Durham Countryside Service and Volunteers

27/11/2025

Two opportunities to get moving and spend time outdoors in November with your local countryside service this week.🌳

Helpers wanted for today's Shotton Railway Path Community Litterpick. It begins at 10am. Come alone or bring a friend. All are warmly welcomed and equipment is provided. We are meeting on the railway path behind Shotton Community Hub. Make a difference.

Don't forget we also have a Guided Walk: Circulus de Conganis on Friday. It's £4 and your guide has planned a great route for everyone. No booking is needed and the details are here durham.gov.uk/guidedwalks

20/11/2025

🫶Did you know that feeding, watching and even hearing birds is good for your wellbeing? Here's what the birds would like you to do to help them in this cold snap...❄️

19/11/2025

🌨️Warm up with a walk. Our guided walks programme runs throughout the year meaning you can get some fresh air, company and exercise in beautiful countryside locations. There are 9 walks to try out before the end of the year.

🥾Follow these links and visit Durham.gov.uk/guidedwalks to find out more.

Muggleswick and the Three Curricks
Guided Walk: Circulus de Conganis
Guided Walk: Thistlewood or Bust
Guided Walk: Ice and Coal
Guided Walk: Two Hills
Guided Walk: Foxholes and Rowley
A winter walk around Durham City and the river banks with poems
Guided Walk: Bicycle Made For Two
Guided Walk: Filling a gap

18/11/2025

Well done to volunteers from DCC's SEND team and the North East Combined Authority who have been helping us maintain the biodiversity of our nature reserves. DCC volunteers helped us finish the last of our meadow management a few weeks ago at Ferryhill Carrs, maintaining our valuable wildflower habitat. NECA volunteers joined us at Horden Grasslands last week taking part in gorse removal. This important task helped us to maintain our coastal grassland habitat by stopping encroaching scrub. A big thank you to both groups!

11/11/2025

A huge thank you to this group of community volunteers for their recent efforts to clean up the countryside at both Broompark Picnic Area and Coxhoe Quarry Woods Nature Reserve.

The group, which has a keen interest in geocaching have been helping tidy up their local green spaces as part of the Cache In Trash Out® (CITO) environmental initiative which aims to help preserve the natural beauty of cache-friendly spaces.

https://www.geocaching.com/cito/

The photo shows just some of the amazing volunteers who joined us. Thank you so much everyone. A job well done! 💪🌿🗑💚

07/11/2025

The wonderful premiere of a community created documentary film. It was a room full of people who care about the community and their local countryside.

The film includes a collection of archive images from The Story Durham and different generations sharing what the lines were, are and could be, all filmed and presented by local young people who had taken part in special skills workshops with local award-winning legend Coalfield Studios. It is now archived and will be a snapshot of life in Shotton Colliery in 2025. Take a look on youtube here: https://youtu.be/1EuwW8y-Efk?si=FJ3vXoWxaKTPftZ_

Well done Shotton Youth Group. Thank you to Shotton CREE and others who were interviewed for the project. Thank you for hosting this so well Shotton Community Hub

06/11/2025

Shotton Meadow Maker Day was a great opportunity to come together as a community and plant the seeds for the future. The meadow will attract wildlife and be an attractive addition to the green space in Shotton Colliery.

The seeds will grow and blossom over the next two years and the site will be managed sensitively to encourage wildflowers. It's an efficient and biodiversity-enhancing way to do it.

Thank you to everyone who came down to help make and throw seedbombs with us.

30/10/2025

May we proudly present a film by Coalfield Studios and different generations from Shotton in partnership with Story Durham

It is all about the special railway line that the Countryside Service now care for with the help of the community.

Thank you to everyone who helped create this and for supporting the preview yesterday. We are very proud of you all.

There are some talented future film-makers in the village.

Once a vital lifeline of County Durham’s coal industry, the railway from Shotton Colliery to ports like Seaham and Hartlepool carried the coal that powered B...

28/10/2025

Lots of fun exploring Ferryhill Carrs Local Nature Reserve on our Bioblitz today. The next one is tomorrow Wednesday 29th October at Malton Picnic Area. Free, 11am-1pm. All welcome.

Malton Picnic Area Bioblitz

26/10/2025

Halloween is fast approaching and today is National Pumpkin Day! 🎃

How do you use pumpkins to help celebrate the season?

We love:

🎃Carving pumpkins into our favourite spooky characters.
🎃Enjoying tasty pumpkin recipes for soup and pumpkin pie.
🎃Putting pumpkins out as seasonal decorations.

However you choose to use the tasty vegetable over the next few weeks please make sure you never leave carved pumpkins out in the countryside. Rotting pumpkins are very dangerous for wildlife, making them very poorly. Please place used pumpkins in your bin or compost heap. 👍

24/10/2025

The Deerness View Car Park at Ushaw Moor, which is regularly used by visitors to the Deerness Valley Railway Path will be closed on Thursday 30 and Friday 31 October. This is to allow for resurfacing works to take place.

We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience while we undertake these improvements.