Sandy's Letch Traditional Cache
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DalesmanX
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This is a magnetic nano cache, which should be a relatively easy drive by and it goes without saying that parking is available in the lay-by. Don’t forget to bring a pencil with you.
Having driven past this lay-by for tens of years we finally decided to pull in and see what the Tourist Information sign had to say about Sandy’s Letch. Well, talk about disappointment – nothing. So decided to do some research of our own.
Sandy’s Letch is a small stream running south out of Cramlington town into the Seaton Burn and Wiktionary defines ‘Letch’ as a stream or pool in boggy land from "loec" - later "lache", variant "letch" - for example Sandy's Letch located east of Annitsford in Northumberland.
Sandy’s Letch also used to be an area of opencast mining from the back of Burradon stretching down towards Anitsford/Cramlington. Things have changed somewhat since then and now part of the area is a nature reserve and the rest is used as farmland.
The nature reserve at Annitsford Pond is a small but valuable area of greenspace and was declared as a Local Nature Reserve in the summer of 2005. The site is a small, boulder clay subsidence pond with associated marginal vegetation and wet willow woodland.
Located to the west of Annitsford on Sandy's Letch, a tributary of the Seaton Burn, the pond was formed between 1958 and 1963 via an inlet from Sandy’s Letch on the eastern boundary of the LNR, draining back into the stream at the southern edge of the reserve.
The reserve is of significant value as a semi-natural habitat in an urban environment, and as an educational resource for local schools and the community. Wildfowl found on the site include mallard, mute swan, coot, moorhen and pochard. The population of breeding pochard is important within a local context.
The site also has a rich amphibian and invertebrate population, including common toad, common frog and the azure damselfly.
Access to the site can be gained off The Wynding, which is reached via Front Street in Annitsford.
There is also a rumour that one of the workmen who built the road named the lay-by in honour of the spot.
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