After a long drive to Buffalo, we were itching to get out and see what the area had to offer. The Whirlpool was really awe-inspiring – you perhaps have to see and hear it moving to get a proper impression of it’s massive power.
There were numerous large birds of prey circling overhead and, not for the first time, I regretted the lack of my superzoom camera.
Whirlpool Rapids.
Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel unaided, died here attempting to swim across the Whirlpool. Foolhardy doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Niagara pano.Cable Car over the Niagara Whirlpool.Hydro plant visitor centre.
The visitor centre at the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant had all sorts of interactive demonstrations, quizzes and games. It was a big hit with the younger members of the party. I enjoyed the history of power production in the area and of the rivalry between Edison and Teslar over AC and DC supply.
Two hydro plants – Canadian and American.
I think this was the day we ate lunch at an amazing cafe right by the river which served enormous sandwiches.
We were packing a lot in and by the time we got to Fort Niagara it was already quite late in the day. We did a whirlwind tour of the museum, but didn’t have time for the film, which young M assured us was a great loss.
Never mind, the fort itself was fascinating.
A Tower at Fort Niagara.Cannon!
I’m always a sucker for any kind of battlements and was particularly taken with the top of these roofed towers.
Tower view.Another view from the tower.River Niagara flowing into Lake Ontario.Reenactors.
I assume the man on the left is dressed as a member of one of the local native American peoples. An Iroquois?
The man on the right was demonstrating the loading and firing of a musket. I think his uniform is French. His talk was entertaining and informative. The main thing I remember is the huge weight of wool he told us was in his uniform. He must have been sweltering. It was hot.
A Red Coat.Inside the Trading Post.A barrack.The chapel.Lake Ontario. If you squint, Toronto is just about visible behind the sailing dinghy. Another tower.More cannons.Nesting swallows.Another tower view.Fort Niagara Lighthouse.
The fort was closing as we left. Just one last thing to squeeze in…
Lake Ontario paddle.A huge Cricket in the Prof’s garden.
I enticed B out for a walk using the lure of Tongue Pot; he’s been campaigning for a return ever since his first visit, which was five summers ago. How time flies! My side of the deal was that he had to climb a hill with me first. We parked on the big section of grass verge just west of Brotherikeld Farm (you can make out the parked cars in the photo above) and then set off toward the Hardknott Pass, soon leaving the road for the path which cuts across to the remains of the Roman Fort.
Arriving at Hardknott Roman Fort.
B has visited the fort once before, when we climbed Harter Fell with old friend X-Ray and came down via Horsehow Crags and Demming Crag (Birketts which needed ticking off, of course), which, astonishingly, was twelve summers ago. How time flies!
Beyond the wall: Horsehow Crags and Demming Crag.Inside the fort. Border End beyond.The Roman Fort.The Roman Fort.
We left the fort on a path heading towards the pass – I guess the old Roman road.
The pass, the fort and Eskdale.
By the time we hit the road, it was very hot. Fortunately, from the top of the pass it was only a very short climb to the Birkett of Border End, which turned out to be one of those Birketts which is well worth a visit, with superb views and nobody else about.
On Border End, looking to the Scafells.On Border End: Esk Pike, Bowfell, Crinkle Crags and Hard Knott.Border End panorama.Border End summit.
As we dropped away from the top of Border End I noticed this moth on the ground.
Garden Tiger Moth?
I think it’s a Garden Tiger, although it’s quite a way from any gardens. The wings usually seem to look more cream than yellow and the spots can vary in shape, but the general pattern looks right.
Garden Tiger Moth?
Since the moth was dead, I could and should have looked at the underwings which should have been a spectacular red, but unfortunately that didn’t occur to me at the time.
A view down on to Eskdale Needle.
I’d read that Border End has a good view of Eskdale Needle, and it does, although you may have to open a flickr copy of the photo above and zoom it to see it. One day I’ll have to come this way and drop down to have a proper look.
