Wall flowers in Weardale

Dry stone walls, and old stone walls held together with mortar, acquire a flora of resilient species that thrive in their damp crevices. In Weardale these vertical gardens are at their best from mid-May to early June, before conditions become too dry.

This beautiful display, with yellow Alyssum saxatile in the foreground, cascades down a wall in Stanhope, Weardale

Fairy foxglove Erinus alpinus covers large areas of old walls in Stanhope.

Ferns colonise walls too, but usually on the side that's shaded from the sun. This is brittle bladder fern Cystopteris fragilis, growing  in the wall around St. John's Chapel churchyard in Weardale.

Wall rue Asplenium ruta-muraria and maidenhair spleenwort Asplenium  trichomanes sharing the same crevice in a wall at Eggleston in Teesdale

Aubretia and dandelions in a retaining wall near Daddry Shield in Weardale.

Yellow Alyssum saxatile clinging to the narrowest of crevices in Stanhope.

Wallflower Cheiranthus cheiri, living up to its name in Stanhope.

Fairy foxglove Erinus alpinus, on a wall in Stanhope.

Snow-in-summer Cerastium tomentosum on a wall in Stanhope.

Wildlife on Walls 11: Fairy foxglove, Erinus alpinus

This attractive little plant growing on the walls of Stanhope Castle in Weardale is fairy foxglove Erinus alpinus, a native of Central and Southern Europe that was first recorded on this spot in 1934. 

How and when it reached our shores is uncertain. Gordon Graham, in his Flora and Vegetation of County Durham (1988) quotes the following theory from W.J.Weston's The County of Durham, published in 1914;

"Round Edmondbyers the rare little pink flowers, a curious survival from the Roman occupation, may reward diligent search.It is supposed that the plant, which is found nowhere but in the neighbourhood of the camps was brought into the country by the Spanish legionaries"

For more wildlife on walls, click here.