SURREY HILLS ENGLAND

 The Surrey Hills is a 422 km² (163 sq mi) Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which principally covers parts of the North Downs and Greensand Ridge in Surrey, England (approximately one quarter of the land area of the county).^[1][2] The AONB was designated in 1958 and adjoins the Kent Downs AONB to the east and the South Downs National Park in the south west.

The highest summit of the Surrey Hills AONB, Leith Hill near Coldharbour, is 294 metres (965 ft) above sea level. It is part of the Greensand Ridge, which traverses the AONB from west to east, and is the second highest point in southeast England (Walbury Hill at 297 metres (974 ft) above sea level is the highest).

Blackheath Common is also part of this area.

The northern ridge of these hills, predominantly formed by chalk, is separated by the Vale of Holmesdale which continues into Kent from the southern ridges which are predominantly greensand. They provide a haven for rare plants and insects. Parts of the area are owned and managed by the National Trust, including Ranmore Common, Leith Hill and Box Hill.

Spanning Surrey from east to west, the much-loved, much-used hills of this ‘front line’ AONB are a beleaguered green expanse which, together with the Green Belt, hold back London’s advancing commuter sprawl.

The AONB links together a chain of varied upland landscapes including the North Downs, traditionally the day trip destination for southeast London. Rising near Guildford as the narrow Hog’s Back, the ridge of the downs stretches away to the Kent border, an unmistakable chalk landscape of swelling hills and beech-wooded combes with a steep scarp crest looking south to the Weald. The downs are paralleled to the south by an undulating wooded greensand ridge, rising at Leith Hill to southeast England’s highest point (294m). In the west, sandy open heathland, typified by Frensham Common, stretches away to the Hampshire border.

The AONB’s fine deciduous woodlands have considerable ecological importance as do the AONB’s surviving stretches of chalk grassland and unimproved heath. Including as it does, showpiece villages such as Shere and Abinger, the AONB’s built environment is an intrinsic part of its quality.

Unlike almost all other AONBs, farming, cereals, mixed and horticulture, is a minority occupier of the land. Increasingly, holdings are bought up by non-farmers and worked part-time or used for paddocks. Being within easy reach of London and skirting major centres such as Guildford, Epsom, Sutton and Reigate, the AONB’s economy is inevitably commuter based, with the addition of small-scale craft industry.

The AONB is hugely popular with visitors. It includes within its borders such famous beauty spots as Box Hill and the Devil’s Punch Bowl. Much of the downland crest is owned by conservation bodies including the National Trust and there is a dense, heavily used network of public and recreational footpaths including the Greensand Way and the North Downs Way National Trail which runs from Farnham across the AONB and into Kent.