The 'quite special' caves nestled in East Sussex

Tucked away on the quiet western edge of an East Sussex town, Lake Wood remains one of the county's lesser‑known landscapes – a place many locals have heard of but few have actually explored.

The lake sits just outside of Uckfield, off Rocks Road, and is hidden away, but it is "quite special", with rock formations, ancient woodland and sculpted sandstone.

Lucy Pitts, from Sussex Exclusive, told Secret Sussex: "Some of the caves were man-made, you can see markings in the rocks and it also had tracks for horses and carriages.

"It would have been a romantic place for people to come visit in the Victorian era."

The site was inherited by the Streatfeild family, who were an "important" family in the Uckfield area in the late 18th Century.

They turned it into an ornate garden, which was filled with exotic planting.

The area has been owned by the Woodland Trust since the early 1990s.

Walkers can follow a 0.6 miles (1km) circular route around the lake, taking in elevated viewpoints, narrow paths and shaded glades.

The changing terrain means the scenery shifts constantly - one moment the trail opens on to sweeping views across the water, the next it winds between towering rock faces or dips into quiet hollows carpeted with leaves.

Pitts said: "The rocks, which can be seen across Sussex, have chisel marks in where they formed the various caves.

"People sailed their boats into caves."

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