In the Brambly Hedge books, the tree is home to Mrs and Mrs Apple, and features prominently in Spring Story, where Jill uses her distinctive cross-section illustration style to capture the interior of the tree in minute detail and the exterior in full blossom.

The crabapple is believed to be the only known pollarded tree of its species in the Forest, it stands near Barn Hoppitt and Warren Pond and is close to the City of London Corporation’s Epping Forest Visitor Centre at Chingford, where a small Brambly Hedge exhibit is on display until September 2026.

The discovery builds on the growing celebration of the books’ connection to Epping Forest and the surrounding landscape. The inspiration for the Hornbeam Tree, home of the Toadflax family, was also discovered in Epping Forest in 2023.  Sculptures of the inhabitants of Crabapple Cottage – Mr and Mrs Apple – can be found near the start of the Brambly Hedge Trail, which was launched in October 2025. The Trail features 17 carved oak sculptures within the forest.

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In the middle of March the mice returned to Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset, it’s their third year in a row taking residence on the beautiful Dorset coast. We visited the site on a rare sunny day (it has been a very wet and cloudy start to the year here in the UK) and the team have once again created a fantastic Trail. This year’s theme is The High Hills and Sea Story,there’s a new activity book to fill with stamps and answer questions as you explore the site. From the rolling Dorset hills you can follow the winding stream towards the sea, once past the Weaver’s Cottage illustration, head down past the moving water wheel, you will find a climbing station, where you can stop in and visit Wilfred’s rocky cave. Then head down to the sea, looking for the mice along the way and collecting stamps in your booklet. Down on the water’s edge you will find that the Periwinkle boat has returned, alongside a brand new bird watching hide, a perfect place to stop and watch the world go by, we could quite happily have sat there all day watching the birds pottering around in the shallows. The Abbotsbury Trail will be open until late October 2026 and their onsite shop has just been restocked with many of our newly released items.

From Dorset we head north east and back to Epping Forest, where the Brambly Hedge story began, and the location of the wooden sculpture Trail which opened last year. This spring we are launching a Brambly Hedge display at the Epping Forest Visitor Centre in Chingford, we have taken over the gallery on the ground floor to give you a behind the scenes look at how Jill Barklem crafted her illustrations. The new display includes unseen pressed flowers from Jill’s early research trips into the forest, pencil and pen sketches from her studio, paint tests, photographs, and a glimpse into how her illustrations were created. There are also display cabinets featuring many items from her studio.

One of Jill’s most recognisable illustrations is featured in the gallery as never before… on the wall you will find the largest ever print produced of Jill’s Crabapple Cottage cross-section illustration from Spring Story created by our new partner, Stickerscape. It is quite incredible to see this illustration in such detail, every jam jar on the shelf, every blossom petal and stamen, every bristle of her paint brush can all be seen in fascinating detail.

We also have further exciting news of a discovery related to Crabapple Cottage… more on this on our socials in April. The Brambly Hedge display will be at the Epping Forest Visitor Centre in Chingford until September 2026, it is free to visit and tickets are not required.

From Epping Forest we head north west up to Stokesay Court in Shropshire for a meeting (which included tea and lots of delicious cake!) in the stunning walled gardens for a very exciting project that will come to fruition in May… at the 2026 RHS Chelsea Flower Show!

Following on from the Winter Story themed display at the Garden Museum in London (mentioned in our winter Blog), we are very pleased to be working with Millie Richardson Flowers to produce an installation inspired by Spring and Summer Story, celebrating hedgerows and seasonal English garden flowers. The flowers for the installation will be sustainably sourced and kindly supplied by the wonderful team at Stokesay Flowers. We met with the team working on the project to delve into the Brambly Hedge archives for inspiration for flowers to use in May. Jill kept notes of all the flowers and foliage used in her illustrations… a very useful guide for this project! We are all very excited, and will be sure to share more details on our socials and in an additional Chelsea blog in May.

