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Eston is a town in the Redcar and Cleveland part of Tees Valley, sitting beneath the Eston Hills and the Cleveland escarpment south of the Tees. The Eston Hills country park, with its extensive gorse, heather and bilberry cover on the old ironstone workings, sits immediately to the south and gives apiaries here access to a distinctive upland supplement in late July and August. The valley floor carries oilseed rape in April and dense bramble on the reclaimed industrial land; lime trees line the older residential streets of the town centre.

Oilseed rape on the flat arable plain between the Tees and the Cleveland escarpment produces a heavy April to May flow, particularly around Stokesley, Stillington and the fields east of Yarm. Hawthorn and blackthorn are thick in the suburban hedgerows of Stockton, Billingham and Guisborough. Lime trees line the Victorian residential streets of Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Redcar and carry a reliable June flow. The defining feature of the landscape is the extent of ex-industrial grassland: former ICI works at Billingham and Wilton, steelworks sites at Redcar, and colliery reclamation ground throughout are dense with bramble, rosebay willowherb and white clover from June through August. Sea buckthorn and coastal meadow wildflowers on the North Tees marshes, Coatham Sands and Huntcliff provide a distinctive supplement near the shore. The Cleveland Hills rise sharply south of Guisborough, Skelton and Loftus and carry ling heather and bilberry from late July into September — within easy reach of apiaries on the urban fringe.