Toys Hill is a hamlet which lies within Brasted

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Sevenoaks Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506 situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parishes in England, civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter South Eastern Main Line, main line railway into Lon ...

district of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. It lies to the south of

Brasted Chart Brasted is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. Brasted lies on the A25 road, between Sundridge and Westerham; the road is named Westerham Road, High Street and Main Road as it passes through the village east to ...

, also in the parish. The hamlet is situated on the steep scarp slope of the

Greensand Ridge The Greensand Ridge, also known as the Wealden Greensand is an extensive, prominent, often wooded, mixed greensand/sandstone escarpment in south-east England. Forming part of the Weald, a former dense forest in Sussex, Surrey and Kent, it runs ...

, a prominent escarpment principally formed of

Lower Greensand The Lower Greensand Group is a geological unit present across large areas of Southern England. It was deposited during the Aptian and Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous. It predominantly consists of sandstone and unconsolidated sand that were ...

sandstone. The escarpment here presents itself as a high, thickly wooded ridge running from west to east. It lies south of the North Downs, separated from the latter by the

Vale of Holmesdale Holmesdale, also known as the Vale of Holmesdale, is a valley in South-East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of ...

, and immediately north of the

Weald The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It has three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the ...

of Kent, from which it is visible from many miles away, for example from

Ashdown Forest Ashdown Forest is an ancient area of open heathland occupying the highest sandy ridge-top of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is situated some south of London in the county of East Sussex, England. Rising to an elevation of ...

in the High Weald. The summit of Toys Hill, from which the hamlet takes its name, is above mean sea level. Within the hamlet, there are outstanding views of the Weald from a terrace, which also includes a sunken well, on Puddledock Lane. The terrace was donated in 1898 by

Octavia Hill Octavia Hill (3 December 1838 – 13 August 1912) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a fa ...

, one of the founders of the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

, who lived at nearby

Crockham Hill Crockham Hill is a village in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. It is about south of Westerham, and Chartwell is nearby. The village has a population of around 270 people. It contains a 19th-century pub, the Royal Oak, and Holy Trinity ch ...

, and it was one of the National Trust's first properties. The National Trust has since acquired considerably more land at Toys Hill through donations, culminating in 1981 with the acquisition of extensive woodlands through a special appeal, the final acquisition being called the Octavia Hill Woodland. The National Trust's Toys Hill estate now runs to more than of woodland. The area has been designated a

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 of ...

because of its abundant wildlife, and much of it is recognised as a Grade I site of national importance for nature conservation.

History

Toys Hill probably took its name in the Middle Ages from a local land-owning family. In 1295, Robert Toys paid 12d to the Manor of

Otford Otford is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It lies on the River Darent, north of Sevenoaks. Otford's four churches are the Anglican Church of St Bartholomew in the village centre, the Otford Methodist Ch ...

for the right to keep pigs in Otford Woods, and it is likely that he or his family gave their name to this area of Brasted Chart. Toys Hill was part of the Common of Brasted Chart, where local people once kept pigs and cattle, gathered peat and firewood and quarried Chertstone for their roads and buildings. Various pits that are visible in the high woods of Toys Hill include pits dug by charcoal burners and chert pits, for quarrying

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

, a hard sandstone found in the

formation that has been extracted for many centuries for local roadstone and building stone. The dense woodlands that crown Toys Hill and the surrounding plateau were badly affected by the Great Storm of 1987. Toys Hill used to be well known for its groves of ancient beech pollards, dating back to the early days of grazing, but only a few survived the 1987 storm. The woods have since regenerated with sessile oak, beech and birch saplings. Parts of one woodland, Scords Wood, are managed on a non-intervention ‘hands off’ basis, so that natural development after the storm can be studied by

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, ...

External links

Toys HillToys Hill information at the National Trust
{{Sevenoaks Hamlets in Kent