119 - North Downs : Description

Physical and functional links to other National Character Areas

The North Downs National Character Area (NCA) borders the Wealden Greensand NCA to the south, while to the north it borders the Thames Basin Lowlands NCA between Farnham and Purley, and the North Kent Plain NCA in west, mid and east Kent. The scarp forms a defining feature along the length of the NCA and panoramic views provide links with adjoining NCAs and beyond. Views across London, the Thames Estuary and to the south help provide the context and setting of this NCA.

The catchments of the rivers Wey, Mole and Darent drain through valleys dissecting the downs from the Wealden Greensand in the south to the Thames in the north, while further east the River Medway runs north to the Thames Estuary and the Stour runs north-east to the Kent coastline. Flooding is an issue along localised stretches of the rivers and activities within the NCA may have the potential to exacerbate or alleviate downstream flooding in adjacent NCAs. The chalk bedrock supports a principal aquifer which supplies water to both London and Kent. Spring flow from the Chalk is an important feed for the internationally designated habitats of the north Kent marshes and the Thames Estuary.

Coastal processes link NCAs and the construction of harbours at Dover and Folkestone has prevented any continuing sediment transport around South Foreland, but there is a moderate northwards movement of shingle into the North Kent Plain NCA coast. The role of this sediment supply in the development and denudation of beaches has a critical influence on the rate of coastal erosion. The proximity of this NCA to mainland Europe is notable, with the significant activity at the Port of Dover allowing for the passage of goods and people between England and the rest of Europe.

The M20 runs from Folkestone and Ashford along the southern boundary of the NCA until it cuts across to London. The M2/A2 skirts the northern boundary, connecting Dover and Canterbury to Chatham and south and east London. High Speed 1 (the Channel Tunnel Rail Link) has reduced the travel time by rail between Dover and London.

The North Downs today

The ridge of chalk hills forming the North Downs is a distinctive landform within southern England, familiarly encountered as the steep-sided south facing escarpment which forms a backdrop to the flatter land to the south. This dramatic feature, a sweeping arc of hills from the White Cliffs of Dover in the east through to the heartlands of Surrey in the west, affords expansive views which are a typical feature of some of the area’s renowned beauty spots. Perhaps less well known is the dip slope of secluded country extending northwards from the escarpment, a country of undulating ridges, hidden dry valleys, wooded plateaux and small fields connected by hedgerows, shaws, sunken trackways and copses. The scenic beauty and special qualities of the landscape are recognised in the designation of 57 per cent of the area as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB): the Kent Downs AONB to the east and the Surrey Hills AONB to the west.

The mix of light, workable chalky soils on the valley sides and heavy clay soils on the plateau country, mantled in places by sands and gravels, has led to a long history of mixed farming practices which have co-existed for centuries.

The fertile footslope of the escarpment supports arable cropping where larger field sizes and fertile chalk loams favour cereals and oilseeds. In the east, the richer, loamy soils of the lower dip slope support tracts of mixed arable and horticultural production with orchards and occasional hop gardens. Permanent grassland is typical of the steep scarp, valley sides and less productive land.

Woodland is a dominant feature of the landscape and covers much of the dip slope country. Variations in woodland composition indicate contrasting soils, with oak and ash typical of the upper part of the dip slope, capped with claywith- flints soils. Beech, ash, yew, hornbeam and maple cover the numerous dry chalk valleys, linked to shaws and thick hedgerows which surround fields, emphasising the strongly wooded character. However, a dominant characteristic of the downland woodland is sweet chestnut which has been managed for centuries as coppice. While sweet chestnut is not native, it is regarded as naturalised as it was first introduced in Roman times and was planted extensively in the early 19th century. The Kent Downs are one of the last bastions of active coppice management in England and it is this regime which has maintained a diversity of habitats within the woods, benefiting native woodland flora and fauna. The upper scarp slopes are also often wooded and extensive areas of the scarp in Surrey and western Kent are distinguished by dark green yew and box woodland.

Nearly half of the woodlands are ancient and many are designated for their biodiversity value. Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment Special Area of Conservation (SAC) supports the only area of stable box scrub in the United Kingdom. The North Downs Woodlands SAC consists of internationally important mature beech woods and in particular ancient yew woodland. The woodlands of the NCA are important for recreation and accessible natural green space.

