Castle Hill, Brighton

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Castle Hill
Site of Special Scientific Interest
Castle Hill National Nature Reserve - geograph.org.uk - 1728047.jpg
Location East Sussex
Grid reference TQ 372 064 [1]
InterestBiological
Area114.6 hectares (283 acres) [1]
Notification 1986 [1]
Location map Magic Map

Castle Hill is a 114.6-hectare (283-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the eastern outskirts of Brighton in East Sussex. [1] [2] It is a Special Area of Conservation [3] and Nature Conservation Review site. [4] The northern half is a national nature reserve [5]

This is chalk grassland, which is a nationally uncommon habitat. It is rich in flowering plants and there are areas of scrub which are valuable for breeding birds.

There are often early spider orchids in springtime, when the cowslips are still in flower. In June there are burnished green-and-copper leaf beetles nestling in the yellow heads of hawkbit. In a good summer the hillside is dusted pink with fragrant, pyramidal, bee, burnt tip and spotted orchids and sometime our rare endemic early gentian. [5] [6]

There is much that is rare and special here including the plants: Nottingham catchfly, dodder and field fleawort; the butterflies: adonis, small and chalkhill blue, clouded yellow and dark green fritillary; the moths: small purple-barred, purple-barred, forester, mother shipton and burnet companion moths; rare bees, including some long thought to be locally extinct and only recently re-discovered; crickets including the wartbiter bush-cricket, dark bush-cricket, coneheads and scarce stripe-winged grasshoppers. [5] [6]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Designated Sites View: Castle Hill". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  2. ↑ "Map of Castle Hill". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  3. ↑ "Designated Sites View: Castle Hill". Special Areas of Conservation. Natural England. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  4. ↑ Ratcliffe, Derek, ed. (1977). A Nature Conservation Review. Vol. 2. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 116. ISBN   0521 21403 3.
  5. 1 2 3 "Designated Sites View: Castle Hill". National Nature Reserves. Natural England. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  6. 1 2 Bangs, Dave (2008). A freedom to roam Guide to the Brighton Downs : from Shoreham to Newhaven and Beeding to Lewes. Brighton: David Bangs. ISBN   978-0-9548638-1-4. OCLC   701098669.

Coordinates: 50°50′28″N0°03′11″W / 50.841°N 0.053°W / 50.841; -0.053

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