Weetslade ready for spring

Weetslade Country Park, situated between Wideopen and Dudley, attracts over 75,000 visitors each year who walk up the steps to the drill head sculpture at the top to marvel at the view of Newcastle City Centre, the North Sea and even the Cheviots.

Now, thanks to the efforts of over 60 volunteers who filled 3,500 buckets with whinstone, visitors to the site can reach the top of the hill via 123 newly refurbished whinstone filled timber framed steps and forty metres of newly laid path.

The work, made possible thanks to the Land Trust, will enhance the public’s visitor experience on the site which has a range of habitats including wildflower meadows, grassland, scrub, reed bed and woodland areas, which attracts a variety of wildlife including grey partridge, otter and kingfisher.

During spring, the site is alive with the song of dozens of skylarks who have their own breeding enclosure, and, in the summer, visitors can delight in the aerial shows of swallows, swifts and martins. Towards the end of summer, flocks of goldfinches can often be seen pulling the seeds out of the large stands of teasel.

Peter Ernst, Northumberland Wildlife Trust reserves officer said:

“Our work on the site never ends and we are so lucky to have a wonderful team of volunteers who turn up whatever the weather to ensure visitors have a wonderful experience every time and the wildlife have a safe place to live.”

In 2021, the park fended off competition from seventy other Land Trust sites around the UK to secure the Site of the Year Award at the Land Trust’s annual Managing Partners Awards ceremony.