Blackheath Common
 

 

Blackheath Common lies in the Surrey Greensand Hills and is part of the Blackheath SSSI designated for its lowland heath and acid grassland. Waverley Borough Council has been clearing post-war regeneration of pines in order restore heathland, with outstanding results.

ACTA was asked to identify significant historic landscape and archaeological features and how they could be conserved during this clearance. Research showed that many features had probably been lost during the site’s use for training in the Second World War. However, boundary earthworks and holloways could be defined and sites with archaeological potential identified from flint scatters.

The recommendations of the project included:
a code of practice for clearance
a strategy for recording and interpretation
methods of managing erosion
guidelines for the care of individual features.

Other landscape history and management projects projects:
Scotney Castle Estate
Gravetye
College of the Holy Child

 


 
It was possible to trace the enclosure of land from the common through a study of eighteenth and
nineteenth-century maps
 
Deep holloways lead onto the common, but many were found to be quite recent because the sandy soil erodes very easily

  
Sand lizard is one of the protected species increasing
as a result of the clearance
Clearance of the pines results in Heather moorland within a few years
 

 
Client: Waverley Borough Council HOME Contact Us