Oundle is an unusually complete stone-built market town on the Nene in east Northamptonshire, well known for its public school and a medieval street plan largely intact. The Northamptonshire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the Nene riverside willows, ox-bow lakes and watermeadow margins at Barnwell Country Park, the old parkland limes of Barnwell Castle and the Oundle school grounds, the limestone-grassland ridge above Glapthorn, and the hedged arable farmland of the Nene valley plateau — gives local bees a notable limestone-river-valley season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden and orchard remnants of the Market Place and West Street conservation areas, along the Nene riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Barnwell Country Park and Ashton Mill, in the old parkland and walled garden remnants of the Oundle School grounds, and in the chimney stacks and limestone eaves of the older town-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
PE7 3BN· approx. 18 km
Visit websitePE9 4HZ· approx. 23 km
Visit websiteNN3 7AX· approx. 33 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The county opens on a mix of oilseed rape and field beans across the arable belt between Kettering and Daventry. Hawthorn, blackthorn and field maple line the ironstone walls and quickset hedges. The estate woodlands — Rockingham, Salcey, Whittlewood — produce a sweet-chestnut and lime flow in June, particularly in the older planting blocks. Bramble is dense along the Nene Valley; rosebay willowherb flushes the disused quarry and railway land; and ivy in ironstone villages gives a generous late crop.
More on beekeeping in NorthamptonshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
