Millom to Ravenglass – Thursday 5th May 2022
Millom to Haverigg
We have completed two of the peninsulas of the South Cumbrian coast, crossing the Kent and the Leven estuaries as we did. Today we cross another Estuary – The Duddon. The river Duddon rises near the Three Shires Stone, where the old counties of Lancashire, Cumberland and Westmorland once met. The mountains here rise close to 1,000 metres, being part of the range which includes Scafell Pike – the highest peak in England. It then winds its way south down the beautifully isolated Dunnerdale, passing through small settlements including Seathwaite and Ulpha, before it reaches the sea between the towns of Millom on its western side and Askam in Furness to its east.
Our previous leg took us to Barrow-in-Furness, which pretty-well marks the point at which the river estuary becomes sea-proper. Once again we are faced with the unattractive option of cycling around the estuary on A roads, or invoking our get-out clause and starting somewhere on the opposite bank. Of course we decide on the latter course of action – our start point being the town of Millom.
Hard Knot and Ulpha Fell at the headwaters of the Duddon – Scafell Pike towers brooding amongst the clouds
Dunnerdale – the gloriously isolated valley of the River Duddon – from Ulpha Church
To get to Millom we drive into Ulverston and park the car as close to the station as we possibly can. This turns out to be over half a mile, but we have bikes, so no problem! Taking the train to Millom is Betty’s brainchild. Yesterday we drove up Dunnerdale and over to Coniston Water and realised what a lot of wearisome driving is involved. So she came up with the cunning plan to go by train from Ulverston. Less stressful for Betty (the driver) and me (the navigator) and a snip at £10 return using their dual ticket offering.
At Millom we find our way off the station platform and consult our map. One of those very helpful local chaps, who obviously hang around stations to share their local knowledge, ambles over to me.
“You lost then?”
“No I’m fine thanks. Just checking the map.”
“Where you going?”
“Ravenglass.”
“That’s miles up the coast. I’d get on the train if I were you.”
“We’re cycling there – along the coast.”
“What for? The train is quite cheap you know!”
“Thanks.” I respond without conviction and get on my bike to cycle anywhere, as long as it’s away from him.
‘Anywhere’ turns out to be Market Square where we pause to check the map unhindered by well-meaning locals.
“You know if you hadn’t planned all these trips we would never have come to Millom.” Praises Betty effusively.
I am touched that she appreciates my efforts and that she likes being here. Millom is a pleasant little town, but not the sort of place you would find promoted by tour guides. Ordinary, but a typically British kind of place (even with its own well-meaning train enthusiast).
An interesting statue/sculpture stands on a plinth in front of the town’s ornate Post Office. It looks like a bowler-hatted miner and his iron-ore truck. A plaque states:
“This statue of the Hodbarrow Miner
was chosen by the people of Millom and Haverigg
to represent their heritage which was founded
on the Mines and the Ironworks.”
Like so many places on the Cumbrian coast, Millom owes its existence to the heavy industry that grew here in the 19th Century.
Finally confident that we are going the right way, we cycle through the oldest part of the town, dominated by back-to-back housing separated by cobbled backstreets – where generations of kids must have played football and dreamed of playing for Barrow-in-Furness FC. The age of the town is not difficult to work-out, with street names such as Victoria Street, Albert Street, Wellington Street and Nelson Street.
Eventually I find our destination, King Street, which takes us down to the salt marsh that lines the Duddon Estuary.
The Hodbarrow Miner of Millom and Haverigg in front of the town’s Post Office
Back to back terraced housing dating back to Milloms industrial origins
At the water’s edge, away from the town, it is quiet, with just a few dog-walkers. It is hard to imagine what this was like over 100 years ago. The only visible industry is a fisherman with a ‘builder’s bum’, bent double as he forks the sand for lug-worms to bait his hooks.
A few herring gulls and black-headed gulls squawk at each other in the still sunny air. The track is a little rough underfoot, but nothing to give us any concern. This is the perfect cycling adventure country – no hawthorn spines, easy cycling and a few elusive clues to the past heritage of this area.