Yew Bank Crag panorama.
The tarn on Hard Knott was choked with reeds and looked extremely shallow, I soon dismissed any idea I’d had of an early dip there.
We diverted off the path to take in the rocky knoll of Yew Bank, another Birkett (and a Tump and a Synge apparently). Dropping slightly below the summit gave absolutely superb views of the hills and crags around Upper Eskdale and of the Esk and Lingcove Beck.
Slightside, Scafell, Mickledore, Scafell Pike, Broad Crag, Ill Crag, Great End. The river Esk and Lingcove Beck below.Descending from Hard Knott.Panorama.Another view of England’s highest – hard to resist!Lingcove Beck and Bowfell.Lingcove Beck and Crinkle Crags.
When we reached Lingcove Beck we immediately came upon an inviting looking pool.
An inviting pool.
Me made our way down the beck, moving from pool to pool, B looking for places to jump in, whilst I settled for a swim. I think we found around five good spots. I thought Andy and I had made a pretty thorough exploration of the swimming possibilities of both the Esk and Lingcove Beck, but I don’t remember these delightful pools.
Taking another plunge.
Tongue Pot was busy, busier than it looks here. I jumped in from the wimps side, by the tree on the right, but B had only one thing in mind: the mega-leap having not done it five years ago.
Tongue Pot. Busy.The ‘mega-leap’. This is a video. If it won’t play, click on it to visit the flickr page and view B’s feat of daring.
No qualms this time.
Once he’d done it a few times, all that remained was the pleasant walk down the valley back to the car.
Eskdale Needle from below.Heron Stones.The Esk and Bowfell.
The weather over Christmas was a bit dismal. This walk, on the day after Boxing Day, had the most promising forecast, and in the event was mostly dry. We chose a route over smallish hills since that seemed to offer the best chance of some views. We’d parked in Orton. The stream we followed out of the village eventually becomes Chapel Beck and flows into the Lune so that this walk, although I didn’t realise it at the time, is part of my exploration of the Lune catchment.
TBH had come out without a hat and so is wearing my Aldi fleece hat which I’ve subsequently lost – a real shame since I really liked it. It was, however, too big for TBH. The farm behind TBH is Broadfell and beyond that is Orton Scar.
Looking South, over the Lune valley to the Howgills which were in and out of the clouds during our walk.Lime Kiln, not marked on the OS map.Beacon Fell.On the way up Beacon Fell.Beacon Fell – looking toward the Pennines.A lunch spot with a little shelter from the wind.Looking towards Knott, our next target – notice the isolated trees..Part of the pennines catching the sun.Those trees again and sunshine on the Pennines again.
I was surprised by how busy Beacon Fell was, expecting to find it deserted. Knott, on the other hand, was very quiet – we didn’t see anyone up there and there wasn’t much of a path.
TBH by the trig pillar on Knott.
The long limestone knoll in the centre of the photo above is Castle Folds the site of a Romano British settlement – I shall have to come back to have a closer look – perhaps when it’s a bit warmer.
The weather deteriorated as we walked back to the village, with a bit of drizzle falling.
Back in the village, we discovered that a bus shelter had been turned into a charity secondhand bookstall, with an honesty box – so I came away with a couple of books. Yet another good reason to come back some time to this fascinating area.
So, I think I mentioned that my Mum and Dad very kindly donated their ebikes to us. We were keen to give them a go. Well, I was, I couldn’t persuade TBH of the merits at this point, so she was on Little S’s bike (she prefers it to her own bike, I think it has much lower gears), Little S was on an old bike of B’s and B was on his own bike. A is not keen on cycling and wouldn’t be persuaded to join us.
First stop, as you can see, was Arnside Prom for a pasty lunch. Actually, this was our second trip out – we’d already cycled halfway to Arnside, the day before, when I realised that the cracked pedals on my borrowed bike weren’t going to last the course. We had to return home. Fortunately, B had some spare pedals and, better yet, he fitted them for me.
