Dufton Ghyll Wood

Dufton Ghyll Wood is one of the few remaining Northwest outposts for the native red squirrel. Lining the steep, sheltered sides of a valley on the western edge of the Pennines, the site is as exciting for its geology as much as the trees. It is designated regionally important for St. Bee’s sandstone (a deposit laid down by a river flowing through a vast desert plain) - hailed as “the best exposure in the Eden Valley.” By the time the Woodland Trust took on the site in 1980 most of the trees had been felled but a replanting programme has seen the surviving mature beech, oak, sycamore, sweet chestnut and elm complemented by young, native broadleaves. In spring the ground is covered with the brightly coloured blooms of winter aconite, daffodils, wood anemones, bluebells, pignut and angelica - with mosses, ferns and liverworts in damper areas.