Skiddaw Group SSSI
Skiddaw Group SSSI is a site of special scientific interest in the Lake District High Fells, England. Its shape is approximately an irregular circle centred near Great Calva, with an area of. The high ground creates a watershed between the Caldew Operational Catchment with water flowing north towards Carlisle, and the Ellen and West Coast and Derwent Operational Catchments flowing towards the west coast at Workington and Maryport. The area includes the Skiddaw Forest nature reserve.
The SSSI is designated for its flora and fauna, and for its geology. The geology includes the Skiddaw Group of sedimentary rock formations, and the Caldbeck Fells former mining area. Fells above include High Pike, Carrock Fell, Knott, Great Calva, and Bowscale Fell. The highest peaks are in the Skiddaw area, including Skiddaw itself, Long Side, Carl Side, Little Man, Lonscale Fell and, further east, Blencathra.
The SSSI is divided into a patchwork of "units" which are used as the level of geographic detail for reporting overall features and conditions. Each unit is identified by the Ordnance Survey grid reference at the centre of the unit, its area in hectares, the date it was last surveyed, and the drainage catchment it is located in. For example Bassenthwaite Common, which is unit 27, is nearly centred at in the Dash beck catchment. The habitat is there is dwarf shrub heath which, when surveyed in November 2010, was in an "unfavourable – recovering" condition.
Skiddaw Forest
Skiddaw Forest is the ancient name of an expanse of land to the east of Skiddaw summit, with the word "forest" referring here to a medieval pattern of land ownership. In 2024 the forest area within the Underskiddaw civil parish area, essentially SSSI units 30 and 31 together with the summits of Skiddaw and Great Calva, was purchased by Cumbria Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve. The long term biodiversity and rewilding goals include encouraging tree growth to create tracts of temperate rainforest, and restoring peatlands.Unit 30, Skiddaw Forest West, was assessed in 2021 as having "favourable" conditions for invertebrate and breeding bird features, but "unfavourable – recovering" blanket bog and upland dry heath habitats. Conditions in unit 31, Skiddaw Forest East were assessed as "favourable" in 2021.
Caldbeck Fells mines
The northern part of the SSSI includes several sites of former mines, noted today for the presence of minerals in spoil heaps and erosion sites.Spoil heaps at Red Gill Mine include rare, crystallised lead sulphates, carbonates and phosphates. An adjacent mine at Roughtongill reveals supergene minerals including copper and zinc varieties. English Heritage undertook a detailed survey of Roughtongill in 2001 and reported on its history and archaeology.
Dry Gill Lead Mine has a unique form of mimetite, known as 'campylite'. Natural England surveyed the site in 2022 and found the exposed mineral veins had been damaged by collectors in the past but not recently. Burdell Gill "is of national importance as the only relatively abundant source of the rare arsenic mineral, pharmacosiderite, in Britain." A vein at Wet Swine Gill includes stibnite and fuloppite but the 2022 survey found that geological specimen collecting continued to cause damage. In the Carrock Mine – Brandy Gill spoil heaps the mineralisation is tungsten-rich. The Carrock Tungsten Mine and Carrock End Copper Mine are Scheduled Monuments.
There are other mine sites not mentioned in the SSSI designation, such as in the wider Grainsgill area, near to Carrock mine. A 2021 survey in that area observed "Ordovician igneous geological features". Breafell lead mine was downstream from Redgill and Roughtongill on the Dale Beck, a tributary of the Whelpo. Driggith lead mine was downstream from Drygill mine. Sandbeck lead and copper mine was north east of High Pike.
Caldew operational catchment
The Skiddaw Group SSSI includes the headwaters of the Whelpo Beck and Caldew 'water bodies'. These are part of the Caldew operational catchment.The Whelpo Beck catchment includes Brae Fell, and the former mine sites at Red Gill and Roughtongill. When surveyed by Natural England in 2010, both mine sites were showing some signs of collector activity and erosion but were not considered to be under threat. The "dwarf shrub heath" habitats were surveyed in 2022. They were all depleted by heavy grazing. Patches of bilberry were observed on Brae Fell.