May is set to be a busy month this year, as well as the Chelsea Flower Show, we also have two board books publishing! We’ve had many requests for a simplified Brambly Hedge book for our younger readers. These two are perfect for toddlers, featuring rhyming stories and made from durable materials that should withstand all that early life can throw at them… and all in life that the books are thrown at! House for Mouse is a gentle rhyming story through the Brambly Hedge home… “The kitchen is where we stir and bake, eat blackberry pie, and hazelnut cake”. Nice For Mice is a rhyming jaunt through the favourite things the Brambly Hedge mice like to do, “It’s nice for mice to splash in the sea and to play on the sand till it’s time for tea”. Both board books are available to pre order now and will publish in the UK on the 7^th May 2026. They will both be available in the USA in early 2027. We hope to also have these available in other languages soon!

We’ve been expanding our translated range of books. Poppy’s Babies has just published in French with our partners at Qilinn. The Dutch editions are rolling out, with Spring Story just published and Summer Story on the way. The Nature Colouring Book will soon be heading to Japan, and the Festive Colouring Book will be arriving in Spanish and Catalan later in the year.

One of the most frequent requests that arrive at Brambly Hedge HQ is for more audiobook options. We currently have audiobooks available via Audible and Apple, we even have a CD for A Year in Brambly Hedge! By far the most requested item is Yoto cards! We are pleased to announce that we have teamed up with Yoto to produce our first Brambly Hedge Yoto cards, and they are available now. The two card set features A Year in Brambly Hedge and Adventures in Brambly Hedge, all eight Brambly Hedge books.  There are even little Yoto pixel versions of the mice that appear on the screen as you listen!

Over in our shop we have taken delivery of many, many new items this spring. It’s the perfect time of year to take stock of our new Spring Picnic range that has launched over the last eight months, which now includes tea towels, a travel mug, an insulated drinks bottle, a glasses case, paper napkins, an apron, and oven gloves! In the last couple of weeks we have also added a new picnic bookmark, stitched notebook, A5 bound notebook,  and a magnetic memo pad for the fridge door.

This spring also sees the launch of the new Birthday Party pattern with Museums & Galleries, featuring a celebration of illustrations from Wilfred’s Birthday in Spring Story and illustrations from Poppy’s Babies. Currently we have two gift bags, wrapping paper, and tissue wrapping paper available, but more will follow.

We also now have a crystal paperweight available, perfect for keeping paperwork safe if you have a particularly gusty workplace. Our new paperweight features the Wilfred Reading illustration from the High Hills… which now also makes an appearance in our greetings and birthday card range, along with a new Waterstones exclusive Mother’s Day card.

2026 marks the 40^th anniversary of The High Hills, in this mountain adventure, Wilfred heads up to the rocky crags in search of ‘gold’. We’ll be celebrating the High Hills later this year in our Autumn blog.

Our partners at Stickerscape have produced a whole range of wonderful Brambly Hedge wall and window stickers! Perfect for themed and seasonal nursery, playroom, and bedroom walls, these stickers can be applied and removed without leaving marks and can be kept safely in their packaging for re-use at a later date. This means that the primroses and forget-me-not flowers of spring can be replaced with falling leaves and blackberries in autumn and holly and snowflakes for winter…. keeping your room seasonal all year. For more information on our wall and window stickers head over to our shop.

There is probably much more that I have forgotten to include here, but I’m out of time! There will be a special bonus Chelsea Flower Show themed blog in May… in the meantime have wonderful spring!

Pete Barklem Late March 2026 England

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This festive season has been extra special for us as we have been celebrating the darkest days of the year in beautiful West Sussex. The Brambly Hedge mice have been making an appearance at National Trust Petworth House as a part of their Christmas enchantment event. The lovely team at Petworth have been busy all autumn creating a wonderful display, filling the grand 17^th century house with lights, trees, and little mice. The team have crafted a huge Brambly Hedge themed cutaway tree that features rooms inspired by The Secret Staircase and Winter Story. It was wonderful to see the joy and delight on children’s (and adults!) faces as they enter the room, and to hear stories reminiscing about the books.

