Gamlingay Cinques and Meadow
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These small sites are the surviving scraps of Gamlingay Great Heath and provide a home for acid-loving plants |
Both sites have sandy soil, which is unusual in Cambridgeshire. Cinques Common is dry, dotted with harebells and filled with the scent of gorse bloom in the spring. Gamlingay Meadows is much wetter, fed by a spring with a small stream running along one side. The softer ground and damp hollows are filled with rushes, flowers such as scabious and the buttercup-like spearwort.
Cinques Common is a popular spot for local walkers, and restoration is in progress as we reclaim grassland from the scrubby oak trees. Slender St.John's wort, once common on the former Great Heath, still survives here.
Gamlingay Meadow has also been partially reclaimed from the adjacent woodland and offers the visitor intrepid enough to find it, a secluded and peaceful haven, where woodland bird song is backed by the hum of dragonflies and bees. Both tiny sites occasionally benefit from the grazing of rare breeds of sheep and cattle; you may see some of these horned beasts on your visit.
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Plants: Gorse, broom |
Plants: Harebell, devil’s-bit scabious, slender St.John's wort Reptiles: Grass snake |
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