My Favourite Place: By Guy Barter

It’s an area that was made famous by the 18th century naturalist Gilbert White, who wrote one of the first books on natural history, based on the local landscape and wildlife. Selborne Common is near the village and it’s an area of unimproved chalk grassland on flinty soil. There are picturesque cattle grazing and it can get really wet underfoot!

I’m from Wiltshire and Dorset, but Selborne is up to the same standard of downland that you get there, and it’s much closer to where I live now in Surrey.

My wife is very keen on country walks and botanising and it’s a wonderful place to go. It’s quite high, at about 700 feet, and there are fantastic views out over the Weald and Sussex. On the slopes of the downs there are also patches of dense, old beech woodland called hangers.

It’s nice to explore the woods, there are lots of lovely mature trees and interesting flowers, like wild hellebores. It has never been ploughed, it just hasn’t attracted the interest of farmers. At least in the last few centuries it has been left to get on with it, and there aren’t many places like that left in South-East England.

It’s fun driving towards it, across the heathland and through the countryside, but when you get there, you just find a congested little village with narrow streets, tearooms and pubs. But over quite a short distance, it changes almost magically to an ancient and unimproved landscape filled with old trees.

I love the contrast between this wildness and the well-tended farmland around it; all hedges and fields, with woods and lots of birds. All within a short walk of the National Trust car park!

I’ve let my own back garden get like Selborne Common. The trees have grown up and there are meadowy areas with long grass and flowers. I think I might have gone a bit too far as neighbours are starting to comment!

■ Selborne Common, Hampshire, GU34 3JR. Visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk.