VISIT US
Come and join us on the estate, a mixture of ancient woodland, manicured lawns and wildflower grassland habitats - and let the peaceful surroundings fuel your creativity.
OFF-GRID WOODLAND CAMPING
A stay at Badgells Wood is a chance to disconnect from the everyday and reconnect with nature, with others and with yourself. A place for creating lasting memories with your loved ones.
FILMING
Located in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the landscape of Birling Estate lends itself well to both photography and filming.
Choose from ancient woodland, our secluded Victorian manor garden, the chalk grassland, old farm buildings or the fabulous views off the downs. Or if you are after a location with a story, the woodland archaeology, the remains of the WWII training camp and WWI trench all provide unusual settings.
MAKERS HUB
We want to grow the estate into a host and creative hub for artisans; designers, makers, creators & growers. A destination for the local community to visit, learn and enjoy new experiences and produce.
Get in touch if you’re looking for land or a commercial space to lease.
KIDS’ EDUCATION
Our education programmes are run from Badgells Wood and The Manor Garden. We’ve hosted students from local schools to learn about regenerative tourism and ecosystems.
We also host Wild Things Summer Camp, School of Nature & Bushcraft and the Children’s House Montessori Forest School.
nature based activities
We offer a variety of nature-centric events to educate, enrich life and grow community.
wildlife surveys
For our Citizen Scientist wildlife surveys, we’ve enlisted locals with a passion for the natural world to monitor animal and plant species across the estate. The programme runs throughout the year and over time gathering data on species abundance will help us to reverse biodiverse loss. We’ll also be able to gather data on the quality of the habitats and how they’re better able to capture carbon or hold water in the soil as natural flood mitigation.
If you have an interest in botany, birds, moth, pollinators, invertebrates, or mammals, then sign up to take part!
community volunteering
We also invite local community members to volunteer on our conservation projects throughout the year.
These range from tree & hedgerow planting, wildflower seed harvesting and dispersal, making bird and pollinator homes, conservation of heritage features or litter clearance – get in touch if you’d like to take part!
RESILIENT COMMUNITIES
Each year, we invite the community into Birling Estate to take part in the Village Fete and Estate party. Next, we want to bolster this community connection by providing land or space to community groups or businesses with a green project.
Whether it’s a community garden, produce market, experimenting with composting or biochar or something completely different – if you have an idea for community betterment, climate resilience, or biodiversity gain, please get in touch!
RAMBLINGS
We manage 26.5 km of footpaths, 22km of Public Right of Way routes and 4.5km of permissive routes across the estate.
Along these routes you can pass through ancient woodland or take a hike along the pre-historic trackways – Pilgrims Way, the North Downs Way and the Weald Way. These routes follow the natural crest of the escarpment where you can enjoy the outstanding views from the Kent Downs.
ANCIENT MONUMENTS
The prehistoric trackways which pass through the estate all meet within view of the magical Coldrum Stones; a burial site older than Stonehenge, constructed from around fifty local sarsen stone megaliths between 4th and 3rd millennia BCE.
Coldrum Stones Longbarrow is a prehistoric megalithic burial chamber, one of the Medway Megaliths, grouped along the River Medway as it cuts through the North Downs. they represent the only known prehistoric megalithic group in eastern England and the most south-easterly group in Britain.
At dawn every May Day, the Hartley Morris Men meet to perform dances to “sing up the sun”.
