Wood Lea Common SSSI

Wood Lea Common has been notified as a Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI) because it is an important site that displays various patch-reef subfacies in the Wetherby Member of the Magnesian Limestone.

The notification was awarded by the Nature Conservancy Council in 1958 under Section 23 of the National Parks & Access to the Countryside Act 1949.  It was renotified in 1986 under Section 28 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981.

The SSSI is owned by the Sandbeck Estate.

Public footpath No. 10 (Maltby) runs south from St Bartholomew's Church through to Roche Abbey, passes along its south-west edge and is joined by footpath No. 11 (Maltby) from Meadow Lane.

Footpath No. 12 (Maltby) runs from the war memorial down to join footpath No. 10 towards the southern end of the SSSI.

Information

The site has species-rich basic grassland with scrub slopes steeply down to the Maltby Dike.  Outcropping reef-knolls of Lower Magnesian Limestone weathered into crags extend along the whole site.  Most are concentrated in the centre, with fine exposures of the Marine Permian strata.  Numerous outcrops of algal/bryozoan patch-reefs have been eroded into a series of upstanding crags.  Many of them are highly weathered and this picks out the internal structure of the reefs, which can be seen in three dimensions.  Their material make-up, with sack-shaped, stacked algal bryozoan masses can be discerned.

The south-west-facing aspect and thin soils and exposed rocks makes this a suntrap, ideal for flower-visiting insects. The long grassland contains a good range of flowering plants which support a varied invertebrate fauna.