Category Archives: coastal heritage

Ask the fellows who cut the peats

Posted on March 13, 2017 by solwayshorewalker

“I just went and asked for a job – I fancied gaan cuttin’ peat. The foreman said, ‘I’ll take you up on the moss’ – and what a walk it was! A big wide open space, peat stacks everywhere. And … Continue reading →

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Lighthouses of the Upper Solway: a guest post by Captain Chris Puxley

Posted on December 19, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

For many years, Captain Chris Puxley was Harbourmaster of the Port of Silloth and  a ship’s pilot, bringing ships up the Solway’s unpredictable channels from Workington. He has always been interested in the Port’s history and has written a book … 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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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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The eagle and the pine-cone: the story of Sarah Losh and Newton Arlosh church

Posted on January 30, 2016 by solwayshorewalker

The newly-restored church of St John the Baptist at Newton Arlosh was consecrated in July 1849: it had previously been a wreck for about 250 years. As John Curwen wrote in 1913 (in a paper that ‘was read on site’), … Continue reading →

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Sandstone, ‘smooth as walnut turned on a lathe’

Posted on December 3, 2015 by solwayshorewalker

“Fine sandstone is quite silky, you get a crisp image, the maximum sculptural effect. With sandstone there’s no reflection of light to distort what you see.” Sky Higgins, sculptor. “Red St Bees’ is a fine-grained stone, dull red in colour… … Continue reading →

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Ship’s-keel scaur: but whose keel?

Posted on October 6, 2015 by solwayshorewalker

On a warm, calm evening in May, at a low Spring tide, Ronnie Porter led me along the shore at Allonby. As we walked, he showed me the various rocky scaurs and boulders, and he told me their names. Near … Continue reading →

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Snippets 5: Angels, salt and shroud-pins

Posted on October 2, 2015 by solwayshorewalker

Pat Bull unlocked a peeling black door and showed me into a small brick-walled room. On the plain wooden table which almost filled the space were small polythene bags and boxes, labelled in black feltpen with numbers and letters. At … Continue reading →

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Waths: fords and borders

Posted on August 22, 2015 by solwayshorewalker

On a very low Spring tide in August, my guide Mark Messenger and I crossed and re-crossed the Solway on foot, from England to Scotland and back. We waded across the Firth through the outgoing tide and the flow of … Continue reading →

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