down the slope between Norwich Drive and Heath Hill Avenue. Within the wood is a remarkable secret glade that the Victorians called Bevendean Bank. Local conservationists guard its precious turf, mowing and pushing back the ever encroaching wood. There are lots of old grassland flowers and butterflies and a large population of purse-web spider. The site is so special that the entire woods has been designated a Local nature reserve with Bevendean Down and Hogtrough Bottom. Heath and Race Hill The south side of the Bevendean estate is a place of horse paddocks and scrub thickets, old allotment sites and cattle grazing. At the eastern end Upper Bevendean Farm () looks down from the higher slope. It was once one of many farms and an outlier of the old Bevendean Manor, which nestled in the valley where the Primary School now is. It has now become the only farm in the valley. The hill running from Auckland Drive to Warren road is called Heath Hill () and as its name implies it was once a place of heather and gorse. in the past there were areas of old Down pasture on the hill (such as ) where great green bush-cricket were present in high summer, but these areas have returned in scrub and no longer support such diversity. On Race Hill the paddocks around the Southdown Riding Stables () and Inglesíde Stables, to the east, receive no agro-chemicals and have become rich in wildlife over the past half century. Swallows and swifts, bats and dung beetles, rooks and woodpecker and the troll-like hornet robberfly all survive on the rich supply of insects attracted by the pony dung. Worryingly for those concerned by nature loss, both the farmsteads of Southdown's and Ingleside Stables are targeted for housing development within Brighton and Hove City Council's draft City Plan (Part 2). The loss of these two farmsteads, which organise the grazing and management of these nature-rich pastures, would put the pastures at risk. Cultural references Bevendean is referenced in the chapter "The Baffling Business of the Bevendean Bat" of the fantasy novel The Brightonomicon. References External links Bevendean pages on My Brighton and Hove site. Bevendean Community Garden Bevendean Primary School Bevendean History Project Areas of Brighton and Hove