Elsewhere in the house Mrs Apple can be found in the vast kitchens overseeing a table filled with a festive feast. Mr Apple has been helping out in the Stores arranging the jars of preserves and pickles. In a scene that could be straight from the Old Oak Palace… the Midwinter poem is on display at the entrance to the state dining room, a room full of exquisitely carved wood and paintings by the likes of JMW Turner and Van Dyke. In the corner of the North Gallery there is even a reading area featuring all of the Brambly Hedge books. A huge thank you to the whole team at Petworth House and the National Trust for making the start to the festive season so magical. The mice will be in residence until the 4^th January 2026.

From West Sussex we head up to London for more festivities. We were delighted to see the most beautiful interpretation of the Ice Hall from Winter Story recreated in dried flowers by florist Millie Richardson as a part of Winter Flowers Week at the Garden Museum in Lambeth. It was joyous scene to behold!

If you have been counting down the days to the festivities this year, then we hope you managed to get hold of our first ever Advent Calendar! The main Calendar image features a scene from the Old Oak Palace, with little glimpses of Brambly Hedge festivities behind each door. These had sold out, but we managed to get hold of a few more just in time!

On this theme… The Secret Staircase has completely sold out in most stores! Sorry for any disappointment caused, another print run is being rushed through, but copies are not expected to arrive until late January 2026 at the earliest. We have a couple of copies left in our store (at the time of writing), but hurry if you want one!

We’ve had a wonderful reaction to the new A Visit Brambly Hedge. This behind the scenes, seasonal journey through the Brambly Hedge year has inspired many of you to get in contact and reminisce about Jill’s work, thank you for all your kind words!

It’s been a bumper year for the fruit harvest here in the UK, and also for our range of Brambly Hedge items. We have just launched our first insulated Water Bottle, perfect for keeping your tea hot on frosty winter walks and your elderflower ice cool at summer picnics. Keeping with the drinks theme, we also now have a new Travel Mug available so you can take your acorn coffee with you on your commute from Crabapple Cottage down to the Store Stump.

It’s been another wonderful year for getting out and about with the mice. The new Epping Forest Wooden Sculpture Trail officially opened in the autumn, it’s been wonderful to see all your photos from your searches for all 17 sculptures around the Forest.

Down in Dorset we had a Summer Story themed trail along the stream and down to the sea at Abbotsbury Swannery. And what a summer it was, many days of warm sunshine meant that lots of you visited and filled your activity book with stamps. More Trails are on the way next year!

As our 45th anniversary year comes to an end, we look ahead to 2026. We still have a few diaries available to keep you organised and calendars to keep your wall seasonal throughout the year.

Our diaries are starting to fill up very quickly already indeed, there’s plenty on the way from us in 2026, including new Board Books, a new Spring range of products, wall and window decorations, more news from Epping Forest, and the mice will be visiting another National Trust property! Keep an eye on this space and our socials for more news.

In the meantime, from us all, we wish you a warm and peaceful winter season.

Pete Barklem
Mid December, 2025
England

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Let’s take it right back to the beginning, to the late 1970s to be more precise. Jill Barklem, author of the Brambly Hedge books, lived on the edge of Epping Forest, located just to the north east of London. She would often head off into the forest to draw and photograph trees, something she had always done, but this time it was for a new project, a project that would become the Brambly Hedge books.

This year the mice are returning to Epping Forest! In Summer 2025 a new Brambly Hedge Sculpture Trail will open in Epping Forest. The first figurines arrived in a very muddy Epping Forest and were installed in February, just in time for the Duke of Gloucester’s visit to Epping Forest to celebrate his 50^th anniversary as Ranger of the Forest. There are seventeen figurines in total to find when the Trail opens this summer. The Trail will start at the Epping Forest Visitor Centre in Chingford and head up the newly created Gloucester Ride, and round the lake at Connaught Water. We would like to thank everyone who helped make the Brambly Hedge Trail possible, including the City of London Corporation and Rural England Prosperity Funding via Epping Forest District Council. Watch this space for more news on the Epping Forest Trail.

