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Berwick is a small spring line parish that lies at the foot of the South Downs at the point where the line is broken by the Cuckmere valley. The parish is bounded by the Cuckmere to the east, Alfriston to the south, Alciston to the west, Selmeston to the north west and Arlington to the north east. Unlike many other parishes that lie along the base of the South Downs the parish does not include any land on it. Berwick itself means 'barley farm' and the southern end of the parish between the Downs and what is now the A27 has always been fertile growing country due to the strip of greensand that separates the chalk of the Downs from the clays of the low Weald.

Berwick has long been an estate village with much of the parish still owned by the Gages of Firle. The village itself shows evidence of having shrunk in size sometime during the medieval period and is still little more than a cluster of houses around the church. Another settlement also known as Berwick grew up around the railway station which was opened in 1846 on the site of the former common and contains the village hall, post office, village store and a pub. There have been plans to extend this community utilising land from an old brickworks but so far these have been rejected.

The main road running through the parish is the A27, however, this section was only constructed in 1820 as a turnpike replacing older routes to the north and south. The latter ran along the base of the Downs towards Alfriston crossing the river at Long Bridge, and is now a restricted byway known as the Old Coach Road. This was replaced by another route towards the end of the 18th century that ran along Common Lane and Chilver Bridge Road, both these remain in use as highways albeit as country lanes. The other main route ran north-south to the west of the river and linked Seaford and Alfriston to what was Dicker Common. Up to the 1970s this was the B2108 but has since been downgraded to the C39. This road bypasses the old village centre but forms the main street for the newer settlement around the station.