The Caldew catchment accounts for 40% of the total area of the SSSI and the majority of its assessment units. The River Caldew flows there between the Blencathra uplands in the south-east of the SSSI, and the Skiddaw and Caldbeck Fells uplands to the west and north. The catchment includes Great Calva and Carrock Fell. Around the edge of the catchment, Lonscale Fell, Skiddaw, Skiddaw Little Man, and Bowscale Fell form watersheds with the catchments in the Derwent Operational Catchment area. It includes the former mine sites at Dry Gill Mine, Carrock Mine-Brandy Gill, Burdell Gill and Wet Swine Gill. It also includes Bowscale Tarn, one of two glacial tarns in the SSSI, where quillwort, shoreweed and water lobelia have been found.
Heather moor predominates on sloping ground north and west of the River Caldew across several catchments. The east-facing slopes of Skiddaw, Little Man and Jenkin Hill exhibit degraded moss heath. Common juniper scrub, which is a nationally rare habitat, is most extensive on the steep, rocky south-facing slopes of Carrock Fell.
Derwent management catchment
The Skiddaw Group SSSI includes headwaters of the Derwent management catchment, consisting of the Ellen catchment, which flows towards Maryport, and four catchments flowing towards Workington:- Dash Beck
- Derwent US Bassenthwaite Lake and Derwent DS Bassenthwaite
- Glenderaterra Beck
- Glenderamackin u/s Troutbeck and Glenderamackin
file:Whitewater Dash - geograph.org.uk - 2137126.jpg|thumb|right|Whitewater DashThe SSSI includes the headwaters of the Dash Beck catchment, including short lengths of Dash Beck itself, and of several of its tributaries. The part of the catchment within the SSSI stretches from Great Sca Fell in the north-east to Ullock Pike away in the south-west, with the Whitewater Dash waterfall where the beck crosses the catchment midway between the two. The area includes Bakestall where crowberry is the dominant dwarf-shrub. It also includes Broad End which has "the best developed example at about " elevation. There are two monitoring units in the Dash beck catchment: Uldale South has low species diversity with some areas recovering; Uldale North includes heather, bilberry, crowberry and cross-leaved heath but the sites are fragmented where they should be continuous. In the north-east of the catchment, the watershed is marked by Knott, Great Sca Fell, Meal Fell, and Great Cockup.
The Glenderaterra Beck catchment includes Lonscale Fell and Blencathra North West. Lonscale Fell ecology included some bracken and limited cover of ericoid shrubs in its "acidic grassland with bilberry" habitats. Blencathra North West had "blanket bog with abundant hare's-tail cottongrass and deergrass over locally abundant bog mosses".
There is a small area of common juniper scrub in Glenderamackin u/s Troutbeck on The Tongue. The same catchment includes Scales Tarn, one of the two glacial tarns in the SSSI. The tarn has "low nutrient levels and inherently species-poor." The area around the tarn has in the past been subject to heavy grazing. Mungrisdale East includes hare's-tail cottongrass, abundant sphagnum moss and a good population of serrated wintergreen. Young Wood is protected by fencing to keep grazing animals away and the oak woodland is recovering.
Related activities
Special Area of Conservation
Skiddaw Group SSSI is a component of the Lake District High Fells, a Special Area of Conservation. The SAC covers ten SSSIs but, within the Skiddaw Group, the SAC documentation identifies a range of habitats:- 4010 Northern Atlantic wet heaths with cross-leaved heath
- 4030 European dry heaths
- 4060 Alpine and Boreal heaths
- 5130 Common juniper formations on heaths or calcareous grasslands
- 7130 Blanket bogs
- 8110 Siliceous scree of the montane to snow levels and red hemp-nettle )
Cumbria Local Nature Recovery Strategy