ACESS;- there are two access points for this area one via Shearwater Lane, Crooksbarn and the other at St Stephen's Close, Norton West.
Norton Gravel Hole began as one of many gravel pits which were worked around Norton from around 1850. These extracted a mixture of dolomite, sandstone and limestone deposited with layers of boulder clay at the end of the last ice age, approximately 12,000 years ago. This site was quarried until the late 1960s and was then sent to be used for landfill before it became the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust’s first nature reserve, acquired on a lease from ICI in 1981 and purchased six years later, in 1987.
Gravel Hole is particularly attractive in spring and early summer when blooms of common spotted orchids and fragrant orchids fill this small site with colour.
It can get muddy here after the rain so take care.