Habitats

Habitats

Copy of extract from British Geological Survey map of the area

The fields occupy part of the old Lingfield Common. The map on the right, from the British Geological Survey, shows them to be lying over Upper Tunbridge Wells Sand (the deep yellow area). The surface soil is heavy clay, with a pH of around 6.5 - slightly acidic, in other words. It is, we are told, either Weald Clay (shown brown on the map) or alluvial clay from the nearby River Eden.

Click on the map to see it in greater detail and for more on the geology of the area.

The land falls and rises gently around its mean height of around 200 feet (60 metres) above sea level. There is a general inclination down to the south east. An intermittently flowing stream, running north-east, separates the two fields.

The reserve contains four main types of habitat - hedgerow, meadow, trees and woodland, and pond and wetland. Click on the relevant link for a description of that habitat.

Lingfield is in the northern arm of the Low Weald. This is the roughly C-shaped strip of clay lands that surround the sandstone of the High Weald. (The map is from DEFRA.)

Map of landscape areas of south-east England

There is a description of the character of the Low Weald countryside here, on the Countryside Commission's Web site.