Chobham Common is a area of lowland
heath a globally rare and threatened
habitat, in
Surrey,
England. It was formerly a freehold owned by the
Earl of Onslow, and purchased for £1 an acre by
Surrey County Council in 1966. It is managed by
Surrey Wildlife Trust for nature
conservation and informal access.
Chobham Common is a National Nature Reserve, Special Protection Area under the EU Birds Directive and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
Animals
26 species of mammal have been recorded on the site including the nationally rare Water Vole.
116 species of bird have been recorded. The Common is a nationally important breeding area for European Nightjar, Woodlark and Dartford Warbler.
9 species of reptiles and amphibians have been recorded including the nationally rare Sand Lizard.
The Common is nationally important for its invertibrate fauna being the best site in the UK for spiders, hymenoptera (bees wasp and ants) and ladybirds - it is one of the last two sites on the mainland UK for the Red barbed ant Formica rufibarbis.
23 species of dragonfly
33 species of butterfly including large colonies of the rare Silver Studded Blue have been recorded.
Plants
390 species of vascular plant
A good assemblages of bryophytes, lichens and fungi have been recorded.
* Of most note are the Marsh Club Moss (Lycopodiella inundata) and Deptford Pink
A good assemblages of wetland species including Sundews and Marsh Gentian, and of heathland verge species.
History
It is believed that, like other inland heaths, Chobham Common was created when early
farmers cleared the primary
woodland that once cloaked the country. This exposed and degraded the fragile soils that underlie the site, creating the conditions favoured by
heathland. After the initial clearance the area would have been kept free of trees by grazing and fuel gathering. There is evidence that the area was occupied during the
Neolithic period and the
Bronze Age; analysis of
peat cores from areas with similar
geology and patterns of settlement elsewhere in southern
Britain would suggest the
heathland on Chobham Common was created at some time during these periods.
Chobham Common was used by the military during the 1920s and 1930s, and throughout the Second World War, when it was severely damaged by tanks.
Immediately after the Second World War, the southern part of the Common was ploughed and seeded with an annual grass to allow the natural vegetation to re-establish, while the area north of Staple Hill, which was not as heavily damaged, was allowed to recover naturally. By the 1950s, the Common was recovering well with large tracts of open heath. At this time the Common was heavily grazed by rabbits with little scrub and large areas of close cropped heather and gorse. Myxomatosis reached the area in 1955 and consequently the heather and gorse on Chobham Common grew on and scrub began to develop. By the 1960s scrub was starting to become a problem.
Monuments
There are three Scheduled Ancient Monuments on Chobham Common: a Bronze Age Barrow, and two earthworks of unknown date and origin known as "Beegardens".
Queen Victoria reviewed troops encamped on the Common, including the famous Light Brigade, prior to their departure to the Crimea in 1853. The Victoria Monument that was erected on the site in 1901 commemorates this event.
Loss of Heathlands nationally
Over 80% of the
heathlands that once covered extensive areas of southern Britain have been lost, with similar losses on the near continent where the remaining lowland
heathland of oceanic
temperate regions occurs. This dramatic decline began during the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century as changes in
agriculture, which resulted in the loss of grazing on
heaths, and as the growing availability of cheap
coal as an alternative to other
fuels, brought traditional
heathland management to an end in many areas. Large areas of
heathland were lost to neglect or subjected to agricultural “improvement” and
enclosure as
arable farming methods advanced. During the twentieth century' 50% of the
heathland that remained in 1919 was converted to commercial
forestry and substantial areas have been lost to development and invading scrub.
Maintaining the Common
The survival of Chobham Common as an extensive area of lowland
heath is largely due to the historic isolation of the
Chobham area where traditional
heathland management continued until the early twentieth century. While
turbary (turf cutting)was still practised on a small scale at the beginning of the twentieth century it had ceased to be an important factor in the management of the Common by that time. Rough
grazing and the cutting of
heather,
gorse and small
trees began to decline after 1914 and had almost completely ended by the time of the
Second World War. Photographic evidence and verbal reports indicate that during the early part of the twentieth century large tracts of
Calluna vulgaris (heather) with extensive areas of wet
heath and open
bog dominated the Common. There was little scrub and the only
trees of any great size were at the Clump on Staple Hill and the Lone Pine to the south of the Beegarden.
