Long Lye (grid reference ST265122) is a 11.7 hectare (29.0 acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Buckland St Mary in the Blackdown Hills, Somerset, notified in 1988.
This site along with the adjoining Long Lye Meadow were considered to be under threat from a scheme to widen the A303.
Long Lye is a traditionally managed neutral grassland of a type which was once characteristic of lowland Britain but has now become increasingly rare due to agricultural intensification. Mature broadleaved woodland and wet flush communities add considerable diversity to this site. Fifteen species of butterfly have been recorded here. They include the Silver-washed Fritillary (Argynnis paphia), of which the valenzia form has been found, Purple Hairstreak (Quercusia quercus) and Marbled White (Melanargia golathea).
Famous quotes containing the words long and/or lye:
“How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were to begin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We all cry out that the world is corrupt,—and I fear too justly,—but we never reflect, what we have to thank for it, and that it is our open countenance of vice, which gives the lye to our private censures of it, which is its chief protection and encouragement.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)