Painswick is a prosperous wool-trade town on the Cotswold escarpment above Stroud, known for the ninety-nine yew trees clipped in its churchyard and for the fine limestone terraces of its conservation area. The Stroud BKA covers the town. The surrounding landscape combines the limestone plateau above with the deep wooded valleys of the Slad, Painswick and Wash Brooks below — a varied forage habitat that carries the sequence from early blackthorn and sallow in the valley bottoms through field maple, hawthorn and white clover on the plateau to bramble, lime and sycamore in the village gardens through summer.
Collectors are regularly called to swarms in the yew-hedged churchyard walls, in the old Cotswold-stone garden walls of the conservation area along Bisley Street and Friday Street, along the wooded valley slopes of Sheepscombe and Edge, in the orchard remnants of the outlying farms and old clothiers' houses, and in the mature beech and sycamore of Painswick Beacon.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
GL68GA· approx. 9 km
Visit websiteGL50 1QA· approx. 15 km
Visit websiteGL7 5PU· approx. 22 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The Cotswolds give early blackthorn and hawthorn on drystone hedges, with limestone grassland herbs later. The Severn Vale brings oilseed rape, horse chestnut and hawthorn in the valley pastures. The Forest of Dean is the country flavour — sweet-chestnut coppice, holly, bilberry and a late heather patch on the upper heaths. Bramble is universal; lime and sycamore dominate the June streets of Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud. A reliable autumn ivy flow on stone-walled churches carries hives into October.
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