Bookham Commons are two commons

Common land

Common land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel...

, situated just to the north of the villages of Great Bookham

Great Bookham

-Today:The village has a high street, located in Great Bookham, which is, as its name suggests, the larger of the two villages. It has two butchers, a family run fishmongers and two traditional greengrocers...

 and Little Bookham

Little Bookham

Little Bookham is a small, historic village in Surrey, England, located between Great Bookham and Effingham.Bookham railway station is situated in the village.- History :...

, in Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, 1.51 square kilometres in extent; the individual parts are named Great Bookham Common and Little Bookham Common. A group of dwellings known as the Isle of Wight is situated within the site, and a track, Common Road, leads to the from the northwest. Little Bookham Common (the smaller of the two parts of the site) lies south and west of this track, whereas Great Bookham Common lies to the east.

Together the two commons comprise a Site of Special Scientific Interest

Site of Special Scientific Interest

A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...

, originally notified a such in 1961.

The site is owned by the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

. A network of public footpaths crosses the site.

Site description

The site sits on London Clay

London Clay

The London Clay Formation is a marine geological formation of Ypresian age which crops out in the southeast of England. The London Clay is well known for the fossils it contains. The fossils from the Lower Eocene indicate a moderately warm climate, the flora being tropical or subtropical...

. Habitat

Habitat (ecology)

A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...

 types present include woodland

Woodland

Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...

, scrub, grassland

Grassland

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...

 and open water

Open Water

Open Water is a 2003 horror film loosely based on the true story of an American couple, Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who in 1998 went out with a scuba diving group, Outer Edge Dive Company, on the Great Barrier Reef, and were accidentally left behind because the dive-boat crew failed to take an...

.

Woodland covers approximately two-thirds of the site. The majority of this woodland is mature and dominated by Pedunculate Oak

Pedunculate Oak

Quercus robur is commonly known as the Pedunculate Oak or English oak. It is native to most of Europe, and to Anatolia to the Caucasus, and also to parts of North Africa.-Taxonomy:Q...

 Quercus robur. These woodlands are dissected by a network of rides.

Little Bookham Common is a mosaic of rough grassland and scrub; much of this common is poorly drained and there are several old gunpits and bomb craters. The areas of open grassland are dominated by Tufted Hair-grass

Tufted Hair-grass

Deschampsia cespitosa, commonly known as Tufted Hair-grass or Tussock grass is a perennial tufted plant in the grass family Poaceae...

 Deschampsia cespitosa.

There are several woodland pond

Pond

A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens, water features and koi ponds; all designed for aesthetic ornamentation as landscape or architectural...

s on the site and a tributary

Tributary

A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

 of the River Mole

River Mole, Surrey

The River Mole is a tributary of the River Thames in southern England. It rises in West Sussex near Gatwick Airport and flows north west through Surrey for to the Thames near Hampton Court Palace. The river gives its name to the Surrey district of Mole Valley...

 runs across it.

Biodiversity interest

The site's nature conservation importance (the reason for SSSI designation), is due to its plant communities, its community of breeding birds and its invertebrate communities.

Thin-spiked wood sedge Carex strigosa, which is scarce in Surrey, is present in woodlands at the site. Two species of rose which are scarce in Surrey, Rosa micrantha and Rosa stylosa are found in the scrub on Little Bookham Common. The bryophyte

Bryophyte

Bryophyte is a traditional name used to refer to all embryophytes that do not have true vascular tissue and are therefore called 'non-vascular plants'. Some bryophytes do have specialized tissues for the transport of water; however since these do not contain lignin, they are not considered to be...

 flora in the site's woodland is rich and includes one of only two Surrey localities for the moss Zygodon conoideus. Notable plants found in the grassland of Little Bookham Common include Southern Marsh-orchid

Southern Marsh-orchid

The Southern Marsh Orchid or Leopard Marsh Orchid is acommonly occurring species of European orchid....

