Sussex Wildlife Trust

The Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) is a conservation charity which aims to protect natural life in Sussex. It was founded in 1961 and is one of 46 wildlife trusts across the UK and the Isle of Man and Alderney. As of 2024, it had 38,000 members and manages of land for nature. It is a registered charity and in the year to 31 March 2019 it had an income of £5.7 million and expenditure of £4 million, resulting in net income of £1.7 million.

The SWT manages twenty-six nature reserves in the county. Nineteen are Sites of Special Scientific Interest, one is a national nature reserve, eleven are local nature reserves, eight are Special Areas of Conservation, three are Special Protection Areas, three are Ramsar sites and seven are Nature Conservation Review sites. Its headquarters at Woods Mill, south of Henfield, is also a nature reserve with a lake, woodland and meadows.

Key

Public access

FP = public access to footpaths through the site
NO = No public access to the site
PP = public access to part of the site
YES = public access to the whole or most of the site

Designations

LNR = Local nature reserve
NCR = Nature Conservation Review
NNR = National nature reserve
Ramsar = Ramsar site, an internationally important wetland site
SAC = Special Area of Conservation
SPA = Special Protection Area under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds
SSSI = Site of Special Scientific Interest

Sites

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"

!scope="col" | Site

!scope="col" class="unsortable" | Photograph

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number"| Area

!scope="col" | Location

!scope="col" |Public access

!scope="col" |Designations

!scope="col" class="unsortable" |Description

! scope="row"| Amberley Wildbrooks

|100px|alt=Amberley Wildbrooks

|

|Amberley

|align="center"|FP

|NCR SAC SPA SSSI

|This site has wet grassland, peat bog and man-made ditches. It has more than half the aquatic plants found in Britain and diverse invertebrates, some of which are internationally rare. The site is also important for waders, which breed there, and for wintering wildfowl.

! scope="row"| Brickfield Meadow

|100px|alt=Brickfield Meadow

|

|Uckfield

|align="center"|YES

|This wildflower rich meadow has been traditionally managed for many years by cutting in the summer and grazing later in the year. Flowering plants include Dyer’s greenweed, devil's-bit scabious, bitter-vetch and zigzag clover. It is one of the best places in the county for the chimney sweeper moth.

|100px|alt=Burton Mill Pond

|

|Petworth

|align="center"|YES

|LNR SSSI

|This site has ponds, carr woodland, bog, wet heath and marshy grassland. There is a diverse range of invertebrates including three nationally rare species, the snail Omphiscola glabra and the craneflies Erioptera meijerei and Tipula marginata. The site is also important for its breeding water birds, such as water rails and great crested grebes.

! scope="row"| Cooksbridge Meadow

|100px|alt=Cooksbridge Meadow

|

|Fernhurst

|align="center"|YES

|Most of this site is grassland but there is also a narrow strip of woodland and a stream. The meadows are grazed by sheep in order to keep the grass down and ensure a good display of flowers in the spring. Woodland flowers include sanicle, yellow archangel and purslane.

|100px|alt=Ditchling Beacon

|

|Hassocks

|align="center"|YES

| SSSI

|This is one of the highest points of the South Downs and it has a 360-degree view across the Weald and the Sussex coast. It is herb-rich chalk grassland which provides food for a variety of insects, including butterflies such as the chalkhill blue and the uncommon silver-spotted skipper.

! scope="row"| Ebernoe Common

|100px|alt=Ebernoe Common

|

|Petworth

|align="center"|YES

|NCR NNR SAC SSSI

|This site consists of several blocks of ancient woodland. It is nationally important for lichens, with over 100 species, and for fungi, with seven Red Data Book species. It is also nationally important for woodland breeding birds and for bats, especially barbastelles and Bechstein’s.

! scope="row"| Eridge Rocks

|100px|alt=Eridge Rocks

|

|Tunbridge Wells

|align="center"|YES

| SSSI

|This is ancient woodland on clay with outcrops of sandstone which form cliffs up to ten metres high. Flora on the rocks include Tunbridge filmy fern, the mosses Dicranum scottianum and Orthodontium gracile and the liverworts Scapania umbrosa, Scapania gracilis and Harpanthus scutatus.

! scope="row"| Filsham Reedbed

|100px|alt=[Filsham Reedbed

|

|Hastings

|align="center"|YES

|LNR SSSI

|This is one of the largest reedbeds in the county and it also has areas of grazing marsh, swamp and ancient woodland. There is a wide variety of plants and over 1000 species of invertebrates have been recorded. The bird life is important and diverse, with species such as Cetti's warbler, reed bunting, sedge warbler, purple heron, red-backed shrike and water rail.

|100px|alt=Flatropers Wood

|

|Rye

|align="center"|YES

|The wood is mainly oak and birch, but there are also areas of sweet chestnut and former plantations of Scots pine and beech. The site is notable for its invertebrates, with almost 500 species of moths recorded and the rare oak mining-bee.

! scope="row"| Gillham Wood

|100px|alt=Gillham Woods

|

|Bexhill-on-Sea

|align="center"|PP

|The wood is mainly oak with an understorey of hazel, birch and holly. An old bomb crater is now a pond which provides a habitat for a variety of fauna and flora. Part of the site is closed to the public so as to provide a sanctuary for foxes and other wildlife.

! scope="row"| Graffham Common

|100px|alt=Graffham Common

|

|Petworth

|align="center"|YES

|This former pine plantation is being restored back to heath and grassland by the clearance of pine trees and rhododendrons. Drainage ditches have been blocked to allow the natural restoration of wet heath. Wet seepages provide a habitat for cross-leaved heath, hare’s-tail cottongrass and purple moor-grass.

