Bevendean
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Bevendean is a district of the city of
Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority area, ceremonially in East Sussex, England. There are multiple villages alongside the seaside resorts of Brighton and Hove in the district. It is administe ...
, in
East Sussex East Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Kent to the north-east, West Sussex to the west, Surrey to the north-west, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. The estate lies to the north-east of central Brighton, and was largely developed after World War II with a mixture of
council housing Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council housing or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011, when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in social housing. D ...
and private development. A large proportion of the council houses are now privately owned. The area has limited local facilities and there is only one road access route into and out of the area. The manor of Bevendean was recorded in the
Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
of 1086. The name is derived from 'Beofa's valley'. It was later divided into two estates, Upper Bevendean on the hill and Lower Bevendean in the valley. Some housing development began in the 1930s, with the population expanding rapidly from 1948 onwards. An industrial estate was developed from the mid-1950s. The two local churches are: the Church of the Holy Nativity, built in 1963 as a Modern-style building in brick by architect Reginald Melhuish,
ARIBA The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...
, and The Salvation Army - which occupies a building that was previously a baptist Chapel built around 1950s. The local school is Bevendean Primary School, a community school that educates children from the range of 3 to 11. The Bevy opened on 12 December 2014 making it the first co-operative pub on a housing estate in the UK.


Notable areas

Bevendean is in a valley and the
South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the ...
which surround the valley offer beautiful views.


Bevendean Down

Bevendean Down Bevendean Down is a Local Nature Reserve in the Bevendean district in Brighton, East Sussex and is within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park. It is owned by Brighton and Hove Council and managed by tenant farmers and others. It is m ...
, above Heath Hill Avenue and Norwich Drive, is known for its butterflies and in the area there have been key butterfly species including
adonis blue The Adonis blue (''Lysandra bellargus'', also known as ''Polyommatus bellargus'') is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It inhabits the Palearctic realm (Western Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe, Southern Russia, Iraq, Iran, Caucasus, ...
, grizzled skipper, dingy skipper, small blue, green hairstreak, chalkhill blue, and dark green fritillary. Other species include
common blue The common blue butterfly or European common blue (''Polyommatus icarus'') is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae and subfamily Polyommatinae. The butterfly is found throughout the Palearctic and has been introduced to North America. Butterflie ...
, marbled white, wall brown and
small Small means of insignificant size Size in general is the Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude or dimensions of a thing. More specifically, ''geometrical size'' (or ''spatial size'') can refer to three geometrical measures: length, area, or ...
and large skippers. Hogtrough Bottom, is on the east slope of the Down and has a mixture of taller grasses, short sheep’s fescue turf and scrub. Some years on the shorter ground are large swarms of autumn ladies tresses. There are lots of scarce species such as bastard toadflax, waxcap and webcap fungi,
four-spot orb-weaver ''Araneus quadratus'', the four-spot orb-weaver, is a common orb-weaver spider found in Europe and Central Asia, and as far as the Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan. Females can reach 17 mm in length, especially when gravid, with males around h ...
and purseweb spiders, but
David Bangs David Bangs is a field naturalist, social historian, public artist, author and conservationist. He has written extensively on the countryside management, both historically and present day in the English county of Sussex. Biography Bangs wo ...
, Sussex field naturalists says, "the main delight is the tapestry of summer colours - purple
knapweed ''Centaurea'' () is a genus of over 700 species of herbaceous thistle-like flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Members of the genus are found only north of the equator, mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere; the Middle East and surrounding ...
and
felwort ''Swertia perennis'' is a species of flowering plant in the gentian family known by the common names felwort and star swertia. It is native to several regions of the northern hemisphere, including much of Eurasia and western North America. It is ...
, blue scabious, yellow
hawkbit ''Leontodon'' is a genus of plants in the tribe Cichorieae within the family Asteraceae, commonly known as hawkbits. Their English name derives from the mediaeval belief that hawks ate the plant to improve their eyesight. Although originally ...
and rockrose".:293 The south slope of Bevendean Down and Hogtrough Bottom have been designated as a Local nature reserve. Far up the dean, beyond the Primary School, a wood tumbles down the slope between Norwich Drive and Heath Hill Avenue. Within the wood is a remarkable secret glade that the Victorians called Bevendean Bank. Local conservationists guard its precious turf, mowing and pushing back the ever encroaching wood. There are lots of old grassland flowers and butterflies and a large population of purse-web spider. The site is so special that the entire woods has been designated a Local nature reserve with Bevendean Down and Hogtrough Bottom.


Heath and Race Hill

The south side of the Bevendean estate is a place of horse paddocks and scrub thickets, old allotment sites and cattle grazing. At the eastern end Upper Bevendean Farm () looks down from the higher slope. It was once one of many farms and an outlier of the old Bevendean Manor, which nestled in the valley where the Primary School now is. It has now become the only farm in the valley. The hill running from Auckland Drive to Warren road is called Heath Hill () and as its name implies it was once a place of heather and gorse. in the past there were areas of old Down pasture on the hill (such as ) where great green bush-cricket were present in high summer, but these areas have returned in scrub and no longer support such diversity. On Race Hill the paddocks around the Southdown Riding Stables () and Inglesíde Stables, to the east, receive no agro-chemicals and have become rich in wildlife over the past half century. Swallows and swifts,
bats Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...
and
dung beetles Dung beetles are beetles that feed on feces. All species of dung beetle belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, most of them to the subfamilies Scarabaeinae and Aphodiinae of the family Scarabaeidae (scarab beetles). As most species of Scara ...
, rooks and
woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family (biology), family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar and the extreme ...
and the troll-like hornet robberfly all survive on the rich supply of insects attracted by the pony dung. Worryingly for those concerned by nature loss, both the farmsteads of Southdown's and Ingleside Stables are targeted for housing development within
Brighton and Hove City Council Brighton and Hove City Council is the local authority for Brighton and Hove, a local government district with city status in the ceremonial county of East Sussex, England. The council is a unitary authority, being a district council which also per ...
's draft City Plan (Part 2). The loss of these two farmsteads, which organise the grazing and management of these nature-rich pastures, would put the pastures at risk.


Cultural references

Bevendean is referenced in the chapter "The Baffling Business of the Bevendean Bat" of the fantasy novel '' The Brightonomicon''.Rankin, Robert. ''The Brightonomicon.'' Gollancz, 2006.


References


External links


Bevendean pages
on ''My Brighton and Hove'' site.
Bevendean Community Garden

Bevendean Primary SchoolBevendean History Project
{{Brighton and Hove Areas of Brighton and Hove