High Weald campsite, Sussex, England
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
Dernwood Farm is home to many species of different flora and fauna and we recently commissioned a biodiversity survey to ensure that any impact we are having on our landscape ultimately became a positive one. Clearly by allowing access to the farm to increasing numbers of people itself brings changes to the landscape. To mitigate this impact we have written a Woodland Management Plan endorsed by the Forestry Commission. We are re-introducing a coppicing cycle which is the traditional way of managing our landscape, this in turn creates a layered structure of within the woods and provides habitats for all kinds of creatures.
Our little farm shop sells our own meat all produced here on the farm, the animals travel 5 miles to be butchered so I can't imagine our 'food miles' could get much smaller.
All the animals in the barns are watered over winter with rain water harvested from the roofs thereby reducing our demand on freshly sanitised mains water which the animals do no need. The bell tents use a 'tree bog’ situated in an ancient willow grove which suck up the nutrients we create far more efficiently than I ever imagined.
We try to re-use, reduce and recycle whatever we do. For months I tried to find a way of being able to recycle cans and bottles left by our guests; the council cant do it as their recycling lorries are too big to bring down our lanes, and the big commercial companies like Sita and Biffa wont do it as we're too far from any of their other routes to make it commercially viable. After literally months of searching I found Chris at CJS Waste who will use the mountains of bottles left each month to grind down into materials for making roads, amazing!
Community
We are lucky enough to have two wonderful local pubs; The Star in Waldron and The Six Bells in Chiddingly, both get a mention on our website and in the guide books we are featured in. We have links with SoSussex, an organisation who celebrate all things local, and can arrange everything from Downland walking tours to weekend fishing trips. We are both passionate about the land we love and live in so they are a perfect accompaniment to a stay here at Dernwood Farm.
I am involved in The Chiddingly Festival, a festival of the performing arts that is held every late summer in our village, my parents were instrumental in its founding 37 years ago and now I find myself on the committee! This year we had a wonderful live music event and beer festival which many campers attended and Shappi Korshandi was our comedy act and the Historian Bettany Hughes gave a fascinating talk on Socrates in the church; it's what being part of a community is all about.
Landscape
At Little Dernwood Farm we are privileged to have one of the largest blocks of coppice woodland in East Sussex. They are formally identified as semi-natural ancient woodland being the vestige of the dark and forbidding forest that covered The Weald in ancient times.
Coppicing means the harvesting of timber periodically, every 20 to 30 years. In the beginning the tree is felled and from the stub many sprouts grow and mature over that period of time. The root, or stool - the proper term - can only support a limited weight of timber and must be harvested before the stool is overwhelmed by the volume of timber and is blown over during winter gales. If this happens the stool could be lost forever.
We know man has worked here with certainty for 4,500 years by the flint tools we have found and had identified by the County Archaeologist. Man would come here in the spring and summer from the South Downs to gather wood and to hunt.
There is clear evidence of one, possibly two early forges, countless charcoal burning platforms, a number of sawpits and medieval banks, and hedge and ditch boundaries. We are currently researching further our woodland history and mapping the features in conjunction with South East Woodland Archaeology Forum. Should anyone be interested we hope to update our website prior to Easter with some of these features pinpointed and we would be pleased to discuss any topics and aspects of interest.
In Tudor times this was the very heart of the iron industry and the place names underline this, Furnace Lane, Gun Hill etc. One of our woods is called Minepit Wood on the Ordnance Survey maps, and evidence of these can still be seen in the shallow pits still dotted around the woods. Here iron was mined, smelted and forged. The fuel was timber from these woods, first being fired into charcoal to burn at a much higher temperature. The area was highly industrialised, timber and guns being sent to Chatham docks. Each forge was licensed and all articles manufactured were required to carry the license number. The last working forge in the area at Waldron won the contract to provide some of the iron railings for Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral and all carried the WA stamp.
The industry died here and moved to the north where coal was mined in close proximity to iron ore and became highly efficient and industrialized. Charcoal making, a dying art, is still being carried on in East Sussex today. Sussex has one the highest density of woods of any county in the UK.
We still try to coppice on a regular basis in mosaic patterns around the woods to create bio-diversity. Each stage of growth provides different habitats for various flora and fauna. Our objective is to leave our woods to the next generation in better heart and health through our time here than it was at the time of our acquisition. Enjoy our beautiful woods but tread gently on history and nature.
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