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Author Archives: solwayshorewalker
Protecting the coast: limestone rock armour
A local Cumberland councillor, who sits on the Board of the cross-border Solway Firth Partnership, often refers to the Cumbrian coast as being the ‘soft side’ of the Firth, in contrast to the rockier Scottish, side. And once you have … Continue reading
Posted in geology, LIMESTONE, limestone fossils, limestone rock armour, stones
Tagged boulders, corals, fossils, gabions
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Wandering walls in limestone country
Dry stone wallers need to be pragmatists, building around or over problem areas, or incorporating boulders too big to move. At Bents, near Newbiggin-on-Lune on the edge of the Westmorland Dales, red sandstone and pale limestone are strikingly juxtaposed. Huge … Continue reading
Posted in geology, LIMESTONE, limestone and drystone walls, limestone scenery, quarries
Tagged clay pipes, limestone and drystone walls, limestone pavements
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‘Saltmarsh writing workshop’ – some words and images
The RSPB’s Campfield Reserve near Bowness on the Upper Solway is a perfect place for a writing workshop, especially if you want to ‘experience’, think about, and write about saltmarshes; they form a land- and sea-scape that most people probably … Continue reading
Posted in bioturbation, mud-shrimps, mudflats, saltmarshes, tidal bores, Writing
Tagged Solway
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The charisma of Corophium, the mudshrimp
Snowdrifts! Small semicircles and rippling lines of white on the grass of the saltmarsh: the cast exoskeletons of thousands of mudshrimps. My friend and former colleague Professor Geoff Moore (himself an expert on amphipod crustaceans including Corophium) once told me … Continue reading
Posted in bioturbation, mud-shrimps, mudflats, saltmarshes
Tagged bioengineering, burrows, conservation
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Rocks and patterns: Fleswick Bay
Whatever the weather or state of the tide, Fleswick Bay never disappoints. Sheltered within the two arms of the St Bees headlands, it is an anomaly on the Cumbrian Solway coast – tall cliffs, caves, rocky platforms pitted with deep … Continue reading
Posted in geology, sandstone, stones
Tagged guano, guillemots, New Red Sandstone, pebbles, sculptures
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Saltpans or fish-tanks? Stone basins on a Solway shore
Along the top of the shore between Maryport and its golf club is a high and wide promenade, constructed in the 1930s from an astonishing volume of concrete. At weekends it’s a perfect walkway for families with pushchairs, small hairy … Continue reading
Posted in archaeology, coastal heritage, fishing, salt, sandstone
Tagged bratt holes, sandstone, Senhouse family
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The African Steam Ship Company, and the story of a piece of china
The shore at Parton, just North of Whitehaven, is a good place to find tiny sherds of pottery and china. Many of the fragments are of ‘blue and white’, of which some are willow-pattern – lucky finds are glimpses of … Continue reading
Posted in coastal heritage, Found Objects, industrial heritage, ports, ships
Tagged china, Macgregor Laird, pottery sherds, transfer-ware, West Africa trade
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Clints Crags. An intermittent diary of a limestone pavement
Clints Crags are part of a limestone complex not far from where I live (see elsewhere on this blog). The complex has three disused quarries, limestone outcrops, sinkholes, drystone walls in various levels of disrepair, and limestone pavement. The pavement … Continue reading
Posted in geology, LIMESTONE, limestone pavements, limestone scenery
Tagged clints, grikes, lichens, mosses, seasons
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Strange animals of the Solway shore
This is a resumé of a short talk I gave at Bowness-on-Solway on Saturday 22nd January, as part of the event that launched the ‘Hadrian’s Wall 1900’ celebrations. I’m posting it here because some of the audience wanted to know … Continue reading
Posted in mud-shrimps, mudflats, Sabellaria, honeycomb worm, submerged forest
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A Solway small-holding: an update
I last wrote about our small-holding in NW Cumbria in May 2018, shortly after we had planted our ‘Three-score-years-and ten’ wood, including a hedge and a couple of thickets, on one of our fields. The trees have now had four … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, farming, smallholding
Tagged moths, ponds, small-holding, tree-planting
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Solway Shore-walker 