Farms

Founthill Farmhouse (TQ 420 202) is Tudor, with unusually elaborate timber framing. The 'fount' bit of the name means well, or spring.

To the west of Founthill, along the valley, is Beechlands (TQ 417 202). There is a line of huge sweet chestnut pollards there, some alive and others dead, and there is a quarried sandstone outcrop, now made into ponds and rock garden, with wild daffodils on the slope to the east. The owners of Beechlands donated Mill Wood (TQ 412 204), a half ancient and half secondary wood, to the Woodland Trust. Tilehouse Farm (TQ 409 203) has a pre-war railway carriage that you pass on the footpath.^[5]

Footpath across Fletching Common - geograph.org.uk - 1953158

Fletching Common

Fletching Common (TQ 412 217) is outside the parish of Fletching itself. The area is now only a common in name and is no longer common land, although there are fragments of old common waste along Redgill Lane (TQ 404 217). It is still attractive even though it has lost the majority of its archaic vegetation.

Newick Park

Newick Park is at the south of the parish. The house sits at the head of a wooded gill tangled with rhododendrons, which descends to the Longford Stream. It was built in 1560 for iron master, but was extended greatly in the 18th century. It was once the home of William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford.^[6] The Grade II* listed building was a country hotel, but is now a private house. There are wild daffodils on the grassy slope under the house, several old sweet chestnut trees, including a five span giant (TQ 422 195) and a good many oak by the Drive. The old walled garden has fine rhubarb beds (2014). West of the Park as far as Ridgeland Lane is wet alder carr (TQ 417 193 with much golden saxifrage and marsh marigold (kingcups). Ash is abundant in the swamp.^[5]

To the south of the Longford Stream (TQ 423 189) is bosky with bracken, old holly brakes and oldish beeches. The stream runs into Lower Park Pond. It is here that the name of the stream turns into the Lambourn Gill. The pond itself has lost much of its wild, archaic vegetation.

Rotherfield Wood - geograph.org.uk - 1955999

Woodland

Some of the woods in the Newick parish are heathy due to the sandstone ground and considerably different than the nearby woods on clay soils. Rotherfield (TQ 403 227) and Little Rotherfield Woods (TQ 409 224), just south of Sheffield Park Station, have heathy bilberry and cow wheat, devil's bit, tormentil and big wood ant nests. Little Rotherfield Wood has much oak coppice over a bare woodland boor. Rotherfield Wood was heavily coniferised by the Forestry Commission, but its heathy character was not eliminated, and large areas of bilberry survive along the east–west ride, with rowan and hard fern.

Where it is more hilly to the south east there are several good, ancient woods. Although they are on steep slopes, the Ardingly Sandstone offers resistance to erosion. For examaple, Broomlye Wood (TQ 429 201) is hornbeam coppice, with lots of old wooded pits (2012).

Streams

To the east of the parish is the River Ouse and to the south of the parish is the Longford Stream. Before the early 19th century, winter and rainy weather would cut this parish off from neighbouring parishes.

The river is a good place to see kingfishers, leaping trout, banded and beautiful demoiselles and the banks are colourful with great yellowcress, hemp agrimony and unfortunately invasive himalayan balsam. Yellowhammers enjoy the bushy stream sides, while pied wagtails like the gravels and clay banks, and grey wagtails can be seen in the weirs and pond bays.

The streams and brooks running into the river are often wooded with sheets of bluebells, sometimes with wild garlic, and sometimes with swamp alders. There are also brook meadows which is covered in anemones in early spring and much pignut and spring sedge, such as on the north bank between Cockfield Bridge (TQ 408 193) and Cockfield House (TQ 410 194) (2015).