side where the graveyard of the nuns from St George's Retreat is located. Despite sitting on Weald Clay, it has considerable internal variety, particularly along the green lane track. Jointer Copse () sits on Gault Clay and is a wet wood of young hazel coppice under old ash stools. You will also find in the woodland goldilocks buttercup, redcurrants, meadowsweet and angelica to complement the spring bluebells, ramsons and anemones, and the midland thorn and early dog violet. Ditchling Common Ditchling Common is probably the best old Wealden grassland site in central Sussex. It has been described as "one of the most precious jewels in the crown of the Low Weald". The Common is now split into two. The northern half was bought from the commoners (who collectively owned it) in 1974 by East Sussex County Council, de-designated as common land, and designated as a Country Park. The Country Park is well known for its spring time display of Bluebells. The southern half, south of Folders Lane East, is managed by the Commoners Association, and there you can still see great egg yellow sheets of dyer's greenweed in early summer. The area has lost much of its wild beauty due to the mismanagement by a few farmers and neglect, but there is hope that the area can be restored if adequate resources are provided. It is still home to many butterflies including a well established colony of the rare black hairstreak butterfly which was first identified there in 2017. Scarp and downland The south of the parish rises to the top of the Downs, and the scarp slope forms part of the Clayton to Offham Escarpment Site of Special Scientific Interest. These Ditchling Downs were one of the last surviving local landscapes mantled by a unitary cover of ancient flowery chalk grassland. They were broken up by agri-business farmers in the 1950's. Many areas of species-rich ancient grassland do survive, however, both on the scarp and in the dip slope 'Bottoms', though they carry too great a cover of invasive thorn scrub. The area is known for the endangered and rare birds, which come from southern climes to breed here. Ditchling Beacon and its bostals At 813 ft (248 metres) Ditchling Beacon () is the highest point on the eastern Downs and offers far-reaching views across the Sussex Weald. It was an Iron Age Fort and has a number of