Ladies Mile, Brighton

Ladies Mile is a Local Nature Reserve of 13.6 hectares on the northern edge of Brighton. It lies east of Patcham on chalk downland that survives almost intact. The site was given reserve status in 2003 and is run by Brighton and Hove City Council. It forms part of a once-wider plateau of chalk grassland created by centuries of sheep grazing. Around eighty per cent of Britain’s chalk grassland has disappeared, so this flat stretch is unusually well preserved. The grassland bursts into colour each summer with horseshoe vetch and kidney vetch. Harebell, Sussex rampion, rockrose and yellow rattle grow in drifts. Midsummer visitors may still see glow-worms after dark. Later in the season the violet-blue devil’s-bit scabious and powder-blue lesser scabious light up the sward. Scrub and a small wood occupy the southern end, while the northern boundary meets Ladies Mile Road. The land carries traces of its past. Bronze Age round houses and burial mounds once stood here, along with Celtic and Roman field systems. In the 19th century it became a ride where women exercised their horses. During the Second World War anti-glider trenches were dug across the turf. These events helped keep the ancient soil intact. Today the surviving linear banks and a low grassy mound mark the site’s earlier uses.