Chalk grassland is often found in fragmented tracts across dry valley sides and the escarpment. Seven SACs are designated for their chalk grassland interest with many rare orchids found among other species typical of calcareous grasslands, including the rare straw belle moth. Wye and Crundale Downs SAC and National Nature Reserve and Folkestone Downs support some of the largest colonies in the UK of late spider orchid. Like other sites in the downs, in summer the meadows are spectacular, supporting a profusion of wildflowers. The patchwork of smaller downland banks, unimproved hay meadows, pockets of heath and acid grassland, flower-rich roadside verges, uncultivated field corners and chalk pits are well-loved features of the downland landscape and are part of a complex habitat mosaic.

Rivers supporting a variety of freshwater fish cut through the chalk ridge, creating locally distinctive valleys with important associated wetland habitats. Many invertebrates, mammals and birds, including lapwing and snipe, are drawn to the river corridors, a source of water in an otherwise dry chalk landscape. They also provide for recreation and access.

The famous White Cliffs, a landmark of the NCA, frame a hinterland of country dominated largely by open farmland interspersed with small villages and, in the Dour Valley, the town of Dover. The NCA is of international significance for coastal geodiversity. At Folkestone Warren, a series of landslips where the chalk has slumped over the underlying Gault Clay has given rise to a succession of steep broken slopes; these have been extensively studied and help us to understand similar landslips around the world. In addition, the cliffs support and are topped by important habitats, while the ledges attract various and numerous cliff-nesting birds. The stretch of coast from Dover to Kingsdown Cliffs is internationally protected as an SAC due to the presence of rare maritime cliff communities found within the cliff face and on cliff-tops. South Foreland and Dover to Folkestone are recognised as Heritage Coasts – an indication of the beauty of this undeveloped stretch of coastline and the rich cultural and historical significance of the cliffs.

Twisting sunken lanes overhung by yew, wayfaring tree and whitebeam cut across the scarp and are a strong feature of the dip slope. The traditional settlement pattern is characterised by small, nucleated villages and scattered farmsteads, with oasts, barns and large houses scattered throughout. Local materials used for buildings include flint, chalk ragstone, Wealden bricks and timber.

Modern development is associated with the land fringing Guildford, Croydon and south London in the western part of the NCA; in the east, most notably with Dover and Folkestone (for example at Hawkinge); and with the larger towns in adjoining NCAs. However, the imposing landform of the North Downs has confined major transport links to its edges and along the river valleys, which gives much of the NCA an often remote and tranquil atmosphere, offering dark night skies in places – a rare find in the much developed south-east of England.

The landscape through time

The geology of the North Downs is the result of erosion and deposition over millions of years. It is dominated by the Cretaceous Chalk which was laid down on the floor of a tropical sea that covered much of Europe (from about 98 to 65 million years ago). The Chalk is a rich source of marine fossils which provide evidence for an understanding of the Cretaceous environment and link Chalk sequences across Britain and the rest of Europe. The Alpine mountain building phase (starting about 50 million years ago) raised and folded the chalk, creating the distinctive anticline of the Weald; the northward-dipping North Downs chalk escarpment today forms the northern edge of this Wealden anticline.

Over the last 2 million years the landscape of Northern Europe has been affected by the advance and retreat of ice (known as the ice ages). The North Downs was never covered by ice, but its landscape was affected by extreme tundra-like conditions during the cold phases of the Quaternary Period. This has left a network of dry valleys dissecting the chalk escarpment, valley floors filled with sediments (known as coombe rock) gradually transported down slope and river terrace gravels and sands reflecting the changing course and evolution of the river system draining into the Thames and the Weald.

The landscape of the North Downs bears testament to a deeply rooted interaction of people with the area’s soils, topography and terrain, all of which have presented greater challenges to arable farming than the other downland areas of southern England. Large areas of clay-with-flints supported woodland areas. Consequently, a smaller proportion of the higher downs were converted to arable than in most other downland areas – except in the richer East Kent Downs. In contrast to other chalk downland areas, extensive sheepwalks are also a comparatively rare feature of the North Downs, due to the clay and woods, and tend to occur in smaller pockets on the edge of the scarp and the scarp face.

