Upper Wye Gorge


Upper Wye Gorge is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, noted for its biological and geological characteristics, around Symonds Yat in the Upper Wye Valley on the Wales–England border. The site is listed in the 'Forest of Dean Local Plan Review' as a Key Wildlife Site.

Geography

The SSSI, of which are in England and are in Wales, notified in 1969, is located north east of the town of Monmouth. It lies within the civil parishes of Goodrich and Whitchurch in Herefordshire, English Bicknor in Gloucestershire and within the community of Monmouth in Monmouthshire.
The majority of the site is owned and managed by the Forestry Commission, with part of it owned and managed as a nature reserve by the Herefordshire Nature Trust. It contains part of Lady Park Wood, a National Nature Reserve in Wales, as well as King Arthur's Cave. Part of Lady Park Wood NNR is in England and a larger part is in Wales.
The SSSI falls within the Wye Valley Woodlands/ Coetiroedd Dyffryn Gwy Special Area of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive.

Geology

The gorge is formed out of old red sandstone and carboniferous limestone, on top of which are a large variety of soils. These soils are mostly alkaline, but there are areas which have acidic surface layers.
A series of caves on the northern, English, side of the gorge is of great importance for their Pleistocene mammal remains. The oldest deposits include those from lion, red deer, reindeer, spotted hyena, woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. Later deposits from colder periods include lemming and steppe pika. This provides evidence that humans had occupied the caves during this period.

Wildlife and ecology

Flora

As with other woodland in the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Upper Wye Gorge contains many species of trees that are locally and even nationally rare, forming one of the most extensive areas of semi-natural, broadleaved woodland in the entire valley. Due to the range of soils across the site, ten different types of woodland have been discovered to exist. Of particular interest are trees of the nationally rare large-leaved lime, as well as whitebeam species: English whitebeam, grey-leaved whitebeam, rock whitebeam and round-leaved whitebeam.
The dominant tree species within the gorge are ash, common beech, Cornish oak, English oak and silver birch. Mid-level flora includes hazel, field maple, small-leaved lime and wych elm.
Ground-layer plants are dominated by bilberry, bramble, common bracken, dog's mercury, false brome, great wood-rush. Scarce and locally uncommon plants that are found in the gorge are narrow-leaved bittercress, stinking hellebore, wood barley and wood fescue.
Grassland areas on the site contain the uncommon bloody cranes-bill as well as the nationally scarce sedge species: dwarf sedge, fingered sedge and soft-leaved sedge.

Fauna

A wide variety of mammals populate the gorge, including badgers and fallow deer. The caves in the gorge provide a winter roost for greater horseshoe bats and lesser horseshoe bats. Birds that use the woodlands in the SSSI include buzzard, nuthatch, peregrine falcon, pied flycatcher, raven, tawny owl and the wood warbler.
Insects species found on the site include a dance fly and a wasp, which are nationally rare; as well as uncommon butterflies: wood white, pearl-bordered fritillary and the white admiral.