Cleadon Hills Conservation Area

In 1988 Cleadon Pumping Station Conservation Area was designated to cover around 3 hectares of the former water pumping station site and adjacent farm. This was made to protect the unlisted buildings (the dome-covered reservoir, Sunniside Farm and Farm Cottage) plus the trees, boundary walls and open spaces. Designation was prompted by the imminent sale of the site and possible threat of fragmentation. In 1989 the Conservation Area was enlarged to include the windmill, adjacent elevated open grassland (part of the Durham Magnesian limestone plateau and a Site of Special Scientific Interest) and flatter higher grassland to the east of the pumping station. The existing boundary covers some 15 hectares. The name was also changed. Cleadon Hills was designated as a Local Nature Reserve in 1997. The land east of the pumping station falls within the Cleadon Quarry Site of Nature Conservation Importance 1998. The former cooling pond now contains shallow soils that have developed a varied and valuable flora - glaucous sedge, wild thyme, hoary plantain and purging flax are typical of older high quality Magnesium Limestone grasslands. The raised grassland south of the chimney contains calcicolous species (favour limestone-derived soils) such as greater knapweed and rough hawkbit. The area is heavily dominated by brome. Piece of public art entitled 'Grist to the Mill' - a metal sculpture and bench of a split grass seed head. Marks the route of the Linnet Way linking the River Don to the coast at Marsden Old Quarry. There is a network of Magnesian limestone boundary walls some 1.2m high. These field boundary walls have a tapered profile. Some are in roughly coursed rubble with deep recessed mortar and spaces coping stones, other stretches are built in squarer coursed rubble with more tightly packed, regular coping stones.