Lindisfarne (SSSI)
Location and Access Information
Grid Reference: NU 100430
Contact between Whin Sill and baked
limestone country rock on Holy Island.
Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, is located 12km to the south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and is linked to the mainland by a tidally swept causeway. The Island is signposted from the A1 at the village of Beal. It is impossible to cross to the island between the 2 hours before high tide and the 3 hours after. Tide tables are printed in local newspapers and displayed at the causeway. There are car parks available, on Holy Island, at Budle Bay, and at Beal, on the mainland.
Further information can be obtained on the Lindisfarne NNR page.
View the site map on Nature on the Map
.
Geological Interest
There are a number of features of geological interest on Holy Island and in Budle Bay. Evidence of sea-level rise over the last 10,000 years, since melting of the last main ice-sheet of the Ice Age, is provided by a raised beach deposit on Holy Island. The shore at Spittal provides excellent exposure through limestones and shales of Lower Carboniferous age (some 340 million years old). These rocks demonstrate a change from coastal to marine conditions and contain fossil brachiopods, corals and the remains of sea-lilies. An igneous intrusion associated with the Whin Sill, up to 60 metres wide and consisting of five discrete segments extends from St Cuthberts Isle across the southern coast of Holy Island to the Plough and Goldstone Rocks.
