Blow's Down, also commonly known as Blow's Downs or Blows Downs, is an area of chalk downland between Dunstable and Luton in Bedfordshire, England. It forms part of the Chiltern Hills chalk escarpment and rises above the Luton Dunstable Busway transport corridor.https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/migrated_images/guidance_tcm3-5344.pdf
A 33.1-hectare (82-acre) part of the down is designated at the biological Blow's Down Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), while the wider nature reserve managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire covers 77 hectares (190 acres). The SSSI was notified in 1989.
The reserve consists principally of species-rich chalk grassland, together with scrub, former agricultural land, medieval cultivation earthworks and a disused chalk quarry. Its unusual combination of slope aspect, geology and historic disturbance has created a particularly varied series of grassland communities.
Blow's Downs is also a long-established inland bird migration watchpoint. Its importance for spring migration was recognised by local ornithologists by the late 1970s and early 1980s, and systematic monitoring began during the mid-1980s.https://www.bnhs.co.uk/journalarchive/pdf/BedsNats%201990%20No%2045.pdf
The landscape has a long and unusually varied history of human activity. Archaeological evidence from the wider Blow's Downs–Zouches Farm area includes Mesolithic and Neolithic flint, Roman-period activity, medieval cultivation remains and a nationally protected complex of medieval earthworks beside Zouches Farm.https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-417-1/dissemination/pdf/headland4-178407_1.pdfhttps://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1005400 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries part of the down became a substantial chalk and lime works connected directly to the railway, before the landscape later acquired roles as public recreation land and a protected nature reserve.https://bedsarchivescat.bedford.gov.uk/Details/archive/110363064
Landscape and geology Blow's Down forms part of the chalk escarpment south-east of Dunstable. Central Bedfordshire Council described this part of the landscape as an area where the aspect of the escarpment changes abruptly from north-west-facing to south-west-facing and where the chalk is locally capped by clay.
The changes in aspect and geology, together with the former quarry and banks associated with historic cultivation, have helped create an unusually varied range of grassland communities.
Archaeological investigation at nearby Zouches Farm records the underlying solid geology as the Cretaceous Lewes Nodular Chalk Formation and Seaford Chalk Formation, with clay-with-flints deposits surviving locally above the chalk.
The downs form a prominent landscape feature on the eastern edge of Dunstable and provide extensive views from the upper slopes. The highest point of the reserve reaches approximately 212 metres (696 ft) above sea level.
The modern reserve contains steep chalk slopes, grassland, scrub, former paddocks and a disused quarry. The Luton Dunstable Busway follows the former railway corridor along the foot of the downs.
Ecology Blow's Down is important primarily for its species-rich calcareous grassland. The combination of thin chalk soils, differing slope aspects and long-established management produces several distinct grassland communities.
Plants recorded on the reserve include orchids, scabious and knapweeds, together with species characteristic of short chalk turf such as horseshoe vetch, kidney vetch and common rock-rose. These plants support specialist chalk-grassland butterflies including chalkhill blue, brown argus and small blue.
One of the reserve's notable plants is great pignut (Bunium bulbocastanum). The Wildlife Trust considers Blow's Downs to support possible the largest population of the species in Bedfordshire.
The site also has an important invertebrate fauna. A beetle survey published in The Bedfordshire Naturalist recorded 171 beetle species at Blow's Downs in 1991.https://www.bnhs.co.uk/journalarchive/pdf/BedsNats%201991%20No%2046.pdf Nationally notable species included Leiodes badia, Leiodes rugosa, Ptomaphagus varicornis and Cryptocephalus aureolus.
The rare dung beetle Odontus armiger was also recorded. The species had previously been found at Blow's Downs in 1988 and was at the time regarded as a Red Data Book species.
The open chalk grassland is maintained through grazing and scrub management. Cattle and ponies are used on parts of the reserve, while hawthorn, bramble and other woody vegetation are controlled to prevent the flower-rich grassland from being progressively replaced by scrub.
Bird migration Blow's Downs is recognised as an important inland bird-migration watchpoint. R. A. Dazley's published study of spring migration between 1985 and 1990 states that local ornithologists had recognised the site's importance during the late 1970s and early 1980s, with increasingly systematic recording beginning in the mid-1980s.
The site is particularly associated with spring passage of northern wheatear and ring ouzel. Other migrants recorded at Blow's Downs include redstart, black redstart, whinchat, pied flycatcher and firecrest.
Historical county bird reports demonstrate the scale of some movements. During spring 1989, more than 40 wheatears were recorded on Blow's Downs on 29 April, while ring ouzels were recorded repeatedly during the spring passage period.https://www.bnhs.co.uk/journalarchive/pdf/BedsNats%201989%20No%2044.pdf
Repeated recording over several decades has established Blow's Downs as one of Bedfordshire's most productive sites for observing migrating ring ouzels and wheatears.
