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Home , Chislehurst, Edmund Walsingham, Scadbury Park

Local Nature Reserve

B14 How to Get There.. 160 269 The Acorn Trail R11 Scadbury Park is on the following bus routes: ST 269 RY ER S P ID D CU R 160 P Y B14 B A 2 Y- R R1 From via and St A22 PA C R11 E S Mary Cray Station N S A A 2 160 L Scadbury Park 0 LEY R1 OM Local Nature Reserve R 11 Green Street Green to Sidcup via Orpington and BR Footscray 269 S T R1 B14 R11 PA R11 AY U LL MIDFIELD W B 14 (Mon.-Sat) Orpington to via Sidcup L D HI S OO S C W E M

R LS R1 V A U I A C N Y P k R11

61 North to Chislehurst via Orpington O T L

E B14 C S H A

A H

R M K

R I

O D P S

273 to via Chislehurst, Grove A P W D E

St Pauls Cray R B14 A Park, Lee and Hither Green 61 F

I R11 Y 273 E R1 L L D 160 Sidcup to via Chislehurst, New and EES R ON D S H Eltham ILL B14 R11 269 Bromley North to Bexleyheath via Chislehurst, To B romle Sidcup and y So uth S tation R11 To Ashford Trains: R1 Station B14 Nearest stations: St. Mary Cray, Chislehurst, Orpington, Trains to Bromley South & Victoria Sidcup and Petts Wood. or Bridge via Lewisham Correct at time of going to press. Latest information from Traveline: 020 7222 1234.

If you are interested in Scadbury Park and would like to become more involved, please contact the Friends of Scadbury Park at www.scadbury. net For further details about Bromley’s countryside including accessibility and nature trails contact Bromley Countryside Service on 01689 862 815, e-mail [email protected] or see www.bromleybiodiversity.co.uk

Emergency Phone No Evenings and Weekends 020 8464 4848 Supported by the Emergency Phone No During Office Hours 020 8313 4471 Heritage Lottery Fund as part of the Capital Woodlands Project What to see in Scadbury Scadbury Park has been managed as a country estate for many centuries and although there is no longer a grand house here, it remains home to many plants and animals whose ancestors lived here, and ancient trees which have been growing at Scadbury for hundreds of years. Some of these you will be able to see on the way female male around the nature trail, indicated by posts, (tick the circles) others may be anywhere in the park and are ON YOUR WAY AROUND THE PARK LOOK FOR MINIBEASTS shown in some of the pictures. How many can you spot? LIVING ON MANY OF THE PLANTS Score: 10-20 Ace, 20-30 Really Wild, A Squash Bug Nymph on yew, camouflaged to hide from predators J over 30 Absolutely Fabulous! B Wasp Spider. This is a female, males are brown and 1/4 the size. C Stag Beetles- an endangered species throughout Europe, the J In spring look out for native Bluebells, easy to Looking back to the past larvae live for 5-7 years usually in dead oak or fruitwood before recognise from Spanish and hybrid Bluebells because The name Scadbury may be derived from the old emerging as adults of the deep, violet blue colour of their nodding bell English "sceatha burh" meaning robber stronghold or flowers which arise from 1 side of the stem, their turned D Wasp Beetle- frightens predators away by its wasp-like shady hill. The moat surrounding the manor house back petals, yellow stamens and narrower leaves. markings dates from about 1250 but the house whose ruins you can see was built in the 15th century for the rich and E 5 Spot Burnet Moth on Black Knapweed HEDGES PROVIDE FOOD, SHELTER AND A SAFE powerful Walsingham family. The estate later belonged CORRIDOR FOR BIRDS AND SMALL MAMMALS to the Townshends, a great Whig family who lived at AS WELL AS SOME DIFFERENT SPECIES OF , though still managing Scadbury as a country MINIBEAST FROM THOSE IN THE MEADOWS. estate. The most famous of the Townshends defended the peace settlement with the American colonies in K Bank Vole Parliament, became Baron in 1783, and later L Dark-Lipped Banded Snail Viscount Sydney. Sydney in Australia was named after him. Queen Victoria visited Scadbury in 1872 and her son, later Edward VII, shot pheasants here. lOOK FOR SOME OF THE HUNDREDS OF How to get around SPECIES THAT ONLY LIVE WITH OAK E Knopper galls The Acorn Nature Trail is marked by 20 numbered posts Marble galls (see inside leaflet). It is about 2 ½ miles long and may F be muddy at times, with steps and kissing gates as G Artichoke galls. All of these galls shown overleaf. There are some gradients of more than are the home to the larvae of 1:5 (20 %). Much of Scadbury is a working farm. Please different species of tiny wasps. follow the Country Code, keep to the footpaths and H Caterpillar of Dark Crimson remove your dog waste. Cycling, horse riding and Underwing Moth fishing are not allowed. Scadbury Park Nature Reserve Scarce Silver Lines Moth By-Laws apply. I il The Acorn Tra Near this post are many young Post 5 birch trees. These are short- lived, early colonizers which In front of you is a very old oak tree, probably die as slower growing trees Post 1 alive when Queen visited here in become established. They 1597. In spring and summer you can hear are often killed by a bracket birds called chiff-chaffs which visit to breed at this time of fungus called birch polypore. year and can easily be recognised by their call, “chiff- chaff”.

