Long Knoll () is a hill in the West Wiltshire Downs in the west of the English county of

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

. It is a ridge of chalk grassland, some in length, and forms the boundary between the civil parishes of Kilmington to the south and

Maiden Bradley Maiden Bradley is a village in south-west Wiltshire, England, about south-west of Warminster and bordering the county of Somerset. The B3092 road between Frome and Mere, Wiltshire, Mere forms the village street. Bradley House (Wiltshire), Brad ...

to the north. The ridge is above sea level at its highest point and it is possible to view King Alfred's Tower, Cranmore Tower, the Black Mountains and

Glastonbury Tor Glastonbury Tor is a hill near Glastonbury in the English county of Somerset, topped by the roofless tower of St Michael's Church, a Grade I Listed building (United Kingdom), listed building. The site is managed by the National Trust and has be ...

on clear days. The hill is the site of the Long Knoll biological

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 ...

, which was notified in 1971, and is part of the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Long Knoll is the most westerly part of the remains of a chalk plateau. It forms a ridge that runs east and west for about a mile, and is higher than the surrounding land. The south-facing slope has a mosaic of longer and shorter turfs and has a mixture of grasses, sedges and

forb A forb or phorb is a herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid (grass, sedge, or rush). The term is used in botany and in vegetation ecology especially in relation to grasslands and understory. Typically, these are eudicots without woo ...

s. Here grow a typical calcareous community including glaucus sedge, sheep's-fescue, meadow oat-grass, heath-grass and common quaking-grass, together with cowslip, salad burnet, rock-rose, betony, small scabious and devil's-bit scabious. Some of the less common chalk grassland herbs include clustered bellflower, early purple orchid,

horseshoe vetch ''Hippocrepis comosa'', the horseshoe vetch, is a species of perennial flowering plant belonging to the genus '' Hippocrepis'' in the family Fabaceae. Description The overall appearance depends on its habitat: sometimes it forms upright clump ...

, kidney vetch and chalk milkwort. The north-facing slope, by contrast, has more mosses and bryophytes on the closely grazed turf, with tufted hair-grass, false oat-grass,

red fescue ''Festuca rubra'' is a species of grass known by the common name red fescue, creeping red fescue or the rush-leaf fescue. It is widespread across much of the Northern Hemisphere and can tolerate many habitats and climates. It is best adapted to w ...

and crested hair-grass. Common valerian is an unusual species to find on chalk soils, and other herbs include autumn gentian,

fairy flax ''Linum catharticum'', also known as purging flax, or fairy flax, is an herbaceous flowering plant in the family Linaceae, native to Great Britain, Iceland, central Europe and Western Asia. It is an annual plant and blooms in July and August. It ...

and an abundance of devil's-bit scabious. Long Knoll is categorised as a Marilyn, a hill with

topographic prominence In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...

of at least .

References

{{SSSIs Wilts biological Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1971 Marilyns of England Hills of Wiltshire