Reserves

Walton Common

Grid ref: 428 738 / Area: 25 hectares

Walton Common is both a Scheduled Ancient Monument and an SSSI. There are excellent views of the Gordano Valley and, above the quarry, across the Severn Estuary. It is an area renowned for wildflowers and butterflies.

How to get there
We encourage visitors to use environmentally friendly forms of transport wherever possible. Most of our reserves are easily accessible by bicycle, with many close to the National Cycle Network. Click here to view a location map of the reserve on the National Cycle Network website.

Alternatively, take B3124 between Clevedon and Portishead. In the village of Walton-in-Gordano, turn up the Portishead coast road. Park at GR 423 735 on roadside verge beside Clevedon golf course. Walk 25m towards village and up sign-posted diagonal public footpath.

Access
From several points on public footpaths.

Wildlife and conservation
Walton Common supports a variety of wild plants and animals. Wildflowers include thyme, marjoram, rock-rose, St John's wort, autumn gentian and violets. Butterflies are particularly notable including common blue, brown argus, grizzled and dingy skipper, green and purple hairstreak, and dark green fritillary. Other insects such as grasshoppers, glow-worms and moths are abundant. The scrub and woodland edge provide food and nest-sites for blackcap and whitethroat. Buzzard, kestrel and sparrowhawk sometimes hunt across the common.

Management involves cutting back the scrub and sapling trees to restore the flower-rich grassland and the restoration of grazing to create a mosaic of short and long grass, scrub and woodland-edge. Without management, Walton Common would revert to a poor woodland and many of the grassland species for which it is famous would be shaded out.

Further information
The Common is covered by a Countryside Stewardship agreement with the Countryside Agency. The Common remains in private ownership and the Trust has a 10-year lease.