Malling Down is an nature reserve on the eastern outskirts of

Lewes Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. The town is the administrative centre of the wider Lewes (district), district of the same name. It lies on the River Ouse, Sussex, River Ouse at the point where the river cuts through the Sou ...

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 ...

. It is managed by the

Sussex Wildlife Trust The Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) is a conservation charity which aims to protect natural life in Sussex. It was founded in 1961 and is one of 46 The Wildlife Trusts partnership, wildlife trusts across the UK and the Isle of Man and Alderney. As ...

. It is part of Lewes Downs, which is a

Nature Conservation Review ''A Nature Conservation Review'' is a two-volume work by Derek Ratcliffe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1977. It set out to identify the most important places for nature conservation in Great Britain. It is often known by the initi ...

site, Grade I.

Special Area of Conservation A special area of conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...

and

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 ...

. 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 ...

site is chalk grassland, which is one of Britain's richest habitats for flowers. There are many orchids including the widespread common spotted and

fragrant An aroma compound, also known as an odorant, aroma, fragrance, flavoring or flavor, is a chemical compound that has a smell or odor. For an individual chemical or class of chemical compounds to impart a smell or fragrance, it must be sufficie ...

and rarer ones such as the

musk Musk is a class of aromatic substances commonly used as base notes in perfumery. They include glandular secretions from animals such as the musk deer, numerous plants emitting similar fragrances, and artificial substances with similar odors. ' ...

and

frog orchid ''Dactylorhiza viridis'', the frog orchid, is a species of flowering plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae. It has also been treated as the only species ''Coeloglossum viride'' of the monotypic genus ''Coeloglossum''. Description The plant ari ...

References

{{Sussex Wildlife Trust Sussex Wildlife Trust