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North Downs
• Dramatic and distinctive Chalk downland with a continuous and steep scarp giving extensive views across Kent and Surrey towards the South Downs.
• The broad dip slope gradually drops towards the Thames and the English Channel. The dip slope is incised by a number of valleys or 'coombes' of the rivers Stour, Medway, Darent and Mole.
• Chalk soils on the scarp, at the base and in the dry valleys, support areas of high-quality unimproved chalk grassland. Clay-with-flints soils on the upper parts of the dip-slope supports oak/ash woodland and scrub with beech/ash/maple is common on the valley sides, such as on Box Hill.
• Land use includes a few pockets of traditional downland grazing but (especially in Kent) it is largely dominated by arable fields. These fields at the base of the scarp have extended their regular pattern up the sides of the Downs.
• The North Downs are a rural landscape with scattered flint-walled farmhouses and large houses. Towards London, while some valleys of species-rich grassland are still retained, the character changes to urban, with the topography masked by the built-up areas.
• The south-eastern end of the Downs becomes increasingly open and more intensively farmed as it widens before ending abruptly at the distinctive chalk cliffs of Dover. In places, it is undulating with dry grassed valleys and ridgetop woodlands.
• In some areas, major motorway and railway corridors introduce a discordant feature into an otherwise quiet and peaceful rural landscape.
• In the east, the lower dip-slope is characterised by high quality, fertile, loamy soils that support extensive tracts of cereals, root and other horticultural crops.
• Woodland and shaws cover much of the dry valleys and, in places, they are a characteristic of the ridgetop.
• Lanes follow the lines of old drove roads in many places.
For further details on this character area and for an introduction to the region, please see the PDF documents in the box at the top right hand side of this page.
