Castle Hill is a biological

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

on the eastern outskirts of

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Kent to the north-east, West Sussex to the west, Surrey to the north-west, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement ...

. It is a

Special Area of Conservation A special area of conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...

and

Nature Conservation Review ''A Nature Conservation Review'' is a two-volume work by Derek Ratcliffe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1977. It set out to identify the most important places for nature conservation in Great Britain. It is often known by the initi ...

site. The northern half is a national nature reserve This is chalk grassland, which is a nationally uncommon habitat. It is rich in flowering plants and there are areas of scrub which are valuable for breeding birds. There are often early spider orchids in springtime, when the cowslips are still in flower. In June there are burnished green-and-copper

leaf beetle The beetle family Chrysomelidae, commonly known as leaf beetles, includes over 37,000 (and probably at least 50,000) species in more than 2,500 genera, making it one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle families. Numerous s ...

s nestling in the yellow heads of

hawkbit ''Leontodon'' is a genus of plants in the tribe Cichorieae within the family Asteraceae, commonly known as hawkbits. Their English name derives from the mediaeval belief that hawks ate the plant to improve their eyesight. Although originally ...

. In a good summer the hillside is dusted pink with

fragrant An aroma compound, also known as an odorant, aroma, fragrance, flavoring or flavor, is a chemical compound that has a smell or odor. For an individual chemical or class of chemical compounds to impart a smell or fragrance, it must be sufficie ...

pyramidal A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as triangu ...

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

, burnt tip and spotted orchids and sometime our rare endemic

early gentian ''Gentianella anglica'', the early gentian, is a species of flowering plant in the genus '' Gentianella'', native to Great Britain. ''Gentianella anglica'' is endemic to Great Britain and its centre of distribution is in Dorset Dorset ( ; ...

. There is much that is rare and special here including the plants: Nottingham catchfly,

dodder ''Cuscuta'' (), commonly known as dodder or amarbel, is a genus of over 201 species of yellow, orange, or red (rarely green) parasitic plants. Formerly treated as the only genus in the family Cuscutaceae, it now is accepted as belonging in the ...

and field fleawort; the butterflies:

adonis In Greek mythology, Adonis (; ) was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone. He was considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity. The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip ...

small Small means of insignificant size Size in general is the Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude or dimensions of a thing. More specifically, ''geometrical size'' (or ''spatial size'') can refer to three geometrical measures: length, area, or ...

and

chalkhill blue The chalkhill blue (''Lysandra coridon'') is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It is a small butterfly that can be found throughout the Palearctic realm, where it occurs primarily in grasslands rich in chalk. Males have a pale blue colour, wh ...

clouded yellow ''Colias'' is a genus of butterflies in the family Pieridae. They are often called clouded yellows in the Palearctic and sulphurs (a name also used for other coliadine genera) in North America. The closest living relative is the genus ''Zerene' ...

and

dark green fritillary The dark green fritillary (''Speyeria aglaja'') is a species of butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. The insect has a wide range in the Palearctic realm - Europe, Morocco, Iran, Siberia, Central Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. Taxonomy The dark g ...

; the moths: small purple-barred, purple-barred,

forester A forester is a person who practises forest management and forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including ecological restoration and management of protected areas. Fores ...

, mother shipton and

burnet companion The burnet companion moth (''Euclidia glyphica'') is a moth of the family Erebidae. It is found in most of the Palearctic realm, from Ireland in the west to Mongolia and Siberia in the east and south to the Mediterranean and North Africa. Techn ...

moths; rare bees, including some long thought to be locally extinct and only recently re-discovered; crickets including the wartbiter bush-cricket, dark bush-cricket,

coneheads The Coneheads are a fictional family of extraterrestrials with bald conical heads, created for a series of recurring sketches on ''Saturday Night Live'' (SNL). They first appeared on the January 15, 1977 episode hosted by Ralph Nader (episode ...

and scarce stripe-winged grasshoppers.

References

{{SSSIs East Sussex Sites of Special Scientific Interest in East Sussex