View from the summit of Gun Hill, looking north-east

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1 GUN HILL Norfolk from the website for the book Discover Butterflies in Britain D E Newland View from the summit of Gun Hill, looking north-east Gun Hill is a high sand dune about a mile and a half from Burnham Overy Staithe on the North Norfolk Coast. It is accessible only by walking from the Overy Staithe or from a nearby informal car park on the A149 coast road. A wide, sandy beach runs all the way from Hunstanton to Morston. Its mix of high sand dunes, low mud flats and tidal estuaries are part of the Norfolk Coast AONB. Gun Hill is near Burnham Overy Staithe and within the Holkham NNR. This is owned by Lord Leicester s Holkham Estate and managed in cooperation with Natural England. TARGET SPECIES Dark Green Fritillaries, Graylings, Brown Argus, Small Heath and other commoner species. To reach Gun Hill, you have to walk for about half-an-hour, either from Burnham Overy Staithe or from informal roadside parking about ½ mile east of the Overy Staithe, on the A149 coast road. From the roadside lay-by, you walk for about ¾ mile through the Overy Marshes and then go up onto the sea wall. Here you join the Norfolk Coast Path from Burnham Overy Staithe to Wells-next-the-Sea. This is the footpath that you would be on if you started from Overy Staithe. It is a good, hard-surfaced path for about another ¾ mile, ending in a boardwalk as it approaches the sandy beach. Now the Coast Path bears

2 right across the sands, but you bear left for Gun Hill. Then it is an easy scramble across the dunes for about another ½ mile to reach the high point of Gun Hill. There are fine views, south to Burnham Overy Staithe and west towards Scolt Head. Gun Hill is a high sand dune, about 16 m above mean sea level, with well-established vegetation but with a volcano-like blow-out at its centre. This is where high winds have torn out the surface plants and lifted sand out to make a large, deep hollow. Around the sides and to the east and south of this hollow, wild privet has become strongly established, with many bushes at least 2m high. Gun Hill is at the western end of a long line of high sand dunes called the Holkham Meals. Dark Green Fritillaries and Graylings have been seen all along these dunes, but only occasionally, and the main Dark Green colony appears to be centred on Gun Hill. The first time I went, it was a sunny, hot afternoon in late June, the traditional weather for the first week of Wimbledon. But there was still a keen wind across the high dunes and butterflies were moving fast. During the walk to Gun Hill, there were plenty of Meadow Browns on the hedgerows through the marshes, and Painted Ladies were everywhere (this being the 2009 good year for them). Almost as soon as I climbed onto Gun Hill, I saw a rushing between its brief re-fuelling stops. Except during early morning and in the evening, males spend only a few seconds drinking nectar before rushing on to continue their search for females in the grass below. During the next hour or so, I must have had another half-dozen sightings, one of which was kind enough to wait on a thistle to be photographed. The next day I returned, and saw another 8 or 10 in the space of about an hour towards the end of the day. A couple of days before, I had been to Horsey Warren, where there were more Dark Greens on the wing but I have been told that they usually emerge later at Gun Hill and that the colony there builds up in July. Most of the fritillaries that I saw on the wing at Gun Hill and Horsey Warren were males. The females like to keep out of sight basking low down or egg-laying. Mating, if it occurs, is invariably low down in long grass. The time to take photographs and to look for females is towards the end of the day, when they will be found drinking nectar from thistles or knapweed, or from brambles if there are any, or, at Gun Hill, from the wild privet which flourishes here. The foodplant for caterpillars is usually one of the species of the violet family. In coastal locations, heath dog violets are used. These are quite similar to common dog violets in appearance, although they are more straggly and they are hard to identify when their flowers have faded. For generations, Burnham Overy provided a port for the surrounding villages, but commercial shipping ceased after the First World War when competition from the railway could be resisted no longer. Now Burnham Overy Staithe is a busy centre for sailing. To reach the sea, small boats come and go along Overy Creek which passes between Scolt Head Island and Gun Hill. Burnham Overy mill is a notable landmark on the A149 about ½ mile west of the Staithe. At the end of the 19 th century, there were three separate mills here. A 16 hp steam engine drove 4 millstones, a watermill used the power of the River Burn to drive 3 millstones, and the present windmill drove three more millstones. The windmill was given to the National Trust in 1958, having not worked since 1919 and has been partially restored. It is now used for holiday accommodation.

3 Holkham National Nature Reserve stretches from Burnham Norton in the west to Blakeney in the east and covers some 4,000 ha (15.5 sq miles). Scolt Head is a separate NNR, and both Holkham and Scolt Head NNRs fall within the North Norfolk Coast SSSI which covers 7,700 ha (30 sq miles). Its management consortium includes the National Trust and the RSPB. For birders, the whole area is well-known for migratory birds and wintering waterflowl, including brent and pink-footed geese, and wigeon. Breeding bird communities include sandwich terns, little terns, common terns, avocets, and bearded tits. The dunes and salt marshes support many different plant communities. On the dunes you may find sea rocket and saltwort, sea sandwort, centaury, bird s-foot trefoil, pyramidal orchids and bee orchids. The rare Jersey cudweed may also be found on the damp, leeward side of the dunes. On the salt marshes, you can expect to see sea aster, sea lavender, sea purslane, sea plantain and sea wormwood as well as many other common and rare seaside plants. A feature of the North Norfolk coastline is that it is in a constant state of flux. To the west, at Holme and Brancaster, localised erosion is threatening grazing marches and the golf club, while at Holkham the opposite is taking place. The dune barriers in Holkham bay have been growing since the 1950s. The result is that the beach behind the dunes here has become muddy where once it was sandy, and samphire and other saltmarsh plants have taken hold. Recently, I met a couple at Holkham Gap who had not been there for ten years. They were astonished to find that the flat beach behind the dunes was now green where they had remembered it as yellow. West side of Gun Hill, looking east Boardwalk of the Norfolk Coast Path, approaching the shore

4 End of the boardwalk; Gun Hill is to the left Little Tern breeding area, north of Gun Hill Mudflats south of Gun Hill, looking west Mudflats in the evening sunshine Scrubby vegetation on Gun Hill Sheltered vegetation where a found a flowering thistle

5 Vegetation on Gun Hill, looking north Masonry relic on Gun Hill View from Gun Hill towards Burnham Overy View from Gun Hill towards Burnham Overy Ordnance Survey marker on Gun Hill Meadow Brown (f) in evening sunlight on the path through Burnham marshes

6 (m) at Gun Hill in late June

7 at Gun Hill

8 Wild privet on the south side of Gun Hill Grassy vegetation on the north side of Gun Hill, looking north with Scolt Head on the left Vegetation on the south side of Gun Hill Birds on the north side of Gun Hill

9 LOCATION Explorer Map 24: Norfolk Coast Central Landranger (pink) Map 132: North West Norfolk Grid references: A149 lay-by car park: TF Gun Hill: TF Gun Hill is on the North Norfolk coast near Burnham Overy Staithe. This is about 12 miles east of Hunstanton. There is parking at Burnham Overy Staithe or at an informal car park on the A149 about ½ mile east of the Overy Staithe. Both car parks are about 2 miles from Gun Hill. Walking is straightforward because the paths are easy, but they are not suitable for wheelchairs. It would be possible to sail to Gun Hill from the Overy Staithe, but landing is difficult because there is no landing stage. Walking on Gun Hill involves gentle scrambling and should not prove difficult except for the rabbit holes. These are everywhere and a dangerous trap for the unwary.