Sunbury Park, part of a mosaic of green space in Spelthorne that allows wildlife to flourish, was originally part of the flood meadows of the River Thames. The Park was farmed for hundreds of years, evidenced by the drainage channels that run across the park and in the Ha-Ha that prevented grazing animals accessing the garden of Sunbury House which lay adjacent to Thames Street.

 

Today the Park has extensive areas of grass-land, scrub and woodland and is bounded by ancient walls, each of which has it’s own distinctive fauna and flora.

 

The grass-land, the most extensive area in the Park, has 17 or more grass species, a diversity that depends on its annual grazing or cutting in late summer. Cattle-grazing is ideal for this, since cutting is expensive and seldom undertaken at the right time of year. Grasses and other common plants in the Park , such as bacon-and-eggs, sorrel, bedstraw, trefoil, nettles and rose-bay willow-herb, are the food-plants of many insects, such as Brimstone, Peacock, Comma, Orange Tip, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Holly Blue and Common Blue Butterflies.

 

The Park’s Conservation Management Plan has identified six Nationally threatened, 11 rare and 47 uncommon insect species in the Park.