Keeping with Trails… we had a wonderful response from many of you who visited our Sea Story Trail at Abbotsbury Swannery in 2024. In 2025 a new trail is heading back to the Dorset coast at Abbotsbury. This year’s Trail will be based around Summer Story.  Follow Dusty and Poppy as they prepare for their wedding day and set afloat on their wedding raft downstream to party the afternoon away. The Trail includes a new Brambly Hedge booklet with stamp points, questions to answer and fun facts. Activities and surprises can be found around the site, and make sure you don’t miss the swan feeds! The Trail is open daily from March 15^thall the way through to mid-November. Head over to the Abbotsbury Swannery page for more details.

It’s not just the Trails launching this spring… following on from the Festive Colouring Book, which featured illustrations from Autumn Story, The High Hills, Winter Story, and The Secret Staircase, we have just launched the new Nature Colouring Book! This colouring book features illustrations from Spring Story, Poppy’s Babies,Summer Story and Sea Story. It’s filled with quotations, detailed vignettes, full-page illustrations and double-page spreads. Many of your favourite illustrations are ready to add your own artistic flair, including the cross-section of Crabapple Cottage, Wilfred’s Spring Picnic, and the Sunset in the Meadow scene from Summer Story. The Nature Colouring Book is available now in the UK and will launch in the USA on the 29^th of April.

There’s been a lot of new products launching this spring, so many that it’s been difficult to keep up… so here we go!

We have our first set of Playing Cards, 52 cards presented in a beautifully sturdy box, and featuring the Blackberry Picking illustration on the reverse of each card, even the ace card features Primrose and Lord Woodmouse!

The same Blackberry Picking illustration from Autumn Story can also be found on our new drinks Coaster Set. The set includes four coasters with cork backing, perfect for brightening up your desk or coffee table. And if that’s not enough of the blackberry picking illustration for you, there is also a new set of Notecards with the same image. In addition, there is a new Notecard and Envelope Themed Box Set featuring four illustrations from Spring Story and Summer Story.

A whole run of new Spring Picnic pattern gift wrap items have just landed! We have new Gift Bags in two different sizes, as well as Spring Picnic Tissue Paper for padding or wrapping. Some stores in the UK are now stocking our new three metre roll of wrapping paper. As ever, we still offer our gift wrapping service in our shop, so if you want your items wrapped with a handwritten card included, just tick the box on the page.

Given that picnic season is fast approaching, we thought you might want a few items for your next outing… Napkins are finally here! We have had a lot of very excited enquiries about these. The pack features twenty 33x33cm paper napkins, perfect for the table or for your alfresco eating.

So you’ll be needing a drink with your picnic… we have a new range of Enamel Mugs for that; and there is one for each season to collect. These mugs are perfect for throwing in a bag and heading outdoors, and because they’re enamel, they shouldn’t break in the process! In addition to the seasonal range we also have Wilfred’s Book Mug, featuring him reading his favourite book, and we have two new mugs from Poppy’s Babies, the New Baby Mug, and the New Mum Mug.

“What about the washing up?” I hear you ask… we have new Brambly Hedge Tea Towels! One for each season, and they are lovely. More tea towel designs are on the way, so keep an eye on the socials.

Many of you have commented about how much you are enjoying our Cobble Hill 1000 piece seasonal collage puzzles, but we have also had requests for a 500 piece puzzle, and we now have two available! We have the pink Picnic Preparations Puzzle featuring the cake making kitchen scene from Spring Story. We will also soon be launching the ‘All Aboard’ puzzle, which features the cross-section of the Periwinkle boat from Sea Story.

There’s quite a lot more on the way later in spring, so stay tuned for further updates.

That’s quite enough product information for this blog! I’m off for a cup of tea outside with my new Spring Story mug.

Have a wonderful spring!

Pete Barklem
Mid March 2025
England

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Exciting news! A new Brambly Hedge Trail has launched this spring in Dorset, England!

The new trail for children and families is based around our Sea Story book and is located at Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset. The trail follows a little stream down through the beautiful rolling Dorset countryside to the sea, where the world’s only nesting colony of Mute Swans can be found on the Fleet. The journey down to the sea includes stamp points, characters to find, and an activity booklet to fill in. The trail runs alongside daily swan feeds, a willow swan maze, and pedal go-karts.

The Brambly Hedge Trail opened on 16th March 2024 and will run through to November.

We will keep you posted with more information throughout the year.

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