! scope="row"| Iping and Stedham Commons

|100px|alt=Iping Common

|

|Midhurst

|align="center"|YES

|LNR NCR SSSI

|This is described by Natural England as one of the richest areas of heath in the county. Most of it is dry but there are also areas of wet heath, two ponds, woodland, scrub and grassland. It has a rich invertebrate fauna, and breeding heathland birds include nightjars and stonechats.

! scope="row"| Levin Down

|100px|alt=Levin Down

|

|Chichester

|align="center"|YES

| SSSI

|This is an area of chalk grassland and heath on the slope of the South Downs. The chalk turf has a rich variety of flora, such as autumn gentian, salad burnet, round-headed rampion, autumn lady’s tresses, eyebright, glaucous sedge and quaking grass.

! scope="row"| Malling Down

|100px|alt=Malling Down

|

|Lewes

|align="center"|YES

|NCR SAC SSSI

|This South Downs site is chalk grassland, which is one of Britain's richest habitats for flowers. There are many orchids including the widespread common spotted and fragrant and rarer ones such as the musk and frog orchid.

! scope="row"| Marline Valley

|100px|alt=Marline Valley

|

|Hastings

|align="center"|YES

|LNR SSSI

|This site has ancient woodland and species rich unimproved grassland. The wood has coppice of hornbeam, hazel and sweet chestnut and standards of pedunculate oak. A stream runs along a steep sided valley which has 61 species of mosses and liverworts, including some uncommon species.

! scope="row"|

|100px|alt=The Mens

|

|Petworth

|align="center"|YES

|NCR SAC SSSI

|This large area of woodland has diverse breeding birds and rich lichen and fungal floras. There are many rare beetles and a fly which is under threat of extinction, Chelostoma curvinervis. All three British species of woodpecker breed on the site, together with other woodland species such as nightingales, woodcocks and wood warblers.

! scope="row"| Old Lodge

|100px|alt=Old Lodge

|

|Uckfield

|align="center"|YES

|LNR NCR SAC SPA SSSI

|This highland site is mainly grassland and heather, with areas of gorse and scattered birch and oak trees. There are also small Scots pine plantations. Birds include common redstart and common crossbills and there are large nests of red wood ants.

|100px|alt=Pevensey Marshes

|

|Pevensey

|align="center"|NO

|NCR Ramsar SAC SSSI

|This wetland site has a network of pools, scrapes and ditches. There are many plants which are only found in high quality water, such as flowering-rush, water-violet, tubular water-dropwort. Ditches have nationally important populations of some rare aquatic molluscs such as Segmentina nitida and Anisus vorticulus.

! scope="row"| Rye Harbour

|100px|alt=Rye Harbour

|

|Rye

|align="center"|YES

|LNR Ramsar SAC SPA SSSI

|This large reserve has diverse coastal habitats, including saltmarsh, shingle, reedbeds, saline lagoons, grazing marsh and flooded gravel pits.

|100px|alt=Seaford Head

|

|Seaford

|align="center"|YES

|LNR NCR SSSI

|The site has diverse habitats with chalk grassland, chalk cliffs, scrub, vegetated shingle, wet grassland, saltmarsh and rockpools. Grassland flora include kidney vetch, squinancywort, moon carrot and clustered bellflower. There are butterflies such as silver-spotted skipper, chalkhill blue and adonis blue.

! scope="row"| Selwyns Wood

|100px|alt=Selwyns Wood

|

|Heathfield

|align="center"|YES

|This reserve has woodland with extensive sweet chestnut, a stream in a narrow valley and an area of heather. Breeding woodland birds include willow warblers, chiffchaffs, nuthatches and marsh tits.

! scope="row"| Southerham Farm

|100px|alt=Southerham Farm

|

|Lewes

|align="center"|YES

|The thin and infertile soils on this chalk site result in a floristically very rich grassland. Plants which flower in the summer include horseshoe vetch, kidney vetch, mouse-ear hawkweed, field scabious, dropwort and salad burnet.

! scope="row"| Waltham Brooks

|100px|alt=Waltham Brooks

|

|Pulborough

|align="center"|FP

| SSSI

|This is one of the few remaining areas of grazing marsh in the county and it has a rich variety of aquatic flora, including one nationally rare species, the small water-pepper. Many bird species winter at the site, including three in nationally important numbers, Bewick’s swan, teal and shoveler.

! scope="row"| West Dean Woods

|100px|alt=West Dean Woods

|

|Chichester

|align="center"|NO

| SSSI

|These woods have records dating back to the sixteenth century. The ground layer is rich in flowering plants, including white helleborine, fly orchid and around two million wild daffodils. Thirty five species of bryophyte have been recorded and invertebrates include two rare hoverflies which live on dead wood, Cheilosa carbonaria and Cheilosa nigripes.

|100px|alt=Withdean Woods

|

|Brighton

|align="center"|PP

|LNR

|Many of the mature trees on this site were destroyed by the Great Storm of 1987, but it still has a range of mammals including foxes, badgers and common pipistrelle bats, while there are birds such as great spotted woodpecker and firecrests.

|100px|alt=Woods Mill

|

|Henfield

|align="center"|YES

|This is the headquarters of the trust and an environmental education centre.

Notes

References

Sources

External links

Sussex Wildlife Trust website

Key

Public access

Designations

Sites

See also

Notes

References

Sources

External links