Early occupation of the downland region was concentrated in the river valleys and footslope of the escarpment where soils are more fertile and easily worked. Evidence of early occupation includes megaliths on the lower scarp in western Kent and Roman sites along the Darent. Origins of the modern-day settlement pattern of villages, hamlets and associated field patterns can be traced to the Anglo-Saxon period when more extensive irregular, piecemeal clearance of woodland took place as population levels gradually increased. Much of the distinctive road pattern and ancient routes of the downs date from this time. The downland region provided areas of temporary summer pasture for Anglo-Saxon estates aligned across the downs and extending into the Weald. As settlements developed, many of these pastures came to be used as areas of rough grazing, shared by surrounding settlements in the form of commons and ‘minnis’. Often situated on the clay and acidic soils of the higher plateau of the downs, these areas supported trees, shrubs and plants characteristic of heathland such as gorse and bracken. Piecemeal enclosure and succession to woodland have reduced this once widespread habitat to just a few sites. Stelling Minnis Common in the east Kent Downs remains as one of the few surviving areas.

The medieval period witnessed large areas of pasture and woodland converted to arable, as population increased further and marginal areas were exploited. The agricultural revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in widespread cultivation of lower slopes for arable crops and horticultural production. This continued during the Second World War and, as arable farming increased, so the areas of unimproved chalk downland decreased, either directly lost to the plough or gradually scrubbed over as livestock numbers declined. Evolution of the landscape in broader terms has been characterised by these successive cycles of reclamation and abandonment of woodland, pasture and arable as population and agricultural pressures have ebbed and flowed over the centuries. In the last 50 years, market conditions have resulted in the dramatic reduction in the area of orchards in the Kent part of the NCA and also a decline in hop production. These land uses now remain only in isolated patches.

Woodland has always been a dominant feature of the landscape and woodland products have been used through the centuries for building materials and fuel. The composition of many traditional coppice woodlands has been modified over time to include species such as sweet chestnut and, more recently, conifers. As markets for local woodland products decreased, so too did woodland management and many areas have been neglected. The great storm of 1987 caused damage to the area’s woodland resource, particularly on the exposed scarp. Today, the woodlands of the NCA are again starting to be managed for both biomass and timber products but there is still much potential to be realised, depending on market conditions.

Chalk has been dug out of the downs for at least 2,000 years, principally to ‘sweeten’ clay lands, making them easier to plough. For centuries chalk was dug locally from small quarries, pits and shafts (deneholes) scattered throughout the downland countryside. As chalk and lime came to be replaced by widely available fertiliser and lime products, the use of chalk pits rapidly declined. Today the hundreds of long-abandoned chalk pits, while overgrown and often hidden from view, remain a widespread feature of the landscape. The Industrial Revolution witnessed rapid expansion in ‘industrial’ chalk quarrying, mainly for cement and related materials. This scale of chalk quarrying in the Medway Gap has left a more lasting impact on the landscape, as has the Kent coalfield, a concealed coalfield at the eastern end of the NCA, which operated during a short but important period of coal mining, with the last collieries closing in the mid-1980s.

The close proximity to mainland Europe of the bastion-like cliffs results in the coastline having a defensive nature, both physically and perceptually. This is most dramatically in evidence at Dover Castle with its fortifications and the Second World War anti-invasion defences and radar sites around it. Traditional parklands are also a feature, the wooded landscape providing the perfect setting for parkland, from functional and productive medieval parks to the designed parklands of the 18th and 19th centuries. The North Downs Way, following ancient paths along the ridge, is today a popular National Trail. It follows part of the Pilgrims’ Way, thought to be an important iron-age trading route. There is a widely held belief that this route was used by pilgrims travelling from Winchester to Canterbury Cathedral to pray at the shrine of Thomas Becket.

At the coast, following a major landslip in 1915, the frontage of Folkestone Warren was protected by a complex of coastal defences. More recent infrastructure and housing developments have also led to protection at St Margaret’s Bay and Dover, in contrast to much of the unprotected cliffs. In 1997, Samphire Hoe, comprising 30 ha of new land, was completed at the base of Shakespeare Cliff using the spoil from the Channel Tunnel works.

The scenic beauty and special qualities of the North Downs landscape were recognised with the Surrey Hills AONB designation in 1958 and the Kent Downs AONB designation which followed in 1968.

Recent decades have witnessed mixed fortunes for different aspects of the NCA’s character. Research has suggested that between 1990 and 1998, while changes in woodlands and semi-natural habitats were largely consistent with its character, changes in settlement that were inconsistent were shown to be more widespread. This is likely to reflect its close proximity to London, to the M25 and M20 corridors and to major towns where associated development pressure is high and has had an influence on the NCA. This is particularly notable in Surrey and the West Kent Downs.