Walton and Ivythorn Hills is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest near

Street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...

at the south-eastern end of the

Polden Hills Polden may refer to: * Chilton Polden, rural village and civil parish near Edington, north of the Polden Hills in the Sedgemoor district of Somerset, England * East Polden Grasslands, Site of Special Scientific Interest on the Polden Hills in Somer ...

in the English county of Somerset. Walton Hill is south of the village of Walton, and Ivythorn Hill is south of Street. Notified in 1953, the site is now owned and managed by the National Trust who acquired the freehold in 1988. The hills which rise to above

Ordnance datum In the British Isles, an ordnance datum or OD is a vertical datum used by an ordnance survey as the basis for deriving altitudes on maps. A spot height may be expressed as AOD for "above ordnance datum". Usually mean sea level (MSL) is used fo ...

(mean sea level) are made up of limestone, rheatic clay and

Keuper marl Keuper marl is a former and now deprecated term for multiple layers of mudstone and siltstone of Triassic age which occur beneath parts of the English Midlands and neighbouring areas e.g. Cheshire, Nottinghamshire, Devon, eastern Worcestershire ...

covered with calcareous grassland,

scrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, Herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or ...

and coppiced woodland. A quarry existed in the Middle Ages. This supports a variety of

Butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

Leafhopper A leafhopper is the common name for any species from the family Cicadellidae. These minute insects, colloquially known as hoppers, are plant feeders that suck plant sap from grass, shrubs, or trees. Their hind legs are modified for jumping, and a ...

s, Spiders,

Soldier Flies The soldier flies (Stratiomyidae, sometimes misspelled as Stratiomyiidae, from Greek - soldier; - fly) are a family of flies (historically placed in the now-obsolete group Orthorrhapha). The family contains over 2,700 species in over 380 extan ...

and Great Green Bush Crickets living on the vegetation. Notable buildings include Ivythorne Manor, which was originally built for Glastonbury Abbey, Walton windmill and a small sanatorium which became the first youth hostel in Somerset. In 1977 a short lived

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

camp was set up on Ivythorne Hill. The camp was a Free Festival to celebrate 7/7/77. The festival was attended by an estimated 3,000 people and was basically a one-day affair, with some people arriving early and the hangers on eventually evicted by the council.

Geography

The

a long, low ridge, extending for , and separated from the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...

, to which they are nearly parallel, by a marshy tract, known as the Somerset Levels. The ridge is underlain by Blue Lias with alternating

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...

of limestone, rheatic clay and

. At the highest point on Walton Hill, which reaches above

(mean sea level), there is a topograph or orientation stone used as a triangulation point and highlighting key features of the surrounding landscape including the Somerset Levels and the

Admiral Hood Monument The Hood monument is a memorial column to Sir Samuel Hood on a hill near Butleigh in the parish of Compton Dundon, Somerset, England. It was completed in 1831 to a design by Henry Goodridge. Description The monument is a Tuscan column on ...

. It forms the starting point for the long footpath known as the Polden Way.

History

A quarry on Ivythorn Hill produced stone for Street Manor in 1403. Ivythorne Manor is a Grade II* listed building which was built as a monastic dwelling in the medieval era and rebuilt in 1488 by John Selwood, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey. It later became a

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

and was revised and extended from the 16th to 20th centuries by the Marshall and Sydenham families which owned it. Within the grounds is a dovecote which was probably built around 1578 for John Sydenham. Walton windmill on Walton Hill was described as "new-erected" in 1741, although there had been a mill erected on the site in 1342. It was worked until 1906. It is now a Grade II listed building and private residence. There was also a windmill on Ivythorne Hill. The shoe manufacturer C. & J. Clark, through the Society of Friends, had a small sanatorium and

convalescent home A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often ...

on Ivythorn Hill overlooking Street. In 1931, this chalet style building was leased to the

Youth Hostel Association Hostelling International (HI), formerly known as International Youth Hostel Federation (IYHF), is a grouping of more than seventy National Youth Hostel Associations in over eighty countries, with over 4,000 affiliated hostels around the worl ...

and became the first youth hostel in Somerset. It is still used for this purpose. Street Youth Hostel - geograph

This site is owned and managed by the National Trust. They acquired the freehold of of Ivythorn Hill in 1988 from Street Estates, which followed of Walton Hill in 1940 from Polden Farms Ltd and the initial of Ivythorn Hill and Wood in 1919 from Baron St Audries. In 1977 Ivythorne Hill was the site of a

camp following

summer solstice The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer ...

celebrations at

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...

. They were evicted by Mendip District Council.

Ecology

Walton and Ivythorn Hills are covered by a variety of semi-natural habitats. These include unimproved calcareous grassland,

and coppiced woodland including field maple and

Ash Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...

. The range of habitats are home to many species of invertebrate.

s, Spiders and

are particularly well represented. There is also a population of

Great Green Bush Cricket ''Tettigonia viridissima'', the great green bush-cricket, is a large species of bush-cricket belonging to the subfamily Tettigoniinae. Distribution and habitat This species can be encountered in most of Europe, in the eastern Palearctic realm, i ...

(''Tettigonia viridissima''). Between 2011 and 2013 a project was undertaken to increase the population of

Large blue The large blue (''Phengaris arion'') is a species of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. The species was first defined in 1758 and first recorded in Britain in 1795. In 1979 the species became mostly extinct in Britain but has been successfully ...

butterflies on the Polden Hills. This included planting Wild Thyme and managing the grazing on Walton Hill.

References

{{SSSIs Somerset biological Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset Hills of Somerset National Trust properties in Somerset Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1953