Priest Hill Nature is a relatively recently created Nature Reserve in Ewell on land that has undergone several changes of use in the past decades.

Up until the middle of the last century it had been used for farming but then was acquired for use as school playing fields. This continued until about 1990 but the area now occupied by the reserve then became redundant and became subject to fly tipping and vandalism.

The land was acquired by a property development company who were granted permission to build a small number of houses at the southern boundary, with the remainder of the site gifted to Surrey Wildlife Trust.

The handover took place in 2013, with the official opening in June 2014. The site is now managed with the assistance of Surrey Wildlife Trust volunteers.

The underlying chalk geology has been utilised in several ways to improve the biodiversity of the site.

Areas that had previously been tennis courts had the tarmac surface removed to leave bare chalk. This is a perfect environment for some plants such as Kidney Vetch and Orchids that can’t compete in competition with vigorous grasses.

Green hay from nearby Howell Hill reserve was also scattered on one of these chalk areas with the result that Kidney Vetch and its associated butterfly, the Small Blue, are now thriving and spreading across the site.

Elsewhere grazing by cattle and scrub control by the volunteers are being used to create areas of flower rich chalk downland.

Although the underlying geology is principally chalk, viewing a geological map of the area reveals a small area of Thanet Sand, though the overlying top soil had covered the deposit. A small test pit was dug, which revealed the glimmer of golden sand just 15cm below the surface.

In addition to the well-known social bees and social wasps there are many hundreds of solitary bees and solitary wasps in the UK. Many nest in sandy soil and in addition to adding to biodiversity they are also be very beautiful!

The opportunity therefore existed to create a larger area of sand to attract species that would not normally be found on the site. This seemed to be the kind of task that could be tackled by the volunteer group and would be rather different to the scrub control type of task more usually undertaken.

Having consulted the Trust surveyor, who was enthusiastic about the project, we carried out the task at our work party in May 2021 and removed the turf and top soil to expose the Thanet Sand in area approximately 5m x 3.5m.

The removed soil was piled up around the northern side of the sand scrape to produce a sloping bank. This warm south facing bank may also prove attractive to additional species of insect. The scrape was brushed to remove most of remaining topsoil so that the yellow sand would be obvious to any passing insects.

We look forward to monitoring the scrape for evidence of use by insects as we move through into summer!

Priest Hill Volunteer Group May 2021

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