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Bradford Kames is the name given to a
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...
(SSSI) in north
Northumberland
Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...
, England. The site is an
esker
An esker, eskar, eschar, or os, sometimes called an ''asar'', ''osar'', or ''serpent kame'', is a long, winding ridge of stratified sand and gravel, examples of which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North Amer ...
, a ridge of
glacial till
image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...
deposited in the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
epoch.
Location and natural features
Bradford Kames is situated in the
north-east of England
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A ''compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each ...
in the county of
Northumberland
Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...
, some west of the coastal town of
Seahouses
Seahouses is a large village on the North Northumberland coast in England. It is about north of Alnwick, within the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Attraction
Seahouses attracts many visitors, mainly from the north ea ...
. The esker is composed of a ridge and associated mounds, on a site of circa length orientated in a north-north-west - south-south-east direction, with the ground falling to the east. The SSSI citation for Bradford Kames describes it as providing "a striking example of the complex landform and sediment associations that developed during the wastage of the last ice sheet."
At the north end of the site, Spindlestones Pond provides a habitat for
great crested newts
The northern crested newt, great crested newt or warty newt (''Triturus cristatus'') is a newt species native to Great Britain, northern and central continental Europe and parts of Western Siberia. It is a large newt, with females growing up to ...
.
The condition of Bradford Kames was judged to be favourable in 2011.
See also
*
List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Northumberland
This is a list of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in Northumberland, England.
English Nature, the designating body for SSSIs in England, uses the 1974-1996 county system, and this list follows the same approach. Some sites one may e ...
References
{{reflist, 30em
External links
Natural EnglandSSSI record for Bradford Kames
Eskers
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Northumberland
Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1969