Chobham Common

Chobham Common

Chobham Common is a broad, heathland common in the north-west of Surrey, to the north of the town of Chobham. This has been a landscape much used by the army and its heavy armour: now it is left to rest as a nature reserve.

Most of the common to the extent of its 'SSSI' designation is managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust as the 'Chobham Common Nature Reserve', but it also includes a small private reserve managed by the Trust, Gracious Pond.

Conservation

Of the common, 1,620 acres have been designated a biological 'Site of Special Scientific Interest'. It is also a 'Nature Conservation Review' site, Grade I and a national nature reserve. The common is part of the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area and the Thursley, Ash, Pirbright and Chobham Special Area of Conservation.

About the common

Three scheduled monuments stand on the common:

• A Bronze Age barrow earthwork;
• Earthwork of unknown age and origin known as 'the Beegarden'
• Bronze Age bowl barrow

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 nightjars, woodlarks and Dartford warblers.
• 9 species of reptiles and amphibians have been recorded including the nationally rare sand lizard.
• The Common is nationally important for its invertebrate fauna being the best site in the UK for spiders, bees, wasps, 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 (Dianthus armeria)
• A good assemblages of wetland species including sundews (Drosera) and marsh gentian (Gentiana pneumonanthe), and of heathland road verge species.

History

Peat and tumuli at the site suggest that, like other non-mountainous heaths, Chobham Common was transformed from to mostly shrubs, grass and bog when late Paleolithic farmers and wood-gatherers cleared much of the primary woodland that before their arrival cloaked the country. This exposed and degraded the fragile topsoils of 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. The specific earliest periods of occupation were 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 emerged at some time during these periods.

An Inclosure Award was made by Parliament in 1855 of part to the Earl of Onslow outright, the rest, for example, in 1911 comprising "several thousand acres of common land" was uninclosed but associated with his land, at which time Chobham remained a large parish, covering 9,057 acres.

The Great Camp was held here in 1853; a major military exercise, which has left its mark on the landscape to this day. In September 1871 the Common hosted the Battle of Chobham Common, as part of the Autumn Manoeuvres of that year. Queen Victoria reviewed troops encamped on the Common during the Crimean War in 1853, including the Light Brigade before their departure to the Crimea and to poetry books. The Victoria Monument erected on the site in 1901 commemorates this review.

During the First World War, trenching exercises were held in August 1915 in advance of Kitchener's Third Army's mobilisation in France.

Chobham Common was used by the military during the 1920s and 1930s, and throughout the Second World War. Captured enemy tanks were also tested in the Common as was equipment to detonate land mines using flails (and probably caused the significant damage that led to reseeding).

Immediately after the Second World War, the southern part 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, plants and associated small animals were recovering well. 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 and scrub began to develop. By the 1960s scrub including brambles was starting to become a problem. Surrey County Council purchased the slightly reduced area comprising the common from William Onslow, 6th Earl of Onslow for £1 per acre by in 1966.

Maintenance

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 heather (Calluna vulgaris) 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.

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.

Strong summer heat can occur to dry out the long grass, shrubs and trees of acidic heath soil. The local fire service and police are specifically trained to react to such fires.

In August 2020, a fire on the common spread to the golf course at the Wentworth Club causing the abandonment of the final event of the Rose Ladies Series.

Access

Chobham Common is open to the public, has six car parks, an extensive network of footpaths, bridleways, other tracks and three self-guided trails.

Location

• Location map: 51°22’23"N, -0°36’14"W

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Chobham Common)

• Chobham Common (Surrey Wildlife Trust)
• Chobham Common NNR (Natural England)
• Man's influence on Chobham Common, June 2015