I’d been looking at the National Cycle Network and discovered that routes 700 and 90 come almost past our door, whilst 6 connects with those two to make a little loop around the Arnside and Silverdale AONB. Route 700 is the Morecambe Bay cycleway (of which more to come), 90 is a North Lancashire Loop and 6 seems to be London to the Lakes, presumably shadowing the A6?
From Arnside, we took the B road towards Milnthorpe but turned off through the grounds of Dallam Hall on a very minor little lane which took us to Beetham…
In Beetham.Beetham Post Office.Beetham Church.
From Beetham a steep climb took us to Slackhead, followed by a long downhill, another climb over Thrang Brow and a steeper descent to Yealand Storrs.
Recognising that we were close to home, Little S deserted us at this point. Apparently, all of the up and down was a bit much for him. I have to say, had I not had the advantage of an ebike, I think I would have felt much the same way: there are a lot of ups and downs on this route, none of them very big, but in 17 miles we managed a little over 400 meters of ascent, according to MapMyWalk anyway.
In Yealand Redmayne. A rare flatish bit.In Yealand Conyers, near the top of another long climb. I presume the steps were for mounting a horse?The small Quaker church in Yealand Conyers.
Richard Hubberthorne fought in the Civil War, was a member of a Westmoreland religious group, the Seekers, and converted, if that’s the right term, to Quakerism after George Fox preached in the area. He wrote about his faith, and died in Newgate Prison.
A very successful first trip and one of many. In fact, I did much more cycling this summer than walking, so more posts of this kind to follow.
It would be pretty easy to put together a similar route, on footpaths, which would not only tour the AONB, but also take in all of the little limestone hills of the area, a walk I’ve often contemplated, but never got around to. One for the future.
A very elegant plant, Solomon’s-seal, even if the flowers are hardly spectacular. We have some in our garden. There is a garden variety, a hybrid of Solomon’s-seal and angular Solomon’s-seal. Apparently, the hybrid is more vigorous than either of the parent plants, which makes me think that what’s growing in both Eaves Wood and our garden is probably not the garden variety, since neither show much inclination to spread.
Just after I took this photo, I spotted a pair of roe deer, I even managed to take a couple of blurred photos, one of which, rather comically, only shows the hind quarters of one of the deer. I think I photographed the same pair on another walk a few days later; they were memorable because one was still in the dull grey-brown of it’s winter coat whereas the other had upgraded to the golden-brown summer coat.
Every year a solitary sweet woodruff plant appears in the hedge bottom along the lane from home and I welcome it like the returning friend it is and wonder why I don’t see sweet woodruff elsewhere. This year I have found it in a couple of other places, most noticeably in Eaves Wood, where some trees have been cleared it has already spread over quite an area.
It was close to where the herb paris was now flowering…
Silverweed.
Crosswort.
Mayflower – the hawthorns had come into bloom.
Challan Hall.
Bird’s-foot trefoil and germander speedwell complementing each other very nicely.
Early forget-me-not. Perhaps. Minuscule flowers.
Salad burnet.
Mouse-ear-hawkweed.
I’m very fond of mouse-ear-hawkweed, principally, I think, because it’s just about the only yellow-flowered member of the daisy family which is easily identified, due to it’s downy leaves which have silvery undersides. The flowers are also noticeably paler than some of the hawkbits which it might otherwise resemble.
In the meadow by Challan Hall, I was very taken by the splash of blue provided by these germander speedwells. Not quite as breath-taking as the spring gentians I might have been visiting in Teesdale, if I’d felt a long drive to Teesdale was appropriate during lockdown, but not a bad substitute.
Wild strawberry flowers.
I wish I’d taken more care and had a few attempts to photograph this tiny-flowered plant in the woods by Hawes Water. I now think that it’s kidney saxifrage, a plant which is only native to Kerry and West Cork in Ireland, but which has been introduced in Britain.
