although not a Poohsticks Society as such, the Rotary Club of Abingdon[23] is now responsible for the World Pooh Sticks Championships held annually since 1983, first at Days Lock on the River Thames, then in Witney 2015 to 2018.

The Championships were voted 'Britain's Favourite Quirky Event' by Countryfile magazine readers in 2012[25] and are carried out with the aim of raising money for a variety of charities.