Berkshire: Aston Upthorpe Downs

All day (could be half - see end))                   OS Landranger 174: Newbury & Wantage

This area is now part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).  The botanically interesting section was once a Wildlife Trust reserve, but this seems to have been discontinued.  Nevertheless, for the moment at least, it is still a special spot and has an Open Access area reached via permissive paths.

We parked at SU573838 where the ancient Fair Mile track meets the A417 and followed the wide path west up Kingstanding Hill.  This path is between hedgerow and a belt of woodland with all the expected hedge and chalk species - hedgerow cranesbill Geranium pyrenaicum, white campion Silene latifolia, wild basil Clinopodium vulgare, privet Ligustrum vulgare, spurge laurel Daphne laureola, spindle Euonymus europaeus, dogwood Cornus sanguinea, green alkanet Pentaglottis sempervirens, wild mignonette Reseda lutea, wild strawberry Fragaria vesca, wild parsnip Pastinaca sativa, salad-burnet Sanguisorba minor, dewberry Rubus caesius, wild carrot Daucus carota, wayfaring tree Viburnum lantana, restharrow Ononis repens; and the garden escapes balm Melissa officinalis, columbine Aquilegia vulgaris and spearmint Mentha spicata.

Hedgerow cranesbill

 A gap in the hedge on the right at one point allowed access to the edge of a cornfield to look for arable weeds, but there was little of interest except for the following stout plant of common fumitory Fumaria officinalis ssp officinalis var officinalis.  Like other fields we examined through the day it seemed to have been well-sprayed; at least this one had a wider margin.

Common fumitory

We briefly caught sight of a Green Hairstreak butterfly gathering nectar on green alkanet and then sunning itself on the bare path.

Green hairstreak

 A patch of common rockrose Helianthemum nummularium at the path-side was also slightly more notable than most of the plants here.

Common Rockrose

 At the top of the hill the track, deeply rutted by motorcycles and 4WDs all across its width, emerged into the more open country of Cholsey Downs, with typical views of the rolling farmland.

The "Fair Mile", Cholsey Downs

 Here we saw the distinctive ladder-like rosette leaves of woolly thistle Cirsium eriophorum which was quite frequent here, unlike our home patch in the Chilterns.

Woolly Thistle leaves

 There were also patches of meadow cranesbill Geranium pratense and lucerne Medicago sativa leaves, neither yet in flower.  Some of the hawthorn and blackthorn bushes were covered with the bright yellow lichen Xanthoria parietina, while others were completely free.

Xanthoria parietina

 Persistent engine noise was explained when we saw a motorbike scrambling course at the corner of a wood to the north.  Only as we got further away from this could we appreciate the songs of skylarks above the fields and corn buntings at the top of the occasional bush.  Red kites soared overhead and we saw one kestrel hunting.  We passed a track down to farms on our right and encountered a clump of musk thistle Carduus nutans just about to come into flower.

Musk thistle bud just opening

We also saw stitchwort-like flowers in the long grass which had hairy stems and shorter greener leaves than greater stitchwort - the uncommon field mouse-ear Cerastium arvense.

Field mouse-ear

We crossed another major track and then had a view across sheep pasture and the Aston Upthorpe Downs.

Aston Upthorpe Downs

The scrubby valley below the sheep pasture is the location of the former nature reserve.  We took the next track off to the right, passing field pansy Viola arvensis and a field full of cowslips Primula veris.  Shortly on the right were signs for a permissive path and Access Land, leading down the scrubby valley itself, although this involved untying temporary sheep fences or high-stepping over them.  We were now among flower-rich chalk slopes with thick juniper Juniperus communis scrub, although much of the latter was brown and obviously struggling.

Aston Upthorpe valley with juniper, looking north

Juniper bush

Conspicuous in the turf were low clustered spikes of deep blue flowers with bright white stamens well exposed - the rare chalk milkwort Polygala calcarea.  Although they looked immediately different from the laxer spikes of less intensively blue flowers of common milkwort, we checked by looking at the base of the flowering stems, where there were rosettes of larger spoon-shaped leaves, whereas in the common species the leaves get increasingly small down the stem.  The sepals, too, had simple veins, not the anastomosing ones of Polygala vulgaris.  This plant was distributed over most of the valley and common milkwort was very rare, although we did find a few plants with pink flowers.

Chalk milkwort

Other plants here included wall speedwell Veronica arvensis, dwarf thistle Cirsium acaule, glaucous sedge Carex flacca, fairy flax Linum catharticum, thyme-leaved sandwort Arenaria serpyllifolia, horseshoe vetch Hippocrepis comosa, bulbous buttercup Ranunculus bulbosus, early forgetmenot  Myosotis ramosissima and field forgetmenot M. arvensis, sticky mouse-ear Cerastium glomeratum and common mouse-ear Cerastium fonatanum, mouse-ear hawkweed Pilosella officinarum and salad burnet.  The dominant grass was tor-grass Brachypodium rupestre.  At the southern end was also more field mouse-ear.

Horseshoe vetch

Towards the bottom of the valley there was a small enclosure protecting many pasque flowers Pulsatilla vulgaris, mostly individually caged and almost all now in seed, and a few young junipers, protecting them from rabbit grazing.  A few pasque flowers also grew nearby outside the fence.

Pasque flower

Near them was a single plant of the equally rare field fleawort Tephroseris integrifolia, as yet only just in bud.  There would no doubt be more to be found at a later date.

Field fleawort in bud

A few dingy and grizzled skippers were flying, among brimstone, comma, large white, common blue, orange-tip, small copper, peacock and small tortoiseshell.  We left the valley at the north end and continued down the path to the twin villages of Aston Upthorpe and Aston Tirrold.  In the latter a verge had garden star-of-Bethlehem Ornithogalum umbellatum.  In the churchyard there was bugle Ajuga reptans. 

Garden star-of-Bethlehem

Bugle in churchyard

We stopped at the Sweet Olive for lunch, where there was a huge choice of original meals and welcome drinks.

            We returned along the same route, but just south of Aston Tirrold, across the A417, we explored a permissive side-path on the right to an open access area on the side of Riddle Hill, where there was also good chalk turf.  Here again were cowslip, woolly thistle, fairy flax, rockrose, salad burnet, both common and chalk milkworts, dwarf thistle and also wild thyme Thymus polytrichus.  Grizzled skipper was also flying here.

 

Riddle Hill

We returned to the lane where, looking back there was a fine view to Aston Tirrold, with a large old flowering walnut Juglans regia tree to our left.

Lane looking north to Aston Tirrold, walnut tree on left

There was bladder campion Silene vulgaris in the verge, Spanish bluebell Hyacinthoides hispanica and a group of bearded iris Iris germanica.

Bearded iris

We returned through the former reserve, discovering a group of deadly nightshade Atropa belladonna in the shade of a group of elder Sambucus nigra bushes.

            Although we searched assiduously we could find no evidence of burnt-tip orchid Orchis ustulata, which we had seen here in 1979 (photo below). It has apparently not been seen here since 1992.

Burnt-tip orchid, Aston Upthorpe, June 1979

One would not miss much by making this a shorter half-day trip by starting at Aston Tirrold and walking to the southern end of the Aston Upthorpe former reserve and returning the same way, with or without the side excursion to Riddle Hill, although the view from Fair Mile above helps put it all in the context of the general landscape.