As you pass the pond look for red Birch Polypore staining on the trunk of the Chiff-chaff ash tree, caused by the alga The oak trees on either Trentepohlia. Post 6 side of the path are more Trentepohlia than 400years old. In the past when some of the estate was managed as parkland many of the oaks grew straight and tall in open pasture land and their valuable timber was harvested for shipbuilding. Hundreds 5 of species of plants, animals and some fungi depend on oak trees for their Post 2 survival. Alder

At the start of the walkway the sands and pebbles of the well-drained Blackheath Beds give way to silty valley soils, very wet in winter. Many of the plants growing here can tolerate Oak Milk cap waterlogged conditions, e.g. alder trees, which get some of their food from nitrogen-fixing bacteria living in nodules in their roots. Near this post, Post 7 dead wood is home to invertebrates, microscopic animals and fungi Leaving the damp soils of the valley many of which breakdown wood, Post 3 you start the climb back onto returning plant food to the soil. the drier soils derived from the Millipede Bird’s nest fungus Blackheath Beds. In front of you is Yew coppiced sycamore; cut to ground level every 10-15 years, it allows enough light in spring for a carpet of To the right of the path there are ivy-covered oak and ash trees. bluebells. Post 8 Ivy anchors itself to trees, it is not a parasite. It provides nesting sites for birds, roosting sites for bats and a home for caterpillars of Post 4 the holly blue butterfly, which eat the flower buds. Ivy flowers are a There are many yew trees here. These good source poisonous conifer trees may be male or of nectar for female. In spring both have small flowers, insects late but only the female trees have red fruits in the year, the in autumn. Beside the path are mosses- berries are eaten by at their best in spring when there is birds in the winter. enough water to allow them to reproduce and form spores in

capsules, usually at the tips of slender fruiting bodies. Ash Sycamore Ivy Berries Ivy flowers As you look back down the hill To the left of the path You are now in Little Wood. This is The path turns left here there is a slightly older mixed is a lot of male fern. probably ancient woodland because it Post 9 Post 12 and goes through an Post 18 hedge on your left. Ferns are thought Post 15 has some species growing in it associated avenue of English oak Look for blackthorn, to have evolved millions of years with this habitat such as bluebells, yellow trees. Note the long stalked acorns a thorny hedge plant with ago- many forms were living at the archangel and wood anemones. and very short leaf stalks which are pretty white flowers in time of the dinosaurs. They spread different from the other native oak spring before its leaves as tiny spores released from the tree, the sessile oak. develop. Its berries, underside of the fronds in autumn. called sloes, have traditionally been used to flavour gin.

Blackthorn

Wood Anemone English Oak Yellow Archangel There are many big sweet Post 19 chestnut trees around the picnic area and on the far On either side of the path are side you can see the grey/ old fruit trees, remnants of the white leaves of grey poplar. Sheep’s Post 13 Many different plants and minibeasts orchards that were removed sorrel to the right of the path indicates Post 16 live in the meadows providing food in 1971. In the summer many that you are once more on the poor for birds, bats, mice and shrews. Look This pond is surrounded butterflies drink nectar from blackberry and acid soils of the Blackheath beds. Post 10 for cuckoo spit protecting froghopper nymphs by Japanese knotweed, an thistle flowers growing here. Look for tunnels in and later in the summer, field scabious and invasive species which is very the blackberry leaves made by the larvae of a cocoons of 5-spot burnet moths. difficult to get rid of. Its matted roots, fast leaf miner moth. growth and the deep shade it casts stop other plants from living here.

Grey Poplar

Meadow Brown Froghopper Nymph Emerging Burnet Moth Bramble

Sheeps Sorrel Sweet Chestnut Small Tortoiseshell Turn right here and as you walk up the hill you can see a new hedge

Post 17 of different native species planted The nettles and elder growing on your right. It includes dogwood, Japanese Knotweed here suggest the soil has high field maple, guelder rose and hawthorn. Post 20 levels of the plant foods nitrate Post 14 In this part of the and phosphate. Elder bark often Turn left to moated manor park you can often supports lichens, which are made up of a fungus see and hear noisy and an alga living together. Can you find any? green ring-necked parakeets. A recent introduction, they are Post 11 The ruins you can see are the breeding here and increasing remains of the manor house in numbers. built by the Walsingham family in the 15th This may be causing

and 16th centuries. was problems for less Guelder Rose the Lieutenant of the in aggressive hole nesting Henry VIII’s time and responsible for prisoners birds like the lesser spotted including Ann Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell and woodpeckers. . His grandson, Thomas, was a We hope you patron of the playwright and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I when enjoyed the trail, she visited Scadbury. Ring-necked Parakeet come again soon. Lichen: Xanthoria parietina Dogwood Field Maple Hawthorn