It lies just south of the A181 road, roughly midway between the Cassop and Wheatley Hill villages, some 10 km south-east of Durham city.

The site's interest lies in unimproved magnesian limestone grassland, where blue moor-grass, Sesleria albicans, and small scabious, Scabiosa columbaria, are the dominant species.

This is a scarce vegetation type found only in County Durham, and the extent of which has been severely reduced by quarrying and intensive agriculture.

[1] Other grasses that are frequent in the sward include meadow oat-grass, Avenula pratensis, quaking grass, Briza media, sheep's fescue, Festuca ovina, crested hairgrass, and Koeleria macrantha.

There is a rich variety of herbs, including rock-rose, Helianthemum nummularium, glaucous sedge, Carex flacca, spring sedge, C. caryophyllea, and mouse-ear hawkweed, Pilosella officinarum, and a small population of purple milk-vetch, Astragalus danicus, a local rarity on magnesian limestone.