Castle Hill, Chessington
Park · Chessington, England
Castle Hill is a wooded local nature reserve of 3.5 hectares (8.6 acres) entered from Filby Road, KT9 2AG, and a Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade 1. The earthworks in it probably mark a medieval hunting lodge and are a scheduled monument, NHLE 1002018, covering 2.55 hectares, a smaller extent than the reserve.
History
The woodland is mainly oak and hazel, with bluebells and wood anemones in the ground flora and breeding jays and woodpeckers. Merton College, Oxford owns the land, Kingston Council leases it and the Lower Mole Countryside Management Project manages it. Merton College's ownership here and Walter de Merton's foundation at Old Malden are two survivals of the same medieval endowment inside one borough. The earthwork is one of the six scheduled monuments in the borough, and one of the two that are not part of the Coombe conduit system; Clattern Bridge, NHLE 1002021, is the other.
Visit
Filby Road, Chessington KT9 2AG
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