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Raisby Hill Quarry
Raisby Hill Quarry is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in east County Durham, England. It lies just under 1.2 miles (2 km) east of the village of Coxhoe. The site is a working quarry and has been designated as of national importance in the Geological Conservation Review. Until 1984, the site included most of the area that now forms the Raisby Hill Grassland SSSI.
The quarry exposes a section through the Marl Slate and the Ford and Raisby Formations of the Upper Permian. It is the type locality for the Raisby Formation, a carbonate unit of the English Zechstein sequence. The exposed sequence commences with the Yellow Sands, which are overlain by the Marl Slate and some 200 feet of calcareous and dolomitic limestones.
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664 m
Garmondsway
Garmondsway is a small dispersed hamlet in the parish of Kelloe in County Durham, England situated between Durham and Sedgefield.
It is notable as including substantial remains of an abandoned village including an extant ridge and furrow field system and became a scheduled monument in 1957.
It was formerly part of the extra-parochial chapelry of Garmondsway Moor due to its ownership by Sherburn Hospital. Garmondsway Moor was also a civil parish between 1866 and 1937.
King Canute (1017–1035) reportedly walked five miles barefoot from Garmondsway to Durham Cathedral on pilgrimage, and gave the church a large estate around Staindrop and Gainford.
707 m
Raisby Hill Grassland
Raisby Hill Grassland is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in east County Durham, England. It lies 3⁄4 mile (1.2 km) east of the village of Coxhoe.
The site consists of a small disused quarry and the undisturbed part of Raisby Hill, as well as a small area of wetland alongside Raisby Beck. It formed part of the Raisby Hill Quarry SSSI until 1984 when it was removed and, with some expansion of the area, notified as a separate SSSI.
In the undisturbed part of Raisby Hill, primary magnesian limestone grassland is the main vegetation type. Blue moor-grass, Sesleria albicans, is abundant. There is a rich assemblage of species characteristic of calcareous soils, such as quaking grass, Briza media, meadow oat grass, Avenula pratensis, glaucous sedge, Carex flacca, and fragrant orchid, Gymnadenia conopsea.
The skeletal soils in the abandoned quarry at the southwestern end of the site support the largest population of dark-red helleborine, Epipactis atrorubens, in County Durham. Other species found here include rock rose, Helianthemum nummularium, frog orchid, Coeloglossum viride, and pyramidal orchid, Anacamptis pyramidalis.
The site supports a breeding population of Durham Argus butterfly, Aricia artaxerxes salmacis, a form only found in Durham's magnesian limestone areas.
1.7 km
Coxhoe Bridge railway station
Coxhoe Bridge railway station served the village of Coxhoe, County Durham, England, from 1846 to 1984 on the Hartlepool–Ferryhill Line.
1.9 km
Kelloe
Kelloe is a village and civil parish in County Durham, England. The population of the civil parish as taken at the 2011 Census was 1,502. It is situated to the south-east of Durham.