Up Marden lies on the chalk escarpment of the South Downs at an elevation from about to . The hills are part of the Southern England Chalk Formation of rocks laid down during the Late Cretaceous period around 66 to 90 million years ago. Soils are of the Andover 1 association consisting of shallow silty calcareous well drained soils which overlie chalk on the slopes and ridges of the hills. Deeper calcareous or non-calcareous fine silty soils occur in the dry valleys. These soils which dry out quickly after rain are suited to cereal production, grassland and beech woodland. Plants are able to root deeply and extract water from the underlying chalk during dry summers.