Jackson, Ian. Northumberland Rocks — 50 extraordinary rocky places that tell the story of the Northumberland landscape. Newcastle upon Tyne : Northern Heritage, 2021.
The richly illustrated and accessible book series of Northumberland, Cumbria and Durham Rocks are available to purchase from Northern Heritage.
Theme: Climate and landscape change
North of Cresswell and south of Hauxley
Between Hauxley and Cresswell is a beautiful 9 kilometre sandy beach and bay that’s longer than any other on the Northumberland coast. It’s backed by a set of sand dunes and at times when the sea scours the shoreline, it reveals peat and the stumps of ancient trees.
The beach is constantly moving and changing. Every day, with each tide, it has a different shape, profile and composition. So this sandy bay is the youngest “rock” in this book. The oldest sand dunes are less than 6,000 years old. The peat and the trees are around 7,000 years old and sometimes, if the sea erodes through the peat you will get a glimpse of glacial clay and stones underneath that is perhaps 15,000–20,000 years old.
The ancient trees — sub-fossils — were once part of an extensive forest and land area that went all the way across the North Sea to the Netherlands. You could have walked across from the continent — and ancient humans did!
The dunes are covered in marram grass but you will also find white clover, birds-foot trefoil and bloody cranes-bill. The Bay has several nature reserves near it run by Northumberland Wildlife Trust.