Roadside Nature Reserves include a number of scarce and threatened wildlife habitats such as ancient woodland, heathland and chalk grassland. One chalk grassland verge supports so many plants that the flower and grass seed has been collected and used to help create new chalk grassland on nearby arable land.
One of Europe's finest surviving chalk downlands, this reserve contains areas of chalk downland, ancient semi-natural grassland and marginal woodland. It is rich in species and chalk flowers include burnt-tip and early spider orchid. It is a good site for butterflies such as common, Adonis and chalkhill blues as well as a number of grasshoppers and bush-crickets, including the largest British species, the great green bush-cricket. Bird species include skylark and some birds of prey.