Burwash is a handsome High Weald ridgeline village whose tile-hung and weatherboarded houses line one of the finest High Streets in East Sussex, perched above the Dudwell valley with long views south across the oak and chestnut woodland that Rudyard Kipling saw from Bateman's, his National Trust home a mile below. The Dudwell and Rother valleys give the village a richly wooded catchment — ancient sweet-chestnut coppice on the ghyll sides, bramble along every woodland edge, hawthorn on the hedged pastures of the Rother Levels below Burwash Weald, and a long ivy flow on the sandstone estate walls and the churchyard of St Bartholomew's. Ashdown Forest heather lies some ten miles to the north-west, accessible to beekeepers who migrate colonies for the late-July crop.
Collectors are called to swarms in the chimney stacks and roof spaces of the terraced High Street properties, in the walled kitchen gardens and orchards of Bateman's and the surrounding estate farms, along the ghyll woodland of the Dudwell valley between Burwash and Etchingham, in the hedgerow oaks on the lanes toward Brightling, Heathfield and Ticehurst, and in the eaves of the converted hop-drying oast houses in the Rother valley below.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
TN33 9QA· approx. 6 km
Visit websiteTN6 3LJ· approx. 14 km
Visit websiteTN17 1JB· approx. 15 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The early flow starts on blackthorn and wild cherry, before hawthorn lights the hedges of the Weald. Late May to July carries the colonies on sweet chestnut around Heathfield, bramble across every common and hedge bank, and — most characteristically — heather on Ashdown Forest from late July into August, giving the dark, jelly-like Ash Down heather honey some members still cut-comb for show. Ivy closes the year on sheltered sandstone lanes and the tall old churchyards of Rye, Lewes and Battle.
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