Waitby Greenriggs, Kirkby Stephen - Coast to Coast
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Waitby Greenriggs Nature Reserve
Waitby Greenriggs Nature Reserve, Kirkby Stephen
Waitby Greenriggs Nature Reserve occupies a remarkable stretch of abandoned railway near Kirkby Stephen, where cuttings and embankments once built for steam trains have become some of the richest wildflower grassland in the area. Cumbria Wildlife Trust purchased the former British Rail land in 1987 and now manages it specifically for its exceptional plants, butterflies and other wildlife.
More than 200 varieties of flowering plant have been recorded at Waitby Greenriggs alone. From May, bird’s-eye primrose begins the display; by mid to late June the old railway is at its most spectacular, with orchids among globeflower, salad burnet, meadow crane’s-bill and oxeye daisy. Around twenty species of butterfly can also be seen among the flowers during summer.
The abandoned railway does more than provide a refuge for wildlife. Between Waitby Greenriggs and Smardale Gill, the old line passes through deep cuttings carved into Carboniferous limestone, exposing layers of rock while creating sheltered corridors in which species-rich grassland has flourished. What began as a route engineered through the landscape has gradually become part of the landscape itself — a railway remembered now not by the trains that passed along it, but by the extraordinary life growing in their place.
Common Butterwort
Growing almost unnoticed among the damp grasses at Waitby Greenriggs, this delicate purple flower appears to be common butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris). Easily overlooked when not in flower, butterwort hides a remarkable secret: it is one of Britain’s native carnivorous plants. Its sticky leaves trap tiny insects, allowing the plant to obtain nutrients in the wet, relatively nutrient-poor ground where it grows. Against the extraordinary floral richness of Waitby Greenriggs, even this tiny flower has a story of its own.
Cuckoo Pint
At first glance, cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum) seems one of the stranger wildflowers growing at Waitby Greenriggs. Its pale green hood, or spathe, curves around a dark central spike called the spadix, while the true flowers are largely hidden below. But the extraordinary shape has a purpose. The plant produces an odour and even generates heat to attract tiny flies, which become temporarily trapped inside and help carry pollen from one plant to another. Later in the year the flower disappears, leaving a conspicuous spike of brilliant red berries. Beautiful but deceptive, the entire plant is poisonous.
Red Campion
At first glance, cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum) seems one of the stranger wildflowers growing at Waitby Greenriggs. Its pale green hood, or spathe, curves around a dark central spike called the spadix, while the true flowers are largely hidden below. But the extraordinary shape has a purpose. The plant produces an odour and even generates heat to attract tiny flies, which become temporarily trapped inside and help carry pollen from one plant to another. Later in the year the flower disappears, leaving a conspicuous spike of brilliant red berries. Beautiful but deceptive, the entire plant is poisonous.
Dogs Mercury
Dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis) is easily overlooked, its small green flowers making little attempt to compete with the brighter plants at Waitby Greenriggs. Yet it can tell us something about the ground on which it grows. Most strongly associated with shady deciduous woodland and hedgerows, it spreads underground through creeping rhizomes and can form extensive colonies. Like red campion, male and female flowers grow on separate plants, although here the flowers are tiny and inconspicuous. Despite its rather innocent appearance, every part of dog’s mercury is poisonous — and even its old name reflects that reputation, “dog” once carrying the sense of something inferior or undesirable.
Waitby Railway Cuttings
The abandoned railway cutting between Waitby Greenriggs and Smardale is much more than a convenient path through the reserve. When the railway was built, engineers carved deeply into the Carboniferous limestone to create a level trackbed, exposing layers of rock that had previously lain hidden beneath the landscape. Today those walls form what Cumbria Wildlife Trust describes as a “geological time tunnel”, revealing different rock types and the processes that formed them. Yet the railway created something else as well. With the trains gone, the cuttings and embankments have been reclaimed by species-rich grassland, orchids and other native plants. What was once a corridor engineered for locomotives has become a corridor for wildlife — the railway cut through the landscape, and nature gradually took possession of the space it left behind. Walk through this cutting today and it is easy to concentrate on the wildflowers and the old railway. Yet just beyond the track lies evidence of a much older landscape…
🏺 Insight - Archaeology
The Lost Settlements Beside the Railway
Walk along the old railway at Waitby Greenriggs and the wildflowers and limestone cuttings naturally command attention. Yet immediately beyond the railway lies evidence of a much older human landscape — two Romano-British farming settlements at Waitby Intake, now protected together with their surrounding field system as a Scheduled Monument.
The north-western settlement was no isolated hut. Low turf-covered stone banks reveal a cluster of eight enclosures, with the remains of at least four circular houses and what has been interpreted as a stock pen. Entrances, yards and dividing walls still preserve something of the way in which people organised their homes and livestock.
Limited excavation in 1967 discovered pottery dating from the fourth century AD, placing occupation here towards the later centuries of Roman rule in Britain. Yet these were not Roman villas occupied by incomers. They belonged to native farming communities whose traditions had developed before the Roman conquest and continued while Britain formed part of the Roman world.
The second settlement, south-east of the first, is even more intriguing. Alongside traces of roundhouses are several rectangular buildings. Archaeologists believe these may indicate that people continued to use, or later returned to, the settlement during the post-Roman or early medieval period — something Historic England describes as rare in Cumbria.
Around the homes lay an organised farming landscape. Surviving banks and lynchets mark former fields, while a trackway and enclosures reveal how land was divided for a mixed farming economy involving crops and livestock. These faint earthworks are therefore not simply the remains of houses; they preserve part of the landscape in which an entire community lived and worked.
Then, more than a thousand years later, another generation imposed an entirely different line across the landscape. The Victorian railway was driven straight through part of the south-eastern settlement, destroying some of its earthworks and dividing what remained. Today the railway itself has gone and nature has reclaimed its trackbed — but on either side survive traces of people who were farming this limestone country centuries before the first train ever passed through Waitby.
At a Glance
Site: Waitby Intake
Period: Romano-British
Settlements: Two enclosed farming settlements
Homes: Stone roundhouses, with later rectangular structures
Dating evidence: 4th-century pottery
Farming: Fields, enclosures, trackway and stock management
Later history: Possible post-Roman/early medieval reuse
Modern impact: Railway cut through part of the settlement
Status: Scheduled Monument
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