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:
“I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.”
—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)