The Coombes
1. From the car park go through the bridle gate into The Coombes.
2. As you walk through the first narrow section, you will see some willow pollards to your right. This is an area which is good for bird life as there are a lot of bushes with good winter berries. Red wing and fieldfare love the haw berries when the winter sets in.
3. Follow the bottom of the valley, as it opens up with steep slopes on either side. The slopes are rich with chalk grassland flora in the summer. Kidney vetch, bird’s foot trefoil, small scabious and pyramidal orchid are commonly seen. Watch out for buzzards and the occasional red kite with its distinctive forked tail.
4. Continue to the end of the valley where there is a waymarker. At this point turn right and follow the track back up the slope. This is the only climb on the walk but takes you right through the chalk grassland.
5. Once you have reached the top of the climb, follow the route back downhill to the valley bottom. There is an alternative route through the gate into the lovely old fashioned hay meadow, which will be full of cowslips in early May.
6. Follow the valley back towards the car park and your start point. If you walked through the hay meadow, go through the gate in the north east corner of the field and cross the sleeper bridge and back to the car park.
- Turn left onto the path on which you started the walk. This will take you back to the start point.
Features
How the land became ‘the Coombes’
The Coombes is a steep-sided dry valley running north to south. The land was formed from chalk, deposited from the ocean. Over 30 million years, continental movements caused folding of the once horizontal landscape, creating the rolling chalk downland of which the Coombes are so typical. As you walk from the car park you will experience the high sides of the Coombes on either side of the valley bottom, the walk takes you up onto the west slope for a grand view of this fabulous site.
The rich habitat of the slopes
Once you have passed the willows lining the brook to your right, you can experience areas of species-rich grassland found upon the steep slopes. This steepness has spared the ground from modern farming practices, allowing wild flower species to thrive. The slopes have only a thin covering of soil, unlike the valley floor, and particular plants rely on these conditions. These include the fragrant orchid, devils-bit scabious, green-winged orchid, and the clustered bellflower. At different times during the spring and summer you will be rewarded with displays of many myriad flowers and the numerous butterfly species these plants attract.
Farming for pasture & hay
The flatter ground within the valley has deeper and more fertile soils than the steep slopes. Whilst most ground is managed for pasture, maximising the species diversity, we also have a hay meadow, between points 6 and 7. Hay meadows were traditionally not grazed. This allows grasses and flowers to set seed before being cut in the late summer to produce hay for feeding animals through the winter months. Many such habitats have been lost recently, and so the meadow is of high conservation value. The yellow carpet of cowslips usually present in early May is particularly charming.