Greenham and Crookham Commons is registered common land, providing open space for the public, land for grazing and exercising of commoners’ rights in addition to having significant cultural, historic and recreational value.

As well as being a Common, Greenham is one of Berkshire’s most important sites for wildlife, and a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Greenham Common’s importance for wildlife is due to the sheer size of the site combined with the variety of habitats found here. There are extensive areas of bare ground, heathland, grassland, scrub and woodland, which provide a unique range of habitats and homes for many nationally rare and endangered species.

Of particular importance for the way BBOWT looks after the site are nine, key ground-nesting bird species that breed in varying numbers and locations across the common. Some of these species are nationally important and occur at very few sites locally in West Berkshire. 

Each of these species has very particular habitat requirements that are only found in a few places, including here at Greenham and Crookham Commons, which makes the site so special and important for their survival.

The areas known as the ‘lozenges’ (which are the areas of heath, grassland and gorse either side of the old runway), the gravels and the heathland/woodland mix around the edge of the common are particularly important for these rare birds.

Nightjar, Dartford warbler, woodlark, nightingale and little ringed plover are the five most important breeding species found on site. The other species - meadow pipit, stonechat, linnet and skylark are slightly more common across Berkshire, but still listed as Species of Conservation Concern, with their population numbers continuing to decline at a national level.

Ground-nesting birds are particularly susceptible to disturbance from people and their dogs and so BBOWT has introduced Roam Zones where people can walk and exercise their dogs without disturbing birds during the nesting season (1 March – 31 July).

The two Roam Zones cover an area of 30 hectares. For a size comparison, Northcroft and Goldwell parks in Newbury combined are 14 hectares in size, whilst a football pitch is approximately 1 hectare.

As well as the Roam Zones, visitors are able to enjoy walks on over 47 kilometres of paths across the whole of the Common. This is equivalent to walking from Newbury to Oxford!

Despite being open access land and a common, the Greenham and Crookham Commons Act 2002 puts in place the provision to enable access to be controlled like this at key times of year for the benefit of nature conservation.

In addition to asking people to stick to the paths for these five months of the year, our seasonal wardens inform and educate visitors about the special nature of the site, helping them to understand how they can play their part in protecting the site's special birds.

BBOWT hopes that together these measure will ultimately benefit these rare and threatened bird species, on what is one of Berkshire’s most important sites.

Download a map of Greenham and Crookham Commons