Roughdown Common is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in

Hemel Hempstead Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500. Developed after the Second World War as a new ...

in Hertfordshire. The planning authority is

Dacorum Borough Council The Borough of Dacorum is a local government district in Hertfordshire, England that includes the towns of Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring and Kings Langley. The district, which was formed in 1974, had a population of 137,799 in 2001. Its ...

. The site is

Common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person who has a ...

, and it is owned by the

Box Moor Trust The Box Moor Trust is a charitable trust responsible for the management of nearly 500 acres of land within the parishes of Hemel Hempstead and Bovingdon, in Hertfordshire, England. The Trust was officially founded in 1594 in order to ensure that t ...

having been officially bought by the trust in April 1886 from the

Dean and Chapter of St Paul's The Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral was the titular corporate body of St Paul's Cathedral in London up to the end of the twentieth century. It consisted of the dean and the canons, priests attached to the cathedral who were known as "prebe ...

. It is part of the Chilterns

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of ...

. The Common is a steeply sloping chalk hill in south Hemel Hempstead.

History

It was formerly the site of a large chalk quarry featuring a pillar and stall mine, an entrance to which still exists, however, it is sealed off for human entry. During the construction of the

Grand Union Canal The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter ...

where it flows through Boxmoor, the

navvies Navvy, a clipping of navigator ( UK) or navigational engineer ( US), is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects and occasionally (in North America) to refer to mechanical shovels and ea ...

who carried out the work lived on an encampment at Roughdown Common. The navvies where not the only group that made use of the Common; in 1809 a Good Friday funfair was held in the chalk pit, while 1939 saw the first recorded football match on the site, played by young evacuees from London. The war theme continued in 1946 when prisoners of war - who were based in a P.O.W. camp at nearby Howes Retreat - cleared scrub at the site.

Present day

It is one of the few examples of unimproved

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an ad ...

grassland in Hertfordshire. The dominant grasses are meadow fescue and meadow oat-grass, and other flora includes colonies of orchids, including Common Spotted, Fly and

Pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

varieties, as well as

common juniper ''Juniperus communis'', the common juniper, is a species of small tree or shrub in the cypress family Cupressaceae. An evergreen conifer, it has the largest geographical range of any woody plant, with a circumpolar distribution throughout the c ...

. Roughdown Common is the only known site in Hertfordshire in which Juniper regenerates naturally. The grassland habitat is maintained by sheep grazing. In September, 2016 the first recorded sighting of the Jersey Mocha moth in the county occurred on the Common. Roughdown Common 6

The entrance points to the mine were sealed to human access in 1994, and the site instead became a bat hibernaculum, and is the home of a small colony of Brown long-eared bats. The site is always open and there is access from footpaths starting at the junction of Roughdown Road and Roughdown Avenue. An explanatory panel, placed by the Box Moor Trust, stands by the quarry entrance near the Roughdown Avenue railway bridge. Starting in September 2017, the Box Moor Trust, working in conjunction with

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...

will begin felling self-seeded trees and clearing scrub at the site in order to encourage the reestablishment of calcareous species originally found there. In October 2019, Juniper picked on Roughdown Common was used by Puddingstone Distillery to create a gin. The distillery had teamed up with the Box Moor Trust and released the beverage in order to celebrate the Trust's 425th Anniversary. It was the first gin to be made in Hertfordshire using natural Juniper.

References

{{coord, 51.7402, -0.4850 , type:landmark_region:GB-BNE, display=title Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Hertfordshire Hemel Hempstead Common land in England

History

Present day

See also

References