Stonegate

Stonegate itself has no hotels, so anyone wanting a proper bed for the night looks to the small towns and villages that ring it across the High Weald. Ticehurst, a few miles east, is the obvious first stop, with country inns offering rooms above their bars, including the Bell on the high street with its award-winning garden. Wadhurst and Burwash, both within easy striking distance, add further options, from traditional B&Bs in weatherboarded cottages to farmhouse guest rooms set among orchards and paddocks.

Because this is deep countryside rather than a tourist town, expect small, independently run places rather than chain hotels — think low beams, inglenook fireplaces and gardens rather than lifts and room service. Many properties sit on working farms or smallholdings, and some can arrange stabling or walking routes straight from the door, useful given how much of the appeal here is the High Weald's footpath network. Booking ahead matters, particularly around Bewl Water's summer season and autumn, when the Weald's woodland colour draws walkers from further afield.

For a wider choice of hotel-style stays with more facilities, Royal Tunbridge Wells and Hastings both sit within about 30 minutes' drive and offer a fuller range of chain and boutique hotels, while still leaving Stonegate, Bateman's and Bewl Water an easy day trip away.

Stonegate is a launchpad rather than a destination in itself, and everything below is a short drive or a walkable few miles away.

• Bateman's — the National Trust-run 17th-century ironmaster's house near Burwash that was Rudyard Kipling's home from 1902 until his death in 1936, with its watermill, gardens and the Rolls-Royce he drove; it is about a three-mile walk from Stonegate station, gently uphill through farmland to Burwash and down to the house.
• Bewl Water — the largest reservoir in the South East, a few miles north near Ticehurst and Lamberhurst, with a circuit path for walking and cycling, sailing, and seasonal watersports.
• Ticehurst — a handsome Wealden village a few miles from Stonegate with a run of independent shops, tea rooms and several old pubs including the Bell and the Bull Inn.
• Burwash — a one-street ridge-top village of tile-hung and weatherboarded houses, with views over the Dudwell valley and Kipling's Bateman's just below it.
• High Weald AONB footpaths — Stonegate sits within the High Weald AONB, and waymarked walks from Stonegate station explore its ghylls, shaws and small irregular fields, some of the oldest continuously farmed countryside in England.
• Rye — the medieval Cinque Port town of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses is around 30 minutes' drive south-east, a popular day out from this part of the Weald.

With no pub of its own, Stonegate relies on its neighbours: Ticehurst's the Bell and the Bull Inn both serve food in old Wealden buildings, the Bull set in four acres near Bewl Water and dating to around the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. Burwash and Wadhurst add further options for a post-walk meal, and the honesty of the ingredients tends to reflect the farming country all around, from local game to produce grown on the Weald's small fields.

There are no campsites within Stonegate itself, but the wider High Weald around it — a landscape of small irregular fields, ancient woodland and steep-sided ghylls stretching from Ticehurst to Burwash and up towards Bewl Water — has a scatter of small farm campsites and glamping stays, typical of this quiet corner of East Sussex. As everywhere in England, wild camping without the landowner's permission is not legal, so a pitch always needs to be booked or agreed in advance, whether that is a certified site, a farm field or a glamping pod.

The terrain here is hillier and more wooded than the open Sussex coast, with narrow lanes, steep little valleys and clay ground that can turn heavy after rain, so most sites tend to be small and seasonal rather than large-scale holiday parks. Bewl Water, a few miles north, is the natural focus for an active stay, with its reservoir path for walking and cycling and watersports in summer; sites within reach of it let campers combine a day on the water with evenings back at a quiet pitch. Ticehurst and Burwash both have farm-based campsites and glamping options in the surrounding parishes, generally geared towards couples and families wanting a peaceful, low-key base rather than an entertainment-led holiday park.

Late spring through early autumn is the most reliable camping season, when the Weald's bluebell woods give way to summer growth and then to one of the region's best displays of autumn colour in the oak and sweet chestnut cover around Burwash. Glamping — shepherd's huts, safari tents and the like — has become increasingly common on Wealden farms and is worth considering outside the driest months, since the area's heavy clay soils and steep ghylls make standard tent camping harder going after rain. Whatever the pitch, the reward is the same: some of the oldest continuously farmed, most quietly beautiful countryside in southern England, with Bateman's, Ticehurst and Rye all within easy reach.