I think I dismissed it as a garden escapee and moved on too quickly to look at more familiar plants!
Common gromwell – an architectural plant much more striking for its leaves than for its unremarkable flowers.
It took a while to track this down, but I now think that it’s winter cress. It’s bitter and peppery apparently and the leaves appear in December – hence the name.
This stream, unnamed on the OS map, flows through Little Hawes Water and into Hawes Water, then from Hawes Water through Hawes Water Moss, across the golf course and into Leighton Moss, so I suppose that ultimately it’s one of the sources of Quicksand Pool. The water was particularly clear so that I could see the three-spined stickleback.
Silvery for most of the year but, in breeding season, male acquires red belly and bluish dorsal sheen.
Collins Complete British Wildlife.
Tadpoles.
Brooklime.
A plant generally of streams, although these weren’t growing in an obviously wet spot. The flowers are instantly recognisable as speedwell flowers, and brooklime belongs to the Veronica genus with the speedwells. The fleshy leaves are obviously different however. The full latin name is Veronica beccabunga with the species name beccabunga deriving from the German word ‘beck’ I read, but surely, that’s an English word too?
Bird’s-eye primrose – a Hawes Water speciality, growing at the southern limit of its range.
I read online (at a source which I found whilst looking for something else entirely, and which, annoyingly, I can’t currently find) that Hawes Water is a polje, a kind of deep lake particular to karst limestone areas. I know that it is deep and doesn’t freeze over in the winter, which means that, on the rare occasions that it gets very cold here, the surface of the lake can be thronged with waterfowl.
One of a clump of cowslips all of which had many flowers.
A newish bench.
Jackdaws are generally gregarious birds, but when the rest of the clattering took to the wing, spooked by the interloper with the camera, this one decided to remain alone. In fact, coming towards me to pick out a titbit from the grass…
And yes, clattering is the collective noun for jackdaws apparently. Or train.
Bugle.
Peacock butterfly.
New oak leaves.
Male large white butterfly on bluebells.
Lily-of-the-valley leaves.
Lily-of-the-valley flowers.
This…
..is Ursula Southeil, better known as Mother Shipton, sixteenth century prophetess. She lives on today as a statue and a visitor attraction in Knaresborough: you can visit the cave in which she was reputedly born.
She also lends her name to…
…the Mother Shipton moth. I think you’ll see why.
It’s maybe a bit of a shame that this engagingly patterned moth is named after an unfortunate woman whose neighbours apparently called her hagface.
Initially, when this moth bounced past me, I got all a-flutter because I was looking for Duke of Burgundy butterflies. It was actually too early, I think, for them to be flying, and the Mother Shipton is completely the wrong colours, but I still got in a flap. Once I had my camera steady and pointed in the right direction I recognised the moth, because I’ve seen one once before, in the hills above Whinlatter.
I’ve been back to look for Duke of Burgundies since. Repeatedly. No luck. Again. But I have seen all sorts other interesting things, so not to worry. Next year!
Gait Barrows limestone pavement.
Song Thrush. I love the way they have to have absolutely the most prominent perch on offer to sing, like a real diva.
Since some of the trees were cleared from around Hawes Water you get tantalising views of the lake from the higher parts of Gait Barrows. I climbed this small edge..
…to see if the lake was visible from there. It was, but it’s hard to pick it out in the photo…
The slight gain in height gave an interesting new perspective on the limestone pavement though…
Blackbird.
I think that this might be a sedge warbler. I watched a pair of them seemingly endlessly circuiting between a dense bush and this ash tree, singing constantly. I can say, with some confidence that it is a warbler but not a chiff-chaff, because the song was wrong, but that’s as far as my confidence extends.
Lots of bugle! This was by the stream again, but this time upstream of Little Hawes Water.
Common carder bee, perhaps, on bugle.
The reason photos of Little Hawes Water have never appeared on the blog is that it’s in there somewhere, or perhaps I should say that those trees are in Little Hawes Water, some of them at least, since trees grow in the pond.
