Raisby Hill Grassland

Raisby Hill Quarry is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in east County Durham, England. It lies just under 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.

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.

Coxhoe Bridge railway station served the village of Coxhoe, County Durham, England, from 1846 to 1984 on the Hartlepool–Ferryhill Line.

Quarrington Hill Grasslands is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in County Durham, England. The site consists of three separate areas, two closely adjacent to the east of the village of Quarrington Hill, the third immediately west of the village, which lies 8 km south-east of Durham City. The area is important for its magnesian limestone grassland communities, which are largely confined to County Durham and increasingly scarce even there. The grasslands at Quarrington Hill are typical of the type, being characterised by the presence of blue moor-grass, Sesleria albicans, and small scabious, Scabiosa columbaria. Less common species include common milkwort, Polygala vulgaris, hairy violet, Viola hirta, and wild carrot, Daucus carota. The nationally scarce dark-red helleborine, Epipactis atrorubens, is found at the site, as is basil thyme, Clinopodium acinos, a southern species that is uncommon this far north. The Durham Argus butterfly, Aricia artaxerxes salmacis, a form which is only found in the magnesian limestone areas of Durham, is known to breed at the site.

Quarrington Hill is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated a short distance to the north of Kelloe. Having been part of the extensive parish of Kelloe, it merged with the village of Cassop during the 19th century to form the parish of Cassop-cum-Quarrington, it is now in the parish of Coxhoe. As in most of County Durham, the chief trade here was coal mining and Cassop Colliery was where the miners worked. The inhabitants of Quarrington Hill also shared the church of St. Pauls (built in 1868), with Cassop. The stones that were used in its construction were allegedly transported by William Smith, Innkeeper of the Half Moon Inn, Quarrington Hill, as he was the only villager to own such a cart to make this possible. It was closed during the 1980s and is now demolished. The churchyard is still used for burials.

Coxhoe is a village in County Durham, England. It is situated about 5 miles (8 km) south of Durham City centre. The civil parish also includes nearby Quarrington Hill. The electoral ward of Coxhoe stretches beyond the boundaries of the parish and has a total population of 7,027.

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.

Bishop Middleham Quarry is a disused quarry, about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) north-west of Sedgefield, County Durham, England. Quarry-working here ceased in 1934, and the site has since been colonised by vegetation. The underlying rock is Magnesian Limestone and this has had a strong influence in determining the range of plant and animal communities now found there. In 1968 the quarry was designated as a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The SSSI boundaries were revised in 1982 to exclude areas which were no longer found to have high wildlife interest due to tipping and quarry reworking. The site contains a variety of vegetation types including woodland, scrub, and several grassland communities. The most important part of the site from a biodiversity conservation perspective is the species-rich unimproved magnesian limestone grassland, which covers just under 4.6 hectares (11 acres) of the site. Only 270 hectares (670 acres) of this habitat exist in Britain, two-thirds of it in County Durham. Magnesian limestone grassland supports an assemblage of calcicolous plants adapted to growing in thin soils with a short sward. The quarry holds one of the largest British populations of the dark red helleborine, Epipactis atrorubens; a survey in 2010 found nearly 1700 flowering spikes of this nationally rare species. The quarry is a breeding site for the Durham argus butterfly, a local race of the brown argus found only in northeast England. The site attracted the interest of birdwatchers in 2002 when a pair of European bee-eaters took up residence, raising two young, only the third breeding attempt ever in Britain. Bishop Middleham Quarry is managed as a Nature Reserve by the Durham Wildlife Trust.

Old Quarrington is a hamlet in County Durham, in England. It is situated between Bowburn and Quarrington Hill. It is also known locally as Heugh Hall, which was the name of a local colliery.In the Middle Ages, Old Quarrington was the centre of a district of County Durham called “Queringdonshire" (Quarringtonshire), which contained nearby Sherburn, Shadforth, Cassop, Tursdale and Whitwell House.

Coxhoe railway station served the village of Coxhoe, County Durham, England from 1838 to 1902 on the Coxhoe branch of the Clarence Railway.

Cassop Vale is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Durham City district of County Durham, England. It lies between the villages of Bowburn and Cassop, 7 km south-east of the centre of Durham.. The site is important as one of the larger areas of grassland developed on magnesium limestone. This rock has a restricted distribution in England and grassland associated with it is confined almost entirely to south-east Tyneside and County Durham, usually in small, scattered patches that are threatened by quarrying and modern agricultural practices. Habitats at Cassop Vale include grassland, scrub, woodland and wetland, the last fed by spring-lines. The area also includes recolonised open quarries and mine spoil-heaps, which add to the floral diversity. The main grass species on the magnesian limestone is blue moor-grass Sesleria albicans amongst which grow fragrant orchid Gymnadenia conopsea, cowslip, Primula veris, rock rose Helianthemum nummularium, and quaking grass, Briza media. Several rare and local species are present, including globeflower, Trollius europaeus, birds's-eye primrose, Primula farinosa, lesser club-moss, Selaginella selaginoides, and moonwort, Botrychium lunaria. Elsewhere there is neutral grassland with red fescue and such herbs as cat’s-ear, earthnut and knapweed.The scrub is dominated by hawthorn, gorse and hazel and on the basic soils grow woodruff, dog's mercury and sanicle. The small flushes on the springline are dominated by rushes and sedges, but are also home to marsh valerian, marsh ragwort, ragged robin and northern marsh-orchid. The wetlands are fringed by common spike-rush, soft rush and greater willow-herb.The site also supports a diverse invertebrate fauna that includes populations of the Durham argus butterfly, Aricia artaxerxes salmacis, and the least minor moth Photedes captiuncula.

Fishburn Airfield is a small grass strip airfield in Fishburn, County Durham. The airfield was opened on 30 June 1995 by the then local MP and Leader of the Opposition Tony Blair. It was named as "Airfield of the year" by aviation magazine Flyer in 2004 for its welcoming atmosphere and bacon butties.In 2005 the airfield hosted filming for a scene from the Bollywood film Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors