Kent, Badgells Wood Foraging Courses

Badgells Wood is our brand new course venue, situated on top of the Kent Downs, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

It is an idyllic and rural location, only an hour or so south east of London. In direct contrast to the city, here you will find a private and beautiful woodland, designated as a local wildlife site and brimming over with nature. The owners have worked closely with Kent Wildlife Trust to open up this wonderful place, while enhancing the biodiversity at the same time. Remnants of an historic World War II camp from the 1940s can also still be seen. We certainly hope to find a wonderful array of plants and fungi here for you to see.

Badgells Wood is part of the Birling Estate. It is situated between West Malling and Meopham and is within easy reach of London and the South-East.

The course starts with a short introduction on what to look for, our foraging code and a brief of the Countryside Act, where it relates to foraging.

Then we’ll set off on a roughly 2.5 hour, slow-paced walk around the woods, teaching you how to identify the different plants, flowers, fruits and mushrooms that we find.

We will stop along the way for some seasonal homemade refreshments such as our lovely hogweed and wild garlic soup, elderflower champagne or fruit leathers.

After the walk we will end the day with a tasty wild food lunch based on what we have found. All of our food is seasonal so what we make depends on recent weather and what is around at that time of year. In Spring we will be making use of the fresh wild greens and in Autumn, the array of tasty wild mushrooms that the woods have to offer.

After the course we will email you a list of everything we talk about on the day, to help you remember what you have learnt.

If you fancy some back to nature off-grid woodland camping, as listed in the Times Britain’s Twenty Best Campsites and probably the closest woodland campsite to London, you can find out more here:  Badgells Wood 

Badgells Wood Campsite

Whitehorse Road

Meopham

Kent

DA13 0UF

At Badgells Wood Campsite. There is plenty of onsite parking available.