Ansty and Staplefield, previously Cuckfield Rural,[3] is a civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England, covering an area from the north-west side of Burgess Hill, the whole lying around but mostly to the west of Cuckfield civil parish, from which it was created in 1894 under the Local Government Act 1894.

Staplefield Churchyard is richer, and as many as sixteen meadow Waxcap, Hygrocybe fungi have been recorded (making it the third best site in middle Sussex) and in spring you may see Green Winged and Spotted Orchids, Pepper Saxifrage, Bitter Vetch, Zig Zag Clover, Spring Sedge, Betony, and even Cowslips just clinging on amid many other herbs and grasses.

[4] Along Brantridge Lane to the east is the Old Hall mansion and park - all heavy-duty lake construction and earth moving and screen planting.

Here there are tattered stands of dried fleabane and marsh thistle, rush and tussock grass, knapweed, angelica, bracken and golden crab apples.

[4]Freeks Lane to the west of Bedelands is the direct descendant of the straight Roman road, but 1800 years of traffic have led it to weave in more relaxed fashion between huge old oak trees and rich hedgerows colourful with woodland flowers.

The ground rises beyond ancient Kiln Wood (TQ 329 219) to meet painful new built development on the south edge of Haywards Heath.

Chaites Farmstead (TQ 269 214) has a range of good Victorian and early 20th century outbuildings, including granary and threshing barn of sandstone, and big tiled roofs.

Three meadows to the south west, (TQ 280 216), retain their archaic vegetation (2014) with Dyer's Green weed, Sneezewort, Trailing Tormentil, Pepper Saxifrage, and Betony.

Names he lists include Moorfields Farm; Horsmanhoad and Hoadsherf (hoad = 'heath'); Barnsnape (probably 'steep boggy land'); Thorndean ('thorny swine pasture'), Pookchurch Pit, (TQ 279 248 (puca = 'goblin'); Broxmead ('brocc smeagel' = Badger hole); and Raggetts ('ra geat' = Roe Deer gate).

There are Wild Daffodils here and there, Scarlet elf cap in wet spots in early spring, and Violet Helleborine orchid can be found under summer's shady canopy.

[4] Walking up Pickwell's Lane there is a Sessile Oak giant on the east side bank (TQ 280 233), with its massive clean bole, shooting upwards.

The Black Forest, TQ 280 233, is modern conifer planting, now with much Birch, but old caravans, huts, chalet, earth moving, and builders' materials, make an ugly mess (2012).

The north verge at the western end of the Cuckfield bypass, TQ 297 239, has colourful archaic meadow vegetation, with much Dyers Greenweed (2012).

it is now just rusty cattle barns, but behind them on the vertical bank is a muscly, bent monster of a tree: an english oak pollard all of 3.5 spans in girth.

On the clay bands of these slopes, the old hedges are bright in autumn colours: red, orange and egg yellow Maple, with Spindle, Hazel, Dogwood, Ash and Dog Rose Across the valley southwards is Westup Wood (TQ286 239) with Sessile Oak and Wild Service Tree..[4] A short distance north again, Deaks Lane bridges a gill stream.

However, west of Wyllies Wood the gill turns north, with intact ancient woodland, spectacularly steep mini-ravines, waterfalls and tumbled trees (TQ 283 252).

Along the high watershed ridge tracked by Sloughgreen Lane (between the basins of the Ouse and the Adur) there are only very few surviving fragment of its old moorland vegetation, such as the hidden meadow just south of Pitts Head Crossroads (TQ 268 258).

[4] Between Broxmead Lane and the London Road, a winding valley is cloaked with the intact ancient woodland of The Hanger, e.g. TQ 272 249: a place of English Oak, Ash, Birch and Gean, over abundant old coppice Hazel.

New woods have been added to it in places, such as where Little Thorndean Farm once stood (TQ 273 251),[11] now marked only by a little quarry: a hollow where the well once was, the remains of an outgrown Ash hedge and a wonderful Oak pollard in blooming health, with the broadest sheltering canopy.

[4] On the west side of the gill stream a landslip (TQ 272 245) recently brought Wadhurst Clay and sandstone crashing into The Hanger, splintering trees into an impenetrable tangle.

The pasture that the footpath descends from the Lane (TQ275 241), was ploughed as recently as thirty years ago, but now has much Adders tongue fern, with Common Spotted Orchid.

To its east, a tiny pasture now cared for in the grounds of Merrybrook (TQ 278 241) has Heath Spotted Orchid, Ragged Robin and Devil's bit scabious.

[4] To the north of the parish and east of Handcross, to the between Tanyard and Bantridge Lane, Sole's Coppice, TQ 284 292, is a mixture of ancient and secondary woodland, with some fine old Beeches along its western gill slopes.

Cow Wood's has a 'Redwood Avenue', down in the main Nymans valley, is long and lovely, with alternating Wellingtonias, Coastal Redwood, and Spruce.

In the 1990s mats of Tunbridge Filmy Fern, Hymenophyllum tunbrigense, with its translucent, one-cell-thick fronds were there as a result of the humid microclimate of this valley that existed for about 5000 years.

[13] The valley stream debouches into the pond of the vanished Tudor Blackfold iron furnace with shaded mossy banks, (TQ 274 294).

They are tranquil and remote, with a deep gill, dense plantation Larch and Norwegian Spruce over the lower slopes, but good Oaks, old Sweet Chestnut coppice and Bracken further up.

The vast majority of the Estate sits within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is also subject to agricultural, environmental and woodland schemes.

[4] An ancient ridge top route tracks westwards from Whiteman's Green, marking the watershed between the Ouse, to the north, and the Adur, to the south.

The low ridges are capped with hard Horsham Stone strata within the sunken wedge of Wealden Clay which is the central feature of the rift valley.