The site was notified as an SSSI in 1952 and the area increased in a 1984 Revision. The site excludes Uphill Church and grounds.
It consists of species-rich calcareous grassland and rock-face situated on Carboniferous Limestone. Steeper banks and knolls in the grassland have a flora which includes orchids Somerset Hair Grass (Koeleria vallesiana), and Honewort, (Trinia glauca) and the Goldilocks Aster (Galatella linosyris) along with several species of butterfly and Weevil (Curculionoidea).[2]