Because of its small size, and isolation, the nature reserve is completely dependent on surrounding wooded hills and agricultural glens, currently unprotected, and linked mainly by the narrow streams and hedges.

[4] Beneath this canopy grows bilberry, bramble, wild garlic, holly, honeysuckle, ivy, woodrush and wood sage.

Red squirrels are common as are sika deer, fox, otter, pine marten, hedgehog, and badger.

[8] The Glen has been written about since Victorian times with the view from the nearby Bellevue House described as 'a scene of luxurious softness, combined with grandeur and significance'.

[6] Bellevue House was the home of the La Touche family who settled in Ireland as Huguenot refugees.