Flodden Quarry
The floor of the lower bench contains gorse, elder, hawthorn and broom scrub with elm and ash. The upper bench supports grazed bentfescue grassland. On the quarry faces grow polypody fern, common stork's-bill, dove's-foot crane's-bill, harebell and bluebell. The quarry faces north and is locally wet - these factors may be responsible for the good bryophyte and lichen flora. The site is managed in partnership with Ford and Etal Estates.
Evelyn Howick Memorial, Littlemill
The quarry is classified as a 'dormant' site. There are reminders of the site's active quarrying days, including lime kilns which are a Grade II listed building. Also present are a steel ammunition (explosives) shed made from a former ship's boiler, trackways connecting the quarry face to the lime kilns, a series of stone compartments (used for coal storage), a stone-lined pumping shaft with remains of headworks, a filled-in shaft (marked as a well on some maps), remnants of both rails and sleepers, and iron piping.
East Crindledykes Quarry
A nearby lime kiln processed the rock from here and has been restored by the National Park Authority. The flora includes autumn gentian, salad burnet, thyme, cowslip, hoary plantain, heath grass and crested hair grass. The vegetation around the southern and eastern margins is tall grassland with a few hawthorn bushes. The grass is cut and removed once per year and is occasionally lightly grazed over the winter. The quarry, including the larger area to the west, was used for landfill of colliery waste.
The Border Mires
The majority are owned by Forest Enterprise and managed by a group of partners, including Northumberland Wildlife Trust. The Border Mires are largely made up of deep lenses of peat in larger areas of blanket bog - peat stores carbon and reduces the effect of global warming, and can be up to 15m deep in places. Plants such as sundew, cranberry, cotton grasses and sphagnum moss are prevalent. Many pools are home to a variety of insects such as the black darter, common hawker and golden-ringed dragonflies.
Cresswell Foreshore
Five species of crab have been recorded, including the porcelain crab, and both butterfish and shanny have also been seen. There is a good variety of seaweeds, including kelp and the pink, feathery coral weed. The site extends up to the sand dunes and is used by a wide variety of wading birds, including turnstone, purple sandpiper, sanderling and ringed plover.
Butterburn Flow
It contains large intact areas dominated by bog mosses, including sphagnum mosses, cross-leaved heath and cranberry. Several species of local and rare plants include greater sundew, tall bog sedge and few-flowered sedge. Peregrine, dunlin, curlew, meadow pipits and skylarks can often be seen. The site is managed in partnership with Forestry Commission.
Barrow Burn Wood
It is composed of ancient mixed deciduous woodland, including alder, willow and hazel. Calcareous flushes include butterwort and marsh lousewort. The central part of the site has a ground flora of ramsons and primrose with some opposite-leaved golden saxifrage. Birdlife includes sparrowhawk, cuckoo, treecreeper, woodwarbler and pied flycatcher. Badgers are present in the wood with otters using the stream. The site is managed in association with Defence Estates and Northumberland National Park Authority.
Holystone Burn
At the upstream end of the site, the broadleaved woodland extends up the north slopes of the valley into an area known as Yardhope Oaks. The Oaks, an area of sessile oak woodland, is present at an unusually high altitude (circa 200m), on dry, steep slopes above the burn. The reserve is managed in partnership with the Forestry Commission. The plantation forestry in the valley is being removed slowly to allow native and natural woodland to re-establish here.
Ford Moss
The bog is now dominated by heather but various mire species still occur in wetter parts of the site. The most striking feature is a large brick chimney, part of what remains of a former coal mine that operated along the northern edge and under the moss. An old engine house ruin also stands on the northern edge of the site with former spoil heaps pushing out towards the mire. A band of trees skirt the southern and eastern edge of the site with old pine and oak woodland sweeping up the slopes out of the moss itself.
Nind
Nind nature reserve is a hidden minature wetland. There is a short 'there and back again' walk along a public footpath, but this reserve is best experienced by stopping, looking and listening.
The stars are the water voles, regularly seen and heard in the water channels, but there are also wetland plants, otter, dragonfly, amphibians and a number of watery birds like dipper, kingfisher, heron, water rail and the occasional rarity.
