Where I work.

The villages: working outward from Shepherdswell

Shepherdswell with Coldred is a single civil parish, the two settlements about a mile apart and effectively contiguous. The wider round covers the smaller villages within a few miles, each with its own character. Working outward:

• Shepherdswell: the larger of the two, with the railway station on the Dover to London line via Faversham, the village green, and the older core around Church Hill. The North Downs Way passes through here on its route as the Via Francigena pilgrim path, and the Miner's Way Trail marks the village's East Kent coalfield history.
• Coldred: a mile south, smaller and more scattered, home to St Pancras Church, a Grade I listed Saxon building. More farmland boundary hedge here than village garden hedge.
• Eythorne: the largest of the neighbouring villages, with Barfrestone and Elvington forming one combined community of around 2,500. Eythorne Baptist Church is over 450 years old, one of the earliest Baptist congregations in the country.
• Lydden: the parish immediately south, best known locally for Lydden Hill race circuit. A mix of village plots and open farmland.
• Barfrestone: tiny hamlet, notable for its heavily carved Norman church, one of the finest in Kent. Mostly rural hedge-boundary work.
• Temple Ewell: on the edge of the round towards Dover, a mix of village housing and the Kearsney valley parkland nearby.

Farmland versus village hedges

The round splits fairly evenly between two jobs. Village garden hedges, privet, laurel, yew, Leylandii on modern estate plots, cut like any residential hedge anywhere. And farmland field-boundary hedges, mixed native hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple, dogwood, priced by length rather than the standard garden rate and usually needing different kit and a different eye, since a working farm hedge is managed for stock-proofing and wildlife value as much as for looks.

Conservation area

Shepherdswell's designated conservation area covers the older village core around Church Hill and Mill Lane, with 31 listed buildings on the National Heritage List, three of them Grade I. Any tree with a stem over 75mm at chest height inside or outside the CA needs a section-211 notice to Dover District Council before pruning. See the local guides for the full rules.

Not sure if I cover your postcode?

The round covers Shepherdswell and Coldred in full, plus Eythorne, Lydden, Barfrestone, Elvington and Temple Ewell. If you are further out towards Dover, Canterbury or Sandwich, ask, I may still cover it or can point you to a sister site in the network.