Author Archives: solwayshorewalker

Snippets 11: big moon, big tides, at Allonby Bay

Posted on October 19, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

On Monday night the full moon, its face very slightly squashed, shone down on a stormy Solway Firth. The brown silt-laden waves pounded ashore and shortly after midnight the incoming tide that was battering the sea-defences at Dubmill Point reached … Continue reading →

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Snippets 10: stone stoops

Posted on August 19, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

Gateposts don’t normally attract our attention, so it is easy to miss the fact that many of the ‘posts’ supporting field gates on the Solway Plain are not posts at all, but are the traditional red sandstone pillars – known … Continue reading →

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The Solway viaduct

Posted on July 26, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

(Note: for a longer and fuller account of the design, construction and demolition of the Solway Junction Railway and viaduct, a research project by myself and James Smith and supported with funding from the Solway Wetlands Partnership and the Heritage … Continue reading →

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Crossing the Sulewath: A guest post by David Livermore

Posted on July 13, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

Two big rivers feed the head of the Solway.  The Eden drains all Cumbria from Helvellyn to the Pennines, the Esk harvests a rainy quarter of the Southern Uplands. Rockcliffe Marsh separates their outlets and the OS map shows few … Continue reading →

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The ‘Sir John Fisher’: a trip in a lifeboat from Workington to Whitehaven

Posted on June 26, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

“Ann? Come and stand here.” You don’t argue with John Stobbart, Coxwain of the Sir John Fisher. He’s a tall, imposing man with a gruff voice, and he’s standing at the wheel of Workington’s lifeboat – which is currently suspended … Continue reading →

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Allonby Bay MCZ: a ‘slimy dangerous place?’

Posted on June 13, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

Allonby Bay, on Cumbria’s Solway coast, recently became a Marine Conservation Zone; there are now 50 MCZs in English and ‘non-devolved’ waters and proposals for more are under consideration. Most people, probably, neither know nor would they care. Here are … Continue reading →

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Snippets 9: ‘Seeing’ the Solway’s bottom

Posted on May 11, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

“Between Solway Buoy and Corner Buoy, it’s a critical region, the region that gives us the most trouble. At Corner Buoy there’s a narrow corridor – that channel is our window [to Silloth], to the East of it are big … Continue reading →

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Snippets 8: A non-conformist on the shore

Posted on April 18, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

‘Brockram’ and ‘breccia’: the first word suggests something that is solid and long-lasting, the other has a hint of transience, of frippery. But Brockram is a form of breccia; it looks like a congealed and lumpy mess of porridge that … Continue reading →

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Piloting a ship up the Firth to Silloth

Posted on April 1, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

You have probably never thought what  it would be like to pilot a ship: to be in charge of, say, a cargo vessel with a hold-full of sticky molasses, that is about to enter the narrow dock gates of a … Continue reading →

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The Walls of Parton

Posted on March 22, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

‘Are you looking for the old port?’ The man seemed to have appeared from nowhere, yet he was tall and strongly built, white hair sticking up straight, not easy to overlook. ‘Port?’ I was bemused – I’d been poking at … Continue reading →

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