Dandelion clocks.
One of the first blues records I bought was a Howling Wolf compilation. What a choice: Smokestack Lightning, Back Door Man, Moaning at Midnight, Little Red Rooster, Killing Floor, 300 Pounds of Heavenly Joy and this…
It wasn’t until many years later that I heard this much, much older version by the Mississippi Sheiks…
And only last week that I stumbled upon Doc Watson’s rendition…
There are, of course, lots of other covers, by the Grateful Dead, Cream and Jack White for example.
Aquilegia or columbine. It’s in our garden here – but it is a British wildflower.
Song thrush.
The beech circle.
Middlebarrow Quarry – or The Lost World. ‘Every time I see it, I expect to see dinosaurs’, B tells me. I know what he means.
Middlebarrow aerial shelduck display team.
“Keep the formation tight as we come in to land.”
“Quick breather, squadron, and we’re off again.”
Of course, having seen a peregrine once, I now keep going back to peer over the lip into the vast quarry at Middlebarrow expecting lightening to strike twice. It hasn’t. I do keep seeing the close formation aerial skills of the shelducks though. Lord knows why they feel compelled to circuit the quarry so obsessively.
This small plaque is on a house near home. I’m sure I’ve posted a picture of it before. But now I’ve learned that it’s a fire insurance sign – showing which insurance company the house was registered with. It seems more like something you might expect to see in a more urban location, but maybe this is an antique which has been added since the signs were rendered obsolete by the inception of a national fire service? The house is very close to our small fire station, which is manned by retained fire fighters, so they should be okay if the worst happens.
The Bay from The Cove.
Ransoms flowering in the small copse above the Cove.
Orchids on the Lots.
Green-winged orchid.
Early purple orchid.
Water avens.
Bugle.
Orange-tip butterfly on cuckoo-flower.
A bedraggled peacock butterfly.
Gooseberry flowers. I think.
Lambert’s meadow.
The skies above Eaves Wood.
It annoys me, more than it should, that I can never remember the names given to the various types of clouds. All sorts of stupid trivia is securely lodged in my brain, but even though I’ve read a couple of books on the subject, clouds just don’t seem to want to stick. I thought that if I tried to label the clouds in my photos, maybe I would start to remember a few at least. The fluffy white ones above Eaves Wood here are cumulus, right? Although, maybe some stratocumulus behind.
And I assume these wispy ones are cirrus.
And this is maybe cirrocumulus.
But then….? Altocumulus and cirrus?
Hmmm. More effort required, I think.
Oak tree in full summer garb.
Full-throated robin.
Bit obvious I know. But good.
And, completely unrelated, as far as I know…
…the opening track from one of my favourite albums, which I was introduced to by THO, who often comments here, and which I shall always associate with a superb holiday which was split, quixotically, between the French Alps and the Brittany coast.
A grey day in November. Loyal readers may recognise this view, as I opened a post with it once before. It’s taken from a footbridge over Rusland Pool. On that occasion the view was obscured by mist, I was heading up onto the hill on the right, and I would later get a proper drubbing in an absolute downpour. The best that can be said for the weather this day is that at least it was better than it had been for that previous visit. In fact, although it looked ready to rain all day, I only had to endure a little drizzle.
By the time I’d taken the photo above, I’d already come up and over the wooded ridge between the Rusland Valley and Newby Bridge, where I was parked.
When does a stream become a river? I followed the Rusland downstream, eventually reaching it’s confluence with the River Leven. Rusland Pool is so small it seems appropriate to call it a stream, but on the other hand it does drain an entire valley.
The confluence of Rusland Pool and the River Leven.
This used to be a favourite spot of mine, it’s so quiet and peaceful. It’s odd that I haven’t visited for many years.
This was a quiet walk, though I did meet other walkers from time to time. I also had to put up with the continual popping of shotguns from the ‘sportsmen’ who were hunting alarmingly close to where I was walking.
