Cuddington Golf Course and Cuddington Meadows together make up this site. The golf course is intensively managed but still has good wild areas and habitats, such as a variety of woodland and chalk grassland. Cuddington Meadows is an attractive area to the east, traditionally maintained by grazing sheep owned by the Downlands Countryside Management Project. The meadows are accessible from the adjacent Banstead Downs, near section 6 of the London LOOP, through a stile in the boundary hedge. They are a Local Nature Reserve, owned and managed by Sutton Council.
Local Wildlife Site
Accessible Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation
Cuddington Open Spaces and Golf Course
Borough: Sutton
Grade: Borough Grade I
Access: Free public access (part of site)
Area: 56.74 ha
Description
Wildlife
Small patches of chalk grassland survive on the golf course with grasses such as upright brome and hairy oat-grass. Wildflowers include small scabious, kidney vetch, stemless thistle and purging flax. Woodland copses are scattered over the site, and now scrub has sadly invaded the chalk grasslands to the west of the course, which used to contain greater knapweed and its rare parasite, tall broomrape. Cuddington Meadows contain a wide range of uncommon chalk plants, including greater knapweed, spectacular displays of lady's bedstraw, field scabious, salad burnet, restharrow, hoary plantain, quaking-grass and horseshoe vetch. The population of kidney vetch has expanded through targeted management by the Sutton Nature Conservation Volunteers. This plant merits special attention as the foodplant of the nationally declining small blue butterfly, which has a small but stable colony here. Other butterflies found here include green hairstreak, a rare species in London, marbled white, orange tip and common blue.Facilities
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