Local Wildlife Site

Accessible Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation

Furze Bottom and Higham Hill
Borough: Bromley
Grade: Borough Grade I
Access: Access on public footpaths only
Area: 20.01 ha

Description

This site is made up of an area of grassland to the north of Jewels Wood (Higham Hill) and a small sheltered field of cultivated grassland surrounded by woodland (Furze Bottom) to the north of that, as well as a field to the east of Furze bottom and an old trackway running northwards from Furze bottom to the north end of Leaves Green village.

Wildlife

The fields around Higham Hill contain several patches of good chalk grassland flora and support field scabious, bladder campion, greater knapweed, salad burnet, fairy flax, and abundant common restharrow. A clearing in the woodland to the north of Higham Hill supports a good population of pyramidal orchid, in addition to common twayblade, crossword, yellow rattle, cowslip and hairy violet. Ringlet butterflies can be seen in the clearing during summer. The woodland at Furze Bottom (which may be ancient) has a typical chalk woodland plant community, including wayfaring tree, wild privet, dogwood, common buckthorn, field maple and black bryony, with bluebells and dog's mercury.

Facilities

No information available
View towards Furze Bottom © Ewa Prokop

View towards Furze Bottom © Ewa Prokop

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More information on GiGL’s SINC dataset can be found here.

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