River Leven.
This was mid-November, and there was actually quite a bit of autumn colour in the trees still, but in the gloom, it hasn’t come out well in photos. The berries have fared better…
…I think that these are Spindle berries.
I’ve long wanted to have a proper gander at Roudsea Wood. The sign says that you need a permit. There’s a building on the reserve, and I could hear someone inside, so I knocked on the door to ask for a permit, but they didn’t respond. So I took that as tacit permission.
In the background of this photo…
…is the Ellerside Ridge, where I’d walked the autumn before.
Haws.
This Holly seemed unusually endowed with berries…
Bryony.
I’m always on the lookout for likely looking swimming spots; here on the banks of the Leven someone has constructed their own little diving board …
There’s a small ladder leaning against a likely looking overhanging branch on the far bank too.
This is the bridge at Low Wood. It’s a Grade II listed building:
“Bridge. C18 or early C19. Stone rubble. 3 elliptical arches with 2 round cutwaters to each side, which are roughcast, with caps. Parapet has plain coping. Probably associated with Low Wood ironworks, the site later taken over for gunpowder works, of which the Clock Tower works (q.v.) remain.”
from the Historic England website.
Low Wood is a sleepy little hamlet. I sat on a bench and dug out my stove to make a brew. It had warmed up a little, was rather pleasant in fact.
Then suddenly…
…a host of kayakers appeared, lugging their kayaks back to their cars. I’ve paddled an inflatable canoe down part of the Leven from Windermere, but not the section downstream from Newby Bridge, which I strongly suspect would be a bit too exciting for an inflatable.
I think this…
…must be the Clock Tower Works referred to above.
“Grade II* A mid-C19 saltpetre refinery associated with Lowwood Gunpowder Works and remains of an earlier C18 ironworks.”
from the Historic England website.
Backbarrow.
Another view of Backbarrow. Coniston Old Man, in the background, has a few patches of snow on it.
Back at Newby Bridge, I took some photos of the bridge…
…hence fulfilling a promise I made here. This is another listed Grade II*:
Bridge over river Leven. Date uncertain, repaired in C17. Stone rubble with limestone coping. Long narrow bridge with 5 segmental arches stepped up to centre, triangular cutwaters between rise to form refuges to both sides.
from the Historic England website.
When I wrote about this bridge before, I said that it had been built in 1651, but Historic England’s ‘repaired in C17’ suggests that it may be even older than that.
Before I drove home, I sat on a bench overlooking a weir on the Leven and made one final brew.
A highly enjoyable stroll, despite the grey skies.
And that, folks, will be my one and only post about last November. What did I do for the rest of the month? Search me!
During October half-term we visited my parents in Lincolnshire and whilst there had a day out at Woolsthorpe Manor House, the birthplace, in 1642, of Isaac Newton.
In 1666, Cambridge University closed due to the plague and Newton returned to Woolsthorpe and conducted a number of important experiments on optics. Maybe there’s a modern day Newton, stuck at home right know, about to revolutionise science with an idea germinated in isolation?
Inside the house, a seventeenth century farmhouse, there were fascinating exhibits on optics and also a room dedicated to the Apollo 11 moon landing, with it being the 30 year anniversary.
In the garden, there’s an apple tree…
…which is not the actual one from which a falling apple reputedly inspired Newton to conceive his theory of gravitation, but which is descended from it. Presumably from a cutting, which would mean that it is genetically identical to the original tree*.
The National Trust had clearly made an effort to make the most of quite a small space and there were exhibits in another building and various other attractions, including garden Jenga…
A had just demolished the tower here, much to everyone else’s amusement.
And a Lego moon lander…
There’s also a small cafe at Woolsthorpe, but they didn’t have anything to offer the vegan members of our party, so we drove to another National Trust property nearby, Belton House and had a very late lunch there. We were too late to have a look around the house, but Belton has an impressive playground within its substantial grounds and the boys, and maybe one or two other members of the family, are not too old to appreciate that sort of thing. We looked around Belton House years ago, so long ago, in fact, that it was pre-blog so there are no photos here that I can share. We’ll have to go back.