Management Plan
In 1984,
Surrey County Council produced the first management plan for Chobham Common which acknowledged invading scrub,
fire and
erosion as the main threats to the site. The Surrey Trust for Nature Conservation (now renamed the
Surrey Wildlife Trust) had carried out small-scale scrub clearance work from 1974 onwards and
Surrey County Council began clearing scrub on the Common from the 1970s onwards; however despite their best efforts the scrub continued to advance. While describing
birch and
pine invasion on the Common as
“Possibly the most serious problem for nature conservation” the 1984 Management Plan states,
“Widespread invasion control is difficult to justify financially. Intervention management will therefore be limited to the more significant open habitats and places where an acceptable level of tree cover can be maintained at low cost”.
From the late 1980s, a more aggressive approach to scrub management was adopted together with more active conservation management starting with the large scale annual events for schools and volunteers such as “Purge the Pine” and “Free Christmas Tree” events. While these events, which involved over 1,500 volunteers in some years, dramatically reduced the threat to the Common from pine invasion, birch remained a major threat to the site.
The 1992 Management Plan took a much more positive approach to conservation management of Chobham Common . In the same year the site was proposed as a National Nature Reserve (NNR) and a substantial grant covering a ten-year period was awarded to Surrey County Council under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme for the management of 280 hectares of the Common. The Scheme was extended to cover the whole NNR for a further ten years in October 2002. At the time of writing at least seventeen hectares of scrub management takes place each year together with at least twenty hectares of conservation mowing, and bracken control. Bare ground creation and heather cutting, and pond, scrape and pool creation are also carried out to enhance bio-diversity. The restoration of conservation grazing on Chobham Common is seen as a priority by site managers.
Fire
Fires occurred fairly regularly during the 1950s and 1960s and the whole of Chobham Common was seriously damaged by major fires in the early and mid 1970s which caused the loss of the smooth
snake (
Coronella austriaca) and
sand lizard from the site and allowed extensive areas of
purple moor grass and
bracken to establish. Since 1976, a network of fire tracks and
firebreaks has been created and progressively upgraded. Since 1990
rangers and volunteers have
fire watched during periods of high risk and in 2006 the
rangers were equipped with a fire fighting system. These measures together with close liaison with the Surrey Fire Service have served to reduce both the frequency and scale of fires on the site.
The major utilities that cross Chobham Common were constructed during the 1950s and early 1960s. The M3 motorway was completed in 1974 cutting the site in half. Some attempts were made at mitigation work at the time, but with hindsight they were both inappropriate and inadequate and large blocks of gorse (Ulex europeaus) developed in the zone of disturbance on either side of the motorway creating further fragmentation of the site and causing serious fire risks. Following serious fires in 2001 and 2002 the Department for Transport provided funding for clearance of the gorse in the zone of disturbance and this area is mown annually to suppress any gorse regrowth.
Erosion Problems
The first
car parks on Chobham Common were created in 1936 at Staple Hill and south of the Monument. After the
Second World War, the recreational use of the Common grew dramatically. This recreational use developed in an ad-hoc manner with walkers and horse riders creating tracks then abandoning them for new routes as they gullied and became impassable, causing wide scale
erosion of the site.
It is also reported that during the 1950s and 1960s visitors regularly took vehicles onto Chobham Common further adding to the problem. An aerial photograph dated 1964 clearly shows severe erosion problems on Tank Hill and Staple Hill. By the time Surrey County Council acquired Chobham Common in 1968 there were nine car parks on the area covered by this plan. Initially the Council wished to develop a country park but these plans were soon dropped in favour of informal recreation and nature conservation.
Erosion and disturbance continued to be serious problems through the 1970s and 1980s. While attempts to restrict horse riding proved unsuccessful, by the late 1980s both walkers and riders were showing a marked preference for the growing network of high quality fire tracks.
In 1992, a consultative process began to resolve long running conflicts of interest between horse riders and other users, and to rationalise the rights of way networks in order to meet the needs of visitors while protecting sensitive habitats and species. Following a public enquiry in 1996 the present network of rights of way and agreed horse rides which incorporates the fire track network was installed. Since then there have been few serious erosion problems and disturbance has been greatly reduced.
Access
Chobham Common is open to the public and has six
car parks, an extensive network of
footpaths,
bridleways and other tracks and three self guided trails.
References
External links
Chobham Common (Surrey Wildlife Trust)
Chobham Common NNR (Natural England)
Chobham Common NNR Draft Management Plan 2007 – 2012
Chobham Common report on public consultations and recommendations for future management
Article on DSTL/QinetiQ Chertsey and Longcross Test Track (Chobham Tank Research Centre)
Category:National Nature Reserves in England
Category:Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Surrey
Category:Geography of Surrey
