Parham Park. Tress, Lichens & Bryophytes; Geology and Needlework Nature. 01.05.23

To visit Parham House and Garden Parham House and Gardens | Elizabethan House | West Sussex : Parham House & Gardens (parhaminsussex.co.uk) by public transport you can get the Stagecoach Bus 1 from Worthing or Midhurst to Storrington 1 Bus Route & Timetable: Worthing - Midhurst | Stagecoach (stagecoachbus.com), and walk (20 minutes) to the entrance to the house and gardens. I took the train from Brighton to Worthing (24 minutes) and then took the bus from Worthing to Storrington (34 mins). The buses run once and hour (or once every two hours on Sundays and bank holidays)

Map from OS Maps: Explore hiking trails - Apps on Google Play

I visited Parham House and Grounds to visit the Deer Park: 1 Bus Route & Timetable: Worthing - Midhurst | Stagecoach (stagecoachbus.com) which is an SSSI site: Parham Park is a medieval deer park situated on Folkestone Sands at the foot of the South Downs. It has one of the richest epiphytic lichen floras in south east England. 1000637 (naturalengland.org.uk) However, most of the deer park is inaccessible to the public; only a little of it can be accessed along the path into the House and Gardens and along one public footpath. Parham house is situated on the lower greensands of the Low Weald, which is under the outgroup of the cretaceous chalks of the South Downs.

As I walked into the grounds I saw two ancient oaks clad with lichens.

Tow lichens were dominant: Ochrolechia parella

and Pyrrhospora quernia

As I walked to the house I passed a large outcrop of Folkstone Sands, part of the Lower Greensand Group. In Sussex, Kent and Surrey the formation comprises medium- and coarse-grained, well-sorted cross-bedded sands and weakly cemented sandstones BGS Lexicon of Named Rock Units - Result Details

Indicative Crosssection of the geology of the South Downs and Waald

fro : Overall Character of the South Downs (westsussex.gov.uk)

The soft Folkstone sands make a very suitable habitat for mining solitary bees

and mosses and lichens

Probably Pseudocrossidium hornschuchianum Hornschuch’s Beard-moss

with a Bruym sp, probaby B. dichotomum Bicoloured Bryum

Pseudocrossidium hornschuchianum

Cerastium glomeratum, Sticky Mouse-ear

Egyptian Goose

The Gardens

A Yew, possibly with Opegrapha prosodea; a rarer lichen in the South East

A spotty eighteen-century Spaniel garden sculpture; spotted with Calogaya decipiens

Garden Orb

Liverwort Radula complanta and moss Rhynchostegium confertum on lilac

Tortula muralis

Moss Schistidium crassipilum and Ochrolechia parella on the bricks of a grass and bricke maze.

Needlework from the early seventieth century showing nature motifs (animals and plants).