About the reserve

Chapel Down is one of the most iconic locations on the Isles of Scilly, sitting in the shadow of the red-and-white-striped Daymark. Pick a sunny day to follow the paths up to the plateau. In the spring, you can hear the gorse popping in the warm sun, smell the heady, coconutty scent and tune in to the chat-chat of calling stonechats.

The site is situated 35m above sea level at the eastern end of St Martin's, demonstrating some of the most distinctive ‘waved’ maritime heathland on the Isles of Scilly. The cliffs are home to small populations of breeding seabirds, including Manx shearwaters and lesser black-backed gulls. The rocks are covered in lichens, including the rare ‘litmus’ lichen Rocella Fuciformis.

The waved heath is dominated by low growing specimens of heather and bell heather and western gorse. Scattered across the site are small populations tormentil, heath bedstraw and English stonecrop. Chapel Down is particularly important for the nationally rare orange bird’s-foot and the endangered red-barbed ants, which are both found at only a handful of sites in the UK. Further west, on the north facing slopes on deeper soils, bracken and bramble are dominant, but there are also small populations of the notable greater bird’s-foot trefoil and pignut, which are both rare on Scilly.

We are focusing on reducing the amount of bracken and bramble from the western end of Chapel Down at Bread and Cheese Cove and Coldwind Valley. The result of twice-yearly bracken cutting and grazing in the spring and late summer has lead to an abundance of greater bird’s-foot trefoil, pignut and heather. We work to ensure that bracken is controlled and the large European gorse stands are managed to provide open habitat for red-barbed ants and nesting cover for breeding birds like meadow pipits and stonechats.