| Mellis Common | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Nature reserve |
| Location | Mellis, Suffolk |
| OS grid | TM100746 |
| Area | 59 hectares |
| Managed by | Suffolk Wildlife Trust |
Mellis Common is a 59 hectare nature reserve in Mellis in Suffolk. It is managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. [1]
Mellis is a small village in Suffolk, England. It has the largest area of unfenced common land in England. Oliver Cromwell exercised his troops in Mellis. It once had a railway station on the main line between London and Norwich, and a small branch line that ran to nearby Eye.
Suffolk is an East Anglian county of historic origin in England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket and Felixstowe, one of the largest container ports in Europe.
Suffolk Wildlife Trust (SWT) describes itself as the county's "nature charity – the only organisation dedicated wholly to safeguarding Suffolk's wildlife and countryside." It is a registered charity, and its headquarters is at Brooke House in Ashbocking, near Ipswich. It was founded in 1961, and is one of 47 wildlife trusts covering the Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As of March 2017, it has 13,200 members, and it manages 3,120 hectares of land in 60 nature reserves, most of which are open to the public. It had an income of £3.9 million in the year to 31 March 2017.
The common has changed little over hundreds of years, and is still managed by traditional methods of grazing and hay cutting. Flora include green-winged orchid, sulphur clover and adder’s tongue fern, and owls hunt small mammals. [1]
Ophioglossum vulgatum, commonly known as adder's-tongue, southern adders-tongue or adders-tongue fern, is a species of fern in the family Ophioglossaceae.
There is access from Mellis Road.
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