History
Prehistory and Roman period Archaeological finds demonstrate prehistoric activity across the wider landscape around Blow's Downs and Zouches Farm. A professional archaeological assessment drawing on the Central Bedfordshire Historic Environment Record records a significant collection of Mesolithic and Neolithic flint within 500 metres of Zouches Farm, together with additional prehistoric findspots within one kilometre.
The evidence therefore demonstrates human activity in the landscape substantially earlier than the approximately 4,000-year chronology sometimes given in older accounts of Blow's Downs. Flint scatters alone do not, however, establish that permanent settlement existed on the down itself.
The best-known nineteenth-century archaeological investigations at Blow's Downs were undertaken by the Dunstable antiquarian Worthington George Smith. Smith interpreted a series of surface depressions as prehistoric or "British" huts and investigated two of them in 1888.https://cbasm.archaeologyuk.org/index_htm_files/VOLUME%2002.PDF
A later county archaeological inventory recorded a group of 24 "hut depressions" at Blow's Downs. It noted that Smith's excavations produced pottery and flint scrapers but that the finds could not securely establish the age or function of the features.
Further excavation by archaeologist Gerald Dunning in 1929 produced no additional evidence that resolved their interpretation. Smith's identification of the depressions as prehistoric dwellings should therefore be understood as a historical archaeological interpretation rather than as proof of a Neolithic settlement.
Evidence of later activity is also recorded around Zouches Farm. The Central Bedfordshire Historic Environment Record identified two possible Roman roads, a possible second-century farmstead, Roman pottery and a cropmark enclosure that may be Roman in date in the surrounding landscape.
Other archaeological investigations nearby have produced evidence of Iron Age and Roman activity. The available evidence therefore suggests repeated prehistoric and Romano-British use of the wider Blow's Downs–Zouches landscape, although the precise character of settlement on the down itself remains uncertain.
Medieval landscape and Zouches Manor The medieval period left substantial physical traces in the landscape. Banks and terraces associated with medieval cultivation survive on parts of Blow's Downs and contribute to the varied topography of the modern reserve.
Following the establishment of the town of Dunstable by Henry I, the land would likely have been rented by the king, with the slopes of the downs being mainly used for grazing as they were too steep to plough. There is however, some evidence of crops being grown, namely the existence of strip lynchets, quite visible in the area now known as Cottage Bottom fields.
Immediately west of Zouches Farm lies a nationally protected archaeological site. Historic England schedules it under the title "Medieval village 100m west of Zouches Farm".
The earthworks survive to approximately 1 to 1.5 metres in height and include an east-west hollow way, apparent house platforms on either side, subsidiary streets and a circular mound interpreted as the possible base of a windmill. Fragments of roof tile and building stone have also been recovered from the site.
Historic England interprets the remains as a well-preserved deserted medieval settlement whose archaeological and environmental deposits may preserve evidence for medieval domestic life and culture.
That interpretation is not entirely uncontested. The 2015 Headland Archaeology assessment, summarising the Central Bedfordshire History Environment Record, states that the earthworks were originally considered to represent a deserted medieval village but are now thought more likely to consist substantially of medieval manorial enclosures associated with Zouches Manor.
The two interpretations therefore coexist in the published record: the statutory designation describes a medieval village, while later local archaeological interpretation favours a manorial explanation for at least part of the complex.
Zouches formed one of the manorial holdings associated with medieval Caddington. The wider Caddington estate belonged to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral, and Bedfordshire Archives records a succession of tenants associated with what became Zouches Manor.The Inge family appears to have preceded the la Zouche family. Edward Inge received a grant of free warren in Caddington in 1310-11. By 1395 William la Zouche was tenant, apparently having inherited the tenancy from his father.
The la Zouche family remained associated with Caddington into the sixteenth century. Bedfordshire Archives identified Zouches Farm as the probable site of the medieval manor house.
A particularly striking medieval incident is recorded in the Bedfordshire Archives' chronology of Dunstable. In 1274 Eudo la Suche pulled down the Prior of Dunstable's gallows at "Edessuthe", which the archive identifies with Blow's Downs, and erected another elsewhere.
Medieval tournaments Dunstable was an important venue for medieval tournaments. Bedfordshire Archives records the first tournament at Dunstable in 1232, with several subsequent tournaments or proposed tournaments during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Royal prohibitions against tournaments at Dunstable were issued on several occasions during periods of political instability, including in 1254, 1256, 1264, 1265, 1312 and 1319.
A major tournament was held at Dunstable in 1341, attended by Edward III and Queen Philippa.
Bedfordshire Archives states that Dunstable's tournaments were usually held either in the flat fields at the base of Blow's Downs or in the fields around Bullpond Lane. The Wildlife Trust's heritage interpretation likewise identifies the open ground near the foot of the downs as a likely tournament landscape.