Upton Towans nature reserve

Habitat type: Sand-dune and grassland Size of Reserve: 97ha (239 acres) OS Map No. 102 Grid reference: SW 579 398 (parking at SW 581 407) Best time to visit: All year
Cornwall Wildlife Trust encourages the use of environmentally friendly forms of transport wherever possible. Click on the locator map above to go to the National Cycle Network website and view an Ordnance Survey map of this reserve highlighting nearby cycle routes.

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Directions:

From a track leading to the left off the B3301, 2 miles (3km) northeast of Hayle.

Access:

Parking at the gate entrance is very limited; visitors should park at the Gwithian Towans car park further north, and walk over the dunes. The SW Coast Path runs the length of The Towans and other paths cross the reserve, some of which may be suitable for wheelchair access. Off these paths, the surface can be potholed and uneven, and some grassed slopes will be slippery even in the dry. The area is dotted with mine shafts.

Classification

Description:

Sand dunes rise steeply from the beach. The inland dunes have wider vegetation cover. The reserve affords stunning views across St Ives Bay.

Characteristic wildlife of this reserve:

The pyramidal orchid has very distinctive, bright rosy purple flowers arranged in a dense pyramid, with narrow, unspotted leaves at the base of the plant and sheathing leaves up the stem. The plant's flower is ideally adapted to the proboscis of butterflies and moths carrying abundant nectar in its long spur. This orchid needs a calcareous substrate and so is only found on dunes and coastal blown sand in Cornwall.

The glow worm is not a worm at all, but a beetle of up to 25mm long, and its 'glow' is caused by a chemical reaction. Only the wingless, larvae-like females glow to attract the males, which fly in search of a mate. Glow worm larvae are carnivorous and prey on small snails, tracing them by the slime trails, paralysing and sucking them empty.

Despite a decline in numbers during the 20th century, the silver-studded blue butterfly lives here. Named for its silver mark within the spots on the underneath of the hindwing, this butterfly makes a marvellous sight in flight. The female is brown but, like the male has a distinctive spot on the hindwing.

Other information:

The ruins of the National Explosives Works are highly visible here. Established in 1888, the last explosive made here was for naval use during World War 1. There is still evidence of a network of single-line rails leading from the dynamite factory to individual sand 'bunkers' where the explosives were kept.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust Nature Reserves

List of reserves ... Armstrong Woods Bakers Pit Beales Meadow Bissoe Valley Bosvenning Common Cabilla and Redrice Woods Caer Brân Carn Moor Chûn Downs Churchtown Farm Chyverton Devichoys Wood Downhill Meadow Fal-Ruan Estuary Five Acres Fox Corner Greena Moor Halbullock Hawkes Wood Helman Tor Kemyel Crease Kennall Vale Lanvean Bottoms Loggan's Moor Loveny Lower Lewdon Luckett Maer Lake Nansmellyn Marsh North Predannack Downs Park Hoskyn Pendarves Wood Penlee Battery Phillips's Point Priddacombe Downs Prideaux Wood Quoit Heathland Redlake Cottage Meadows Ropehaven Cliffs Rosenannon Downs St Erth Pits St George's Island Swanvale Sylvia's Meadow Tamar Estuary Tincombe Trebarwith Tresayes Tywardreath Marsh Upton Meadow Upton Towans Ventongimps Moor Welcombe & Marsland Windmill Farm

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