bullet2 Box Hill & Headley Heath

BOX HILL & HEADLEY, SURREY

570 ha    Grade J

Box Hill

TQ I8sI

Headley Heath TQ 2053


This area of the North Downs has a wide range of communities representative of succession on the Chalk escarpment and the overlying plateau deposits. There are areas of scrub, woodland, chalk heath, acidic heath, and chalk grassland.

Chalk grassland occurs on the escarpment slopes, and the swards are very rich, with a large number of orchid species, including Gymnadenia conopsea, Anacamptis pyramidalls, Ophrys apifera, Herminium monorchis and Spiranthes spiralis. Brachypodium pinnatum dominates much of the grassland and is spreading.

There are limited areas of chalk heathland on the dip slope and soils of the acidic plateau deposits grade into those of the Chalk in catenas on the slopes of small valleys. These are of particular interest for the prominence of Erica cinerea rather than Calluna in a sward rich in chalk grassland species.

On the plateau and dip slopes about 80 ha of almost pur Calluna heathland occur over acidic, sandy soils with man flint pebbles derived from the plateau deposits. These deposits may be Clay-with-Flints from the Chalk or mor recent strata of Tertiary age. They form a capping over the higher ground at an altitude of ISO-I90 m. Where the capping is thickest there is almost pure Calluna with areas dominated by bracken. Towards the edges of the heathland area, bracken and birch become more abundant, presumably because of thinning out of the capping layer and admixture of material from the underlying Chalk to give a more calcareous soil. The area is much used for public recreation.

An extensive area of box Buxus sempervirens occurs on the steep Chalk escarpment slopes above the River Mole. Here the box is mixed with yew and occasionally ash, and typical field layer species include Gentlanella amarella, Sedum acre, Mercurialis perennis and rarely Teucrium botrys. Scrub of yew and juniper occurs in another area, and although there are only some 70 juniper bushes, the fauna includes the juniper scale Carulaspis juniperi and its predator Aleuropteryx juniperi, the latter known only from this site. Elsewhere areas of southern mixed scrub have a good field layer of herbs including Helleborus foetidus, Inula conya and Aceras anthropophorum.

The woodland of Box Hill and White Hill comprises a wide range of characteristic chalk scarp and plateau woodland and scrub and other local types. Box Hill itself has beechwood on shallow rendzina soils with some pedunculate oak, ash and gean, which grades into beech-oak wood and locally oak-birch wood on the Clay-with-Flints plateau. On some cleared valley sites ashwood is developing. The shrub layer consists mainly of the three evergreens, holly, yew and box, the latter predominating on the thin soils on and near the scarp slopes, and the former two forming a locally continuous understorey on the plateau. Within this, there is a wide range of other shrub species and even trees such as large-leaved lime Tilia platyphyllos in a possibly native location. Structurally, the stands are fairly uniform, but reeent forestry operations and death of mature beeehes have faeilitated natural regeneration of ash, bireh and shrub speeies on the ehalk soils. Similar developments on the plateau have enabled gean, oak and holly to regenerate. Beneath the elosed canopy the field layer is sparse, but dog's mercury occurs on the calcareous soils and the Clay-withFlints supports a community of honeysuckle, bracken, bramble and wood sage. Towards Headley Warren there is another area of beechwood. The whole site is rich in caleicolous herbs, Cephalanthera damasonium, Aquilegia vulgaris and Ajuga chamaepitys included.

The area is particularly interesting entomologically. The large heteropterous bug Gonocerus acuteangulatus which occurs here is not known from anywhere else in Britain. Systematic samples of grassland species contained below average numbers of species of Auchenorhyncha, probably because the areas sampled had been recently burned. The uncommon species Ulopa trivia however occurred in abundance, and the rare Tottigometra impressopuncta was taken. The silver-spotted skipper butterfly was quite abundant in I968. The samples from the chalk grassland at Headley Warren were the richest and most diverse of the whole Review as far as Auchenorhyncha were concerned. The Heteroptera were almost equally rich and there are a number of uncommon species of which Catoplatus fabricii, Drymus pilicornis and Acalypta carinata are especially notable. The presence of Leptopterna dolabrata on chalk grassland is unusual. The weevil fauna contains several species of interest, such as Apion Jqavimanum and A. filirostre. Headley Heath is a noted site for the Duke of Burgundy butterfly Hamearis lucina.