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Box Hill Common
Nature Trail, 1982 Research and documents Steve Wheeler October 2016 In the last issue we told the story of Box's fight to have Box Hill Common accepted as a public open space for the enjoyment of residents. The success of the struggle did not end the matter and the next stage was to make the area accessible for residents to enjoy. |
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Protecting the site was, in some ways, a more difficult job than acquiring the site and certainly more expensive in the long term. In 1982, to raise pump-priming funds, the Box Hill Common Management Committee entered Wiltshire County Council's Village Venture Competition and were awarded a prize and considerable praise.
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Application for a Nature Trail
The application referred to the site as Formerly a much larger area of open waste associated with stone quarrying ... consisting of just over eleven acres of land falling into two distinct areas, one a high grassy plateau and the other a steep, wooded and rocky hillside ... There is a range of different areas of open grassland and mixed chalk downland flora and areas of scrub, mixed woodland as well as a beech shelter belt.
They used the money to fund a Box Hill Common Nature Trail as one way of encouraging people to use the land.
Notices were put up all over the common and on notice boards setting out the rules of usage (at heading illustrations) and a leaflet was produced as a guide to the trail.
The application referred to the site as Formerly a much larger area of open waste associated with stone quarrying ... consisting of just over eleven acres of land falling into two distinct areas, one a high grassy plateau and the other a steep, wooded and rocky hillside ... There is a range of different areas of open grassland and mixed chalk downland flora and areas of scrub, mixed woodland as well as a beech shelter belt.
They used the money to fund a Box Hill Common Nature Trail as one way of encouraging people to use the land.
Notices were put up all over the common and on notice boards setting out the rules of usage (at heading illustrations) and a leaflet was produced as a guide to the trail.
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The Nature Trail was planned by Ann Skinner of Bath University in two versions, one for adults and another for children of primary school age. The leaftlet shown here was published at the time.
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As always, the success of a project is measured by the number of people who enjoy it, so the moral of the Box Hill Common story really is Use it or Lose it.
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