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This open area is known as The Leas which stretches from the edge of South shields to Soutet Lighthouse and has some great sea views along the way. It includes Marsden Rock, and it's sea bird colonies, a meeting place for thousands of pairs of Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Gulls and Cormorants. Due to the varying hardness of the limestone rocks here this stretch of coastline is littered with stacks, arches, headlands, bays and caves, sculptured by the sea.
The Leas once included Marsden Village. Built in the 1870's for the miners of Whitburn Colliery it contained nine terraces, a Co-op store, Methodist Church and garden allotments - it gradually disappeared and was finally demolished by 1977 and became open grasslands again. There's little evidence of the village now although the lime kilns on this stretch of the cycleway are evidence of other times.
