For some time I’ve been passing an opening in a hedge line and seeing a set of gates which are never open. I thought it was access to some private property. Chris who has written a blog for me on this site was adventurous and recently said he’d been and parked by the gates and discovered that behind the gates is access to a SANG which can be reached through a pedestrian gate. Not being overly familiar with that acronym and a lot of the more recent government acronyms regarding natural areas, I duly looked it up. A SANG is according to:
Natural England, the UK government’s adviser for the natural environment, uses the concept of Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANG) as part of their strategy to mitigate the impacts of urban development on protected areas, such as Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs).
Boxmoor Trust
The area which I refer to is on the edge of the village of Wood Street, west of Guildford. The surrounding area is very green, with low-lying trees and farmland, with near views of the Hogs Back which has the A31 running along it. Not far from the SANG which is called Wood Street Knoll is the Christmas Pie trail, Backside and Broadstreet Common. In the valley below the knoll is the hamlet of Willey Green and the village of Normandy. In recent years a small number of lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) and yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) have been present in the fields surrounding Flexford about 2km as the crow flies from Wood Street. The former bird has been present in the spring and summer months and the latter throughout the year. Lapwing have not been recorded this year (2024) as far as I know.
Wood Street Knoll is so named as at its highest point it is 67m above sea level with expansive views around to all the points of the compass. At the site are a couple of interpretive panels – one by the car park (which at the time of writing remains inaccessible for no written reason) and one at the central point of the nature area.
Walking round the site was a pleasure. It is very open so the wind cuts across the land, even on a late summer day as when I walked it. The views from the top were very clear. The one I liked the most was through a gap in one of the hedges looking towards the north west where there was more of a distinct change in landscape and trees.
One of the reasons for going to the site was to see if I could see the whinchat (Saxicola rubetra) that was recently recorded. I have never seen one to my knowledge. It is the kind of place that these birds are likely to turn up at this time of year but either it was skulking around or it had moved on. I had some good views of three kestrels (Falco tinnunculus) which were hunting over the meadows. Kestrel’s used to be associated with motorway verges especially around the 1980’s but they are not as common there as they used to be. In and around Guildford it is more likely that you will see red kite (Milvus milvus) and buzzard (Buteo buteo). There were two buzzards circling over the trees about 1/2 km south of the knoll. I saw 14 species of bird and 3 of butterfly which wasn’t bad for a rather overcast blustery day at the end of August.
There were a handful of humans who were walking their dogs one of which wasn’t quick enough to go through a gate and nearly got left behind!
This site is certainly one that I will visit again. When I arrived it reminded me of another similar site where I lived back in the mid 1990s called Beverley Parks (PDF) where corn bunting (Emberiza calandra) used to turn up.
Postscript (at time of writing) not on The Land Trust website