Roundshaw Downs is a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation

Roundshaw Roundshaw is a housing estate and park in south Wallington and Beddington on the eastern edge of the London Borough of Sutton. Grid Ref . History Roundshaw was built on the site of the former Croydon Airport which once occupied the buildi ...

in the London Boroughs of Sutton and

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an exten ...

. An area of 19.6 hectares in Sutton is also a local nature reserve. In the nineteenth century the area was farmland, and in the first half of the twentieth it was

Croydon Airport Croydon Airport (former ICAO code: EGCR) was the UK's only international airport during the interwar period. Located in Croydon, South London, England, it opened in 1920, built in a Neoclassical style, and was developed as Britain's main airp ...

. Most of the site is a mixture of chalk and neutral grassland. Areas of unimproved chalk grassland have species typical of this habitat such as common quaking grass, wild carrot and bird's-foot-trefoil. A grassland flower species is greater yellow rattle, which is nationally protected, and Sutton and Croydon are its national strongholds. The wasp spider ''

Argiope bruennichi ''Argiope bruennichi'' (wasp spider) is a species of orb-web spider distributed throughout central Europe, northern Europe, north Africa, parts of Asia, and the Azores archipelago. Like many other members of the genus '' Argiope'' (including St ...

'' builds web in the grasslands. Birds include kestrels and

skylark ''Alauda'' is a genus of larks found across much of Europe, Asia and in the mountains of north Africa, and one of the species (the Raso lark) endemic to the islet of Raso in the Cape Verde Islands. Further, at least two additional species are ...

s. the latter a

Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

species due to its sharp decline in Britain. The site also has areas of woodland, which have

great spotted woodpecker The great spotted woodpecker (''Dendrocopos major'') is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found acro ...

blackcap The Eurasian blackcap (''Sylvia atricapilla''), usually known simply as the blackcap, is a common and widespread typical warbler. It has mainly olive-grey upperparts and pale grey underparts, and differences between the five subspecies are sm ...

and chiffchaff. There are

common whitethroat The common whitethroat or greater whitethroat (''Curruca communis'') is a common and widespread typical warbler which breeds throughout Europe and across much of temperate western Asia. This small passerine bird is strongly migratory, and winte ...

s in scrub areas. There is access from Plough Lane.

References

{{coord, 51.350 , -0.126, type:landmark_region:GB-BNE, display=title Local nature reserves in Greater London Nature reserves in the London Borough of Sutton