Hankley Common

Hankley Common is a common near Elstead, Surrey, England. It is an area of heathland with sandy infertile soil. The dry areas are covered in common heather (Calluna vulgaris) and bell heather (Erica cinerea) with patches of bracken (Pteridium aquilinum)

Hankley Common is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Atlantic Wall reconstruction


D-Day training sites were created in Britain in order to practice for Operation Overlord, the invasion of Northern France by allied forces in 1944.

In 1943, in an area of the common known as the Lion's Mouth, Canadian troops constructed a replica of a section of the Atlantic Wall. It is constructed from reinforced concrete and was used as a major training aid to develop and practise techniques to breach the defences of the French coast prior to the D-Day landings.

The wall is about 100 m (328 ft) long, 3 m (10 ft) high by 3.5 m (11.5 ft) wide. It is divided into two sections between which there were originally huge steel gates. Nearby are other obstacles such as dragon's teeth, huge reinforced concrete blocks and lengths of railway track set in concrete and wire entanglements. Much of the relics show clear signs of live weapons training and the main wall has two huge breaches caused by a variety of demolition devices including the Double Onion: a specialised demolition vehicle, one of Hobart's Funnies, based on the Churchill tank.

The reinforced concrete was made with thick rebars varying from 10 to 20mm (0.39 to 0.79 in) thick.

Over the years the wall has become colonised by alkaline-loving lichens, mosses, ferns and other plants because the concrete provides the lime-based substrate that these species require and which is found nowhere else in the locality. They present an unusual range of plants to be found in an expanse of acid heathland.

The preservation of the Wall is managed by Army Training Estates with the assistance of the MOD Hankley Conservation Group.

Golf course
Hankley Common is home to one of Britain's most popular golf courses. Hankley Common Golf Club opened in 1897 with nine holes and was expanded to eighteen holes in 1922.

Film and television
Hankley common was also used in the James Bond films The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, and Skyfall. The sets depicted a pier in the caspian sea where James Bond was attacked by a helicopter saw, a chase scene on hovercraft, and as the site of James Bond's ancestral Scottish mansion respectively.

Hankley Common has been popular with fictional time travellers having featured in Doctor Who and the Silurians and in Blackadder Back and Forth.

In the fourth series of Ultimate Force, the Drop Zone huts and surrounding area were used to shoot a Colombian forces training camp.

Tenko was also filmed on the common.

The Wigwam Murder
In 1942, Hankley Common was the site of a murder. The victim was a woman who was living rough in a crude shelter made of tree branches in the manner of a wigwam, and so the newspapers gave her the nickname of "Wigwam Girl". She was eventually identified as Joan Pearl Wolfe.