Beacon Hill is an 18.6-hectare (46-acre) Local Nature Reserve in Rottingdean, on the eastern outskirts of Brighton in East Sussex.

Flora include round-headed rampion, vetches, wild thyme and several species of orchid, while there are birds such as skylarks.

In all those years, affinities with the Downs could be drawn with great range-grazed pastures of the steppes that stretched from Hungary eastwards all the way to Mongolia, or with the American prairies and pampas.

The key difference between the South Downs and those habitats is that grazing has been maintained by human intervention by means of sheep farming.

Grazed chalk grasslands have been likened to a rainforest in miniature due to the small flowers that compete to survive on the low nutrient soils and the animals this wide range of flora supports.