I didn’t mind the fact that lunch was late, since I’d had a very substantial breakfast….
…I’m usually too intent on eating to remember to photograph my meals, but I took a picture this time so that I could remind my mum (hello Mum!), not to be so stingy with the tomatoes next time she makes me breakfast (thank you!).
* I’m a bit geeky about apples. They have a fascinating history. Most apple varieties don’t produce seed unless they are cross-pollinated with another kind of apple. The resulting trees have very unpredictable qualities, since apples seem to produce a great deal of mutations. So to retain the properties of the fruit produced by a tree it’s necessary to take a cutting. Which means that all apples of any particular variety are genetically identical. I think!
More holiday snaps, but these are of a much greater vintage.
The day after our failed island-hopping exploits we drove across northern Germany and then crossed the Afsluitdijk the dam/causeway which turned the Zuiderzee, a huge bay, into the freshwater Ijsselmeer. It was an extremely windy day and one carriageway of the road was closed, with the wind whipping the Ijsselmeer into impressive waves. The Afsluitdijk is 20 miles long and it was quite odd driving along it, knowing that we were on a narrow strip of land with large expanses of apparently angry water on either side of us. It would have been nice to stop to have a look, but it really wasn’t the day for it.
I’ve been across the Afsluitdijk before. In the summer of 1968. When my parents heard that we were heading that way last summer, they sent me some photos from my previous crossing.
We were in a mini, my parents and my grandparents and me. I’m told it was a hot summer – it must have been fun with 5 of us in a such a tiny car; three smokers and one very car-sick toddler. Here’s a photo of the Afsluitdijk in 1968…
…which I presume my dad took. The pale blue car with cases on the roof may well be our mini.
And here are my grandparents, Sid and Flo, younger then than I am now, which seems quite odd, and my mum and me. I’m in the fetching baby-blue hoodie. I was almost as cute then as I am now.
Oh, I haven’t done that for a while: this post ought to have preceded my last one. Not to worry.
This was another, short, half-term wander. One of our cars was booked in for a warranty service at a garage on the White Lund industrial estate between Lancaster and Morecambe. At the last minute, the offer of a courtesy car was withdrawn. Since we had other things to do later in the day, that left us with some logistical difficulties. We decided to try to make something of the morning, so TBH followed me to the garage and then we continued south to the small village of Sunderland Point.
The causeway road which is the only one in and out of Sunderland Point.
It’s a crazy thing that I’ve never been to Sunderland Point before, even though I’ve lived in the area for nearly 30 years. Twice a day, the tide rises over the access road and the village is cut off from its neighbours.
Sea Beet.
It was an overcast and windy day and we were pushed for time, so we kept our walk short and I didn’t take as many photos as I might have done. I noticed a lot of seashore plants – these Sea-beet, some Horned Poppies, Sea Campion for example – and was thinking that I must return some time to have a more leisurely look around.
Dryad’s Saddle.
I was keen to see this…
Horizon Line Chamber by artist Chris Drury.
Which is just a little way around the coast from the village. It’s a camera obscura, with a small lens in the wall which projects an inverted image onto the opposite wall.
Image inside the chamber.
There’s more about the project on the artist’s website here. Including this delightful film…
Visiting on a gloomy day probably wasn’t a great choice, so I intend to come to have another look when the sun is shining.
The chamber is close to…
Sambo’s grave.
A relic of Lancaster’s history as one of the ports engaged in the transatlantic slave trade. Sambo was a former cabin boy who came to Sunderland Point in 1736 and, having died of a fever, was not buried in consecrated ground. This plaque…
…dated 1796, features a poem written by Reverend James Watson.
Sculpture by Ray Schofield, who lived in the house opposite where the sculpture is now sited.
Beating The Bounds 