More than 70 years of military management and the protection of a 12-ft high security fence has helped to create an almost unique habitat at Dean Hill Park. The security fence allowed the 45-acre yew woodland to thrive by keeping out nibbling deer, while years of incessant grass cutting – to prevent fires – and the fact that no fertilizers were used helped to create a herb and wildflower-rich chalk grassland.

 

The succession of chalk grassland, through juniper scrub in some areas, to yew woodland at Dean Hill Park is the finest example of this habitat in Wiltshire and Hampshire and this part of the site has been designated as an area of Special Scientific Interest. Other areas of the chalk grassland have been designated as county wildlife sites.

The grassland hosts an abundance of chalk-loving plant species including several varieties of wild orchid. It is also home to the nationally scarce Duke of Burgundy fritillary and the nationally declining Chalkhill blue butterfly. Areas of hedgerow and scrub provide ideal habitat for bird species including garden and willow warblers, tree pipits, whitethroats and black caps. Other birds nesting at Dean Hill Park include green woodpeckers, turtle doves, hobby hawks and little owls.

 

In recent years, conservationists installed badger flaps into the security fence and there are several badger setts on site, along with foxes, which flourish due to an overabundance of rabbits. There is at least one pair of brown hare living in the park.

 

The SSSI is managed in consultation with English Nature and the owners’ aim is to run the site in participation with a conservation group of volunteers from the local area, which includes botanists, ornithologists and experts on butterflies and insects.