About the Portsdown Hill Conservation Volunteers website

Read the key and conventions
Read the technical stuff

What and Where

This site about the work of the Portsdown Hill Conservation Volunteers. Portsdown Hill is a ridge of chalk overlooking Portsmouth Harbour on the south coast of England. It supports a richly diverse calcareous grassland ecology on its south side, which has SSSI status.

Volunteering - Who, Where and When

The Portsdown Hill Conservation Volunteers usually work on the south side of the hill, from the east of Porchester, westward as far as the area opposite the Churchillian pub, and above the QA hospital. Occasionally, work is done on the walk around Fort Widley itself, which is the base of operations.

Most Wednesdays and some Sundays (generally, the 3rd Sunday of the month), the Portsdown Hill Conservation Volunteers meet for an enjoyable day of varied tasks, which can be seen throughout this website.
We meet just before 10am at Fort Widley, and new volunteers are always welcome. (That's the fort above the QA hospital, just west of the Churchillian pub; use the east entrance, as the other is a riding school).
Phone the ranger Richard Jones, on 023 9238 9623, for confirmation of time and date, and more details.
Or e-mail him at: rjones@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Most days I come home "happy and tired", covered in blood, sweat and tears - the tears being in my clothes and my skin, from where the blood is often leaking out.
However this is not mandatory: most volunteers do not end up ruining their clothes and skin.

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Website organisation

This site is divided into the following sections:

What, Why and How

What: Sustainable Management

This section covers the reasons we are doing what we are doing. The chalk ridge of Portsdown Hill contains some of the last remaining 5% of calcareous grassland in the UK, as most has disappeared under development and more profitable uses.
Properly managed, the grassland supports a huge variety of flora and fauna, including orchids and increasingly-rare butterflies.
It includes pages about sustainability, fencing, scrub clearance and other activities: Sustainable Management

Why: Life

Why we are doing it all - the ecology pages, with images and a bit about the flora and fauna. A species list of flora on the hill is also included: Life

How: Tasks A-Z

A summary of some of the tasks that need to be done, to achieve the restoration of calcareous grassland on Portsdown Hill: Tasks

Information Sheets

Educational notes

A hand-out prepared by the ranger for use by schools and anyone else interested: Notes for site visit

Management Plan

The ranger's 5-year management plan, 1999 - 2005: Management Plan

Preview Features

A document containing 30 page-long articles about various aspects of the ecology of the Hill. These began life as essays in the "Portsdown Preview", a news-sheet occasionally issued from the Portsdown office: Preview Articles

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Key and conventions

I have followed certain presentational conventions, peculiar to this site:

Thumbnail images with a thick green border, like that on the first page, can be expanded to full size by clicking the image
Images with a black border do not expand, however much you click them
Some of the images, especially those of flora and fauna, have the photographer's name embedded such that when you hover the mouse pointer over the image, their name will appear.
All other images were either taken by me (hilma) or of me.
Text that appears like this may be have a definition or acronym expansion 'behind', or be a question. The additional information appears when you hover the pointer over the text.