Dunstable Downs are part of the
Chiltern Hills
The Chiltern Hills or the Chilterns are a chalk escarpment in southern England, located to the north-west of London, covering across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire; they stretch from Goring-on-Thames in the south- ...
, in southern
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...
, England; and are located near (and named after) the town of
Dunstable. They are a
chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
escarpment
An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.
Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...
forming the north-eastern reaches of the Chilterns. At , Dunstable Downs are the highest point in the county of Bedfordshire.
[
Because of its elevation, Dunstable Downs hosted a station in the shutter telegraph chain which connected the Admiralty in London to its naval ships in the port of ]Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth ( ), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside resort, seaside town which gives its name to the wider Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. Its fishing industry, m ...
during the years 1808 to 1814.
Whipsnade Zoo has cut an enormous lion shape into the chalk on the side of one of the hills. The lion can be seen from the B489 (Aylesbury
Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery and the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, Waterside Theatre. It is located in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wycombe and Milt ...
to Dunstable road).
The downs are used by gliders, kite
A kite is a tethered heavier than air flight, heavier-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create Lift (force), lift and Drag (physics), drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have ...
fliers, hang gliders and paragliders in the area because of their height. The London Gliding Club is based at the foot of the downs.
Much of the downs is managed by the National Trust
The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...
as part of the Dunstable Downs & Whipsnade Estate property.
Ascents
Central Bedfordshire Council and the National Trust commissioned Archetype architects to build a visitor centre
A visitor center or centre (see American and British English spelling differences), visitor information center or tourist information centre is a physical location that provides information to tourists.
Types
A visitor center may be a Civic c ...
known as the Chilterns Gateway Centre, on the very top of Dunstable Downs. The summit is right next to the B4541 road that crosses the hill, and so an ascent of the hill requires nothing more than getting out of a car at the highest point and walking across to the trig point
A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity.
The station is usually set up by a map ...
.
For those who wish to climb the hill from the base, it is possible to do a circular walk from the village of Whipsnade by following the Icknield Way Path and Chiltern Way, both of which are marked on Ordnance Survey
The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...
maps. This circuit can be extended to take in the northern top of Five Knolls. The hill can also be ascended from Dunstable to the north.
The Icknield Way Trail,[Icknield Way Trail](_blank)
a horse rider and off-road cycle route, has been established following a similar route to the Icknield Way Path which passes over the Dunstable Downs.
Archaeological sites
The Five Knolls Barrow Cemetery is located at the northern tip of the Dunstable Downs. First described by antiquarian William Stukeley
William Stukeley (7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765) was an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman. A significant influence on the later development of archaeology, he pioneered the scholarly investigation of the prehistoric ...
in the 18th century, the site contained burials from the late Neolithic
In the Near Eastern archaeology, archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding th ...
to Saxon
The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...
eras prior to excavation. They include the "Five Knolls Woman", aged between 35 and 40 years, buried on her side with a flint knife. A mother and child
A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestat ...
, buried with a number of echinoid fossils were also found, dating approximately from the early Bronze Age. The site is also known for the deviant burial of executed Saxon criminals.
Natural history
The downs are home to a wide variety of wildlife including many rare wild flowers, such as the bee orchid, and butterfly species, like the marbled white and the chalkhill blue.
Areas of the west-facing slope were notified in 1987 under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 as a Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...
(SSSI) called Dunstable and Whipsnade Downs. Blow's Down is a continuation of the Dunstable Downs escarpment on the eastern side of Dunstable. It is also an SSSI and most of it is managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire (as Blow's Downs).
See also
* Dunstable
* Geology of Hertfordshire
The geology of Hertfordshire describes the rocks of the England, English county of Hertfordshire which are a northern part of the great shallow syncline known as the London Basin. The beds dip in a south-easterly direction towards the syncline's lo ...
* Luton
Luton () is a town and borough in Bedfordshire, England. The borough had a population of 225,262 at the 2021 census.
Luton is on the River Lea, about north-west of London. The town's foundation dates to the sixth century as a Saxon settleme ...
Notes and references
External links
{{Commons category, Dunstable Downs
Dunstable Downs, Countryside Centre & Whipsnade Estate at the National Trust
London Gliding Club
Dunstable
Hills of Bedfordshire
National Trust properties in Bedfordshire
Tourist attractions in Bedfordshire
Chiltern Hills
Highest points of English counties