Windsor Hill SSSI
| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 |
|
| Area of Search | Buckinghamshire |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | SP825027 |
| Interest | Biological |
| Area | 61.8 hectares |
| Notification | 1984 |
| Location map | Magic Map |
Windsor Hill is a 61.8 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire. It lies within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and it is featured in the Nature Conservation Review. A small part is managed by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, and access to this area requires a permit.
The wood consists of an extensive tract of the Chiltern escarpment. It contains beech woodlands, scrub and chalk grassland. It is one of three extant British locations for the red helleborine orchid.
The beech woodlands incorporate communities characteristic of soils on the Clay-with-flints of the Chiltern plateau and the chalky deposits of the scarp slopes. Associated with the beech on the plateau are oak and occasional birch whilst on the slopes, the associated species are ash and whitebeam. Both even-aged and more mixed stands are represented, the latter typically with a shrub layer including gorse and honeysuckle on the plateau, and elder and hazel on the slopes.
On the plateau, brambles, bracken and rosebay willowherb occupy extensive patches, but a more mixed ground flora occurs between these, including creeping soft-grass (Holcus mollis), hairy brome (Bromus ramosus), tufted hair-grass (Deschampsia cespitosa), wood millet (Milium effusum) and wood melick (Melica uniflora). Pill sedge (Carex pilulifera), hairy wood-rush (Luzula pilosa) and slender St. John's-wort (Hypericum pulchrum) are found in more heathy areas, and the rushes Juncus effusus and J. conglomeratus are present in damper areas.
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