Exploring Strensall Common

You don’t always have to travel far to find wild places. Strensall Common is just five miles from the city of York but if you get off the beaten track, your only encounters will be with the Hebridean sheep that graze here.

The 1500 acre common is just one of a few remaining lowland heaths in the North and includes areas of heather, acid grassland, woodland, wetland and ponds. It was bought by the war department in the 1870s and preserved by the army who train here. Look out for old military boundary stones dotted along The Sike area.

It is also a haven for wildlife including a nationally important population of dark-bordered beauty moth. You might spot a buzzard circling above or a basking adder. If you visit in August, the heather is in flower, creating a springy purple carpet beneath slender grey trunks of the silver birch.