South Downs National Park Boundary Marker

South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on March 31, 2010. The park covers an area of 1,627 square kilometers in the south of England and extends for 140 kilometers from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east, through the counties of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex. The national park includes the chalk hills of the South Downs (which on the Channel coast form the white cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head) and a significant part of a distinct physical-geographical region, the western Weald, with its heavily wooded sandstone and clay hills and valleys.

The idea for a national park on the South Downs emerged as early as the 1920s, when there was growing concern about increasing threats to the beautiful landscape, especially the impact of uncontrolled speculative housing development on the eastern Sussex Downs. The national park has a rich industrial heritage and history, such as old iron mines, watermills, castles and country houses. The national park also has great biodiversity and is home to more than 3,000 species of plants and animals, including rare orchids, butterflies, birds and bats.

Lovely new signs clearly marking the national park