Country walk: Heyshott Green

Heyshott to the Normans was ‘hetheshete’, which meant that heather grew there in a strip or parcel of land. It still does on Heyshott Common a mile to the northwest of the village. Much of the area is still a sort of wild flower garden of Olde Englande, the verges bright with blossoms and the damp meadows either side of the access road to the village containing many rarities. These meadows have not been ploughed for centuries, having grown crops of hay for the cattle and horses of the village community.

Butterflies abound in these natural ecosystems as do moths, crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, froghoppers, flies, wild bees and wasps. If you walk around the area on the various footpaths radiating from the church or the public house car park, I do hope you’ll keep your eyes open for this teeming mass of wildlife and not just have eyes for the incomparable scenery of the South Downs above or the pleasant countryside of the Weald with its oak trees and thick hedges.

Heyshott is east of the main

A286 road between Chichester and Midhurst. New Lipchif Way, which is part of a Recreational Route Path, runs north from the pub across the meadows. Turn left westwards after five hundred yards on a footpath which brings you to a stream and then the Marsh Pond by the main road.

I saw young morrhens here last week. The very rare round-fruited rush (Juncus compressus) grows here, classed as Vulnerable in the

Red Data book and now extinct in

East sussex. We found the greater spearwort which is one of the largeflowered buttercups, and the lovely yellow flag still flowering. We crossed the road into the open meadow, over which a footpath took us to Heyshott Green, turned left under oak trees and returned to the road and crossed it and followed the road back north.

A strange plant called lousewort (Pedicularis sylvatica) grows in dense mats with small fern like leaves and pink flowers like snap-dragons.

There were also spotted orchids and southern marsh orchids on the damp meadows and roadside verges.

In 1964 when we were with botanist Oliver Buckle on a walk with the Chichester Natural Hisrtory Society, he showed us the very rare water soldier plant growing in a ditch growing alongside a house by the road.

It is said still to be there but we could not find it.

There is a footpath through these meadows back to Heyshott but you can just as easily walk on the road with the flowers on either side. Lots of stitchwort and cranesbill and buttercups fill the meadows either side.

Ifthechurchisopenitisaquiet refuge. It was originally 13th century but the Victorians decided it needed a makeover making it larger and more comfortable.

This is where the agriculturalist, writer, and political activist, Richard Cobden, has his memorial. The churchyard also has several big old yew trees.