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.
48 The Spetchells
Theme: Heritage and mining
Location
You can take the train to Prudhoe Station, or park at Tyne Riverside Country Park beside the bridge to Ovingham and take the short walk east to The Spetchells.
Description
Squeezed between the River Tyne and the Newcastle – Carlisle rail line at Prudhoe is a wooded mound, a ridge really, almost 1.5 kilometres long, 100 metres wide and 20 metres high. Where the vegetation and soil have been worn away, it is white.
The ridge, known as The Spetchells (the previous name of the local riverside), is man-made. It is made of millions of tons of waste material from a factory in Prudhoe which produced ammonium sulphate for explosives and fertilizer during World War 2. It was turfed to disguise the ridge and the factory from German bombers (the trees came later). The ridge is made of calcium carbonate, the same composition as limestone and chalk and so this is the only piece of “Chalk downland” in the county.
The Spetchells is a special habitat here in Northumberland. It hasn’t exactly got a southern chalk grassland flora but rather a mix of lime-loving plants. They include musk-mallow, must thistle, kidney vetch, wild marjoram and traveller’s-joy.