All posts by Luke Geoghegan

On the seventh day of Christmas the South Down National Park gave us… Swans-a-Swimming at Swanbourne Lake. Swanbourne Lake started off life as a Mill Pond which was recorded as far back as the Doomsday survey. In the late 18th century the pond was enlarged to form the lake which is fed mainly by the ‘Blue […]

On the fifth day of Christmas…

December 18th, 2015

On the fifth day of Christmas, instead of five gold rings, the South Downs National Park is sharing with you five Iron Age hill fort ‘rings’. We are extremely lucky in the South Downs National Park to be home to many historical features. From Bronze Age barrows, Saxon and Norman churches, dew ponds, to historic […]

On the sixth day of Christmas…

December 18th, 2015

On the sixth day of the South Downs Christmas, we visited SouthDownsFood.org to find some great local locally produced geese – and chocolate, and wine, and beer, and cheese and ice-cream… We discovered that Durleighmarsh Farm shop is stocking Hyden Farm Originals geese, born and bred in Hambledon. Hyden Farm is a small family run […]

On the fourth day of Christmas…

December 16th, 2015

On the fourth day of Christmas the South Downs brought us… No ordinary calling birds, instead we have the beautiful barn owl. Barn owls can be found across the South Downs National Park but you’ll need to stay sharp-eyed to catch a glimpse of their ghostly flight. While hawks use their high speed to surprise […]

On the third day of Christmas…

December 15th, 2015

What’s that screeching into view for day three of our Twelve Days of The South Downs? Chasing away the French hens, it’s the hen harrier! One of the UK’s scarcest breeding birds of prey they are recorded each year in the National Park over winter but are usually single birds that don’t stay in one […]