 Dactylorhiza praetermissa, Pepper-saxifrage Silaum silaus, Spiked sedge Carex spicata and Adder’s-tongue fern

Ophioglossum vulgatum

Ophioglossum vulgatum, commonly known as the Southern adderstongue, is a species of the plant genus Ophioglossum. It is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with a scattered distribution in Europe, Asia, northwestern Africa, and eastern North America.This plant grows from a...

 Ophioglossum vulgatum. The flora of the site's open water habitats includes three plants which are scarce in Surrey: Greater Duckweed Lemna polyrhiza, Fat Duckweed Lemna gibba and Thread-leaved Water-crowfoot Ranunculus trichophyllus, while tall-herb fen communities here support two plants which are rare in Surrey, the grass Orange Foxtail Alopecurus aequalis and Eared Willow Salix aurita.

Breeding birds which are associated with woodland at this site include Hawfinch

Hawfinch

The Hawfinch, Coccothraustes coccothraustes, is a passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. Its closest living relatives are the Evening Grosbeak from North America and the Hooded Grosbeak from Central America especially Mexico.This bird breeds across Europe and temperate Asia...

, Woodcock

Woodcock

The woodcocks are a group of seven or eight very similar living species of wading birds in the genus Scolopax. Only two woodcocks are widespread, the others being localized island endemics. Most are found in the Northern Hemisphere but a few range into Wallacea...

 and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is a member of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is assigned to the genus Dendrocopos ....

, whilst those breeding in scrub areas include Nightingale

Nightingale

The Nightingale , also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae...

 and Grasshopper Warbler

Grasshopper Warbler

The Grasshopper Warbler, Locustella naevia, is an Old World warbler in the grass warbler genus Locustella. It breeds across much of temperate Europe and Asia. It is migratory, wintering from northwest Africa to India....

.

The site has a very well-recorded invertebrate fauna, which includes 611 species of beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

, 1140 species of fly

Diptera

Diptera , or true flies, is the order of insects possessing only a single pair of wings on the mesothorax; the metathorax bears a pair of drumstick like structures called the halteres, the remnants of the hind wings. It is a large order, containing an estimated 240,000 species, although under half...

, 146 true bugs

Hemiptera

Hemiptera is an order of insects most often known as the true bugs , comprising around 50,000–80,000 species of cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and others...

, 201 spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...

s, 17 dragonflies

Dragonfly

A dragonfly is a winged insect belonging to the order Odonata, the suborder Epiprocta or, in the strict sense, the infraorder Anisoptera . It is characterized by large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and an elongated body...

 and over 300 species of butterflies and moths.

Dead oak trees provide habitat for several beetles which are scarce in Surrey including Nemadus colonoides and Aridius nodifer . Two moths which occur, the Toadflax Brocade

Calophasia lunula

Calophasia lunula is a species of noctuid moth known by the common names toadflax moth and toadflax brocade moth. It is used as an agent of biological pest control against yellow toadflax and Dalmatian toadflax Calophasia lunula is a species of noctuid moth known by the common names toadflax moth...

 and the Broad-bordered Bee Hawkmoth

Hemaris fuciformis

Hemaris fuciformis, known as the Broad-bordered Bee Hawk-moth, is a moth of the family Sphingidae. It is found in North Africa, Europe and Central and Eastern Asia.The wingspan is...

 are nationally rare. This is a well-known site for the Purple Emperor, and other scarce butterflies which are present include White-letter

White-letter Hairstreak

The White-letter Hairstreak is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae.-Appearance, behaviour and distribution:A dark little butterfly that spends the majority of its life in the tree tops, feeding on honeydew, making it best observed through binoculars. The uppersides are a dark brown with a small...

 and Purple Hairstreak

Purple Hairstreak

The Purple Hairstreak Neozephyrus quercus is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae distributed throughout much of Europe. North Africa, Asia Minor, Caucasus and Transcaucasia....

s and White Admiral

Limenitis camilla

The White Admiral, Limenitis camilla, is a butterfly of the Nymphalidae family. They are found in woodland throughout southern Britain and much of Europe and Asia, extending as far east as Japan....

.