We pass a forlorn looking sign advising us that this is the site of Millom Ironworks Local Nature Reserve. The sign is adorned with twenty years of encrusting lichens and algae, suggesting that it is a nature reserve in name-only now. Such local nature reserves were once popular, but probably lacked the organisation and resources to become a sustainable entity. On first viewing most people probably think a nature reserve is somewhere left to its own devices – ‘to get on with it’. Alas, like sustainable gardening, conservation of a habitat needs a lot of time and money expended upon it. Without both the habitat scrubs-up and eventually turns to woodland. Now this is fine if the area in question happens to be a woodland, or you would like to see a woodland develop there. If however, you want the site to be some other kind of habitat, then you need to invest. ie. Time and money.
Ideally then, someone with money will buy the whole of this Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) between Millom and Hodbarrow Point and donate it to the local wildlife trust, with enough money to support its management for the next 20 or 30 years. Former industrial sites like this represent an important habitat for some of the UK’s rarer species, which are only able to thrive in brownfield sites – where more vigorous and domineering species just can’t.
Crossing an area of apparent wasteland we stumble across an area of dumped spoil, not unlike the ‘spoil mountain’ encountered yesterday at Canal Foot, near Ulverston. This time we are able to get a closer look at the material, which has an almost igneous look to it. These rocks would have formed in a not dissimilar way – molten rock, slowly cooling to a hard, semi-crystalline mass. However, in this instance they would have been super-heated in a furnace, rather than deep below the earth’s crust.
Passing Horama House, a strange box-like collection of buildings, I am struck by its magnificent display of cowslips in what at first-glance appears to be a lawn. Closer inspection reveals barely any grasses growing here at all, such is the toxicity of the soil beneath. I wonder what unique chemistry exists here and how wildlife has adapted to it’.
At a human level, the area has a rundown, forgotten feel to it. We follow the water’s-edge into an area advertised as suitable for “Quayside Facilities, Storage and Landfill”, suggesting the area is likely to be developed – should a suitable buyer be found. Closer inspection reveals that this was at one time a thriving wharf, probably for the loading and unloading of coal and iron products. Today just a few iron mooring bollards remind us of its former use.
At least the cycling is easy and I am delighted to discover that Natural England has been actively encouraging the implementation of the England Coast Path here. Signage and a kissing gate big enough to get a bike through are likewise most welcome. Beyond the gate, the ground moves from old quayside hardcore to sand dune derived soils. A few sheep scrape a living from this marginal land, but I am happy to see storksbill growing in abundance.
Millom Ironworks Local Nature Reserve
Spoil heap left-over from Millom Iron Works
Spectacular cowslip display at Horama House
Old wharf area with rusting iron mooring bollards
Storksbill and mosses provide little of food value to the local sheep on these sand dune soils
Beyond this field we have to negotiate rough paths which take us over a low hill from which we have excellent views of the area – once mined for the richest iron ore deposit in the world. Alas, by 1969 the mining company closed, being uneconomic compared to the vast deposits found elsewhere in the world. Lower grade ores mined on a vast scale, can be much more economic than even the highest grade ores.
To get the iron ore out, the company had to contend with the problem presented by the adjacent sea threatening to flood the mine’s galleries. A large concrete barrier was built to assist with this. Eventually the land above the mines subsided, leaving a large brackish water lagoon now owned by the RSPB and providing safe breeding grounds for a number of bird species – not least Sandwich Terns. These nest on the ground and so are vulnerable to fox predation. To address this, the RSPB have created an island for the birds to nest on and added a chain-link fence for good measure.
All along the embankment separating the lagoon from the sea, we come across masses of clinker from the days of iron-making. The clinker was probably dumped on top of the concrete barrier whilst still hot. The landscape is not a great deal different from that found on the side of Mount Vesuvius! Slag is largely of limestone origin and can make local soils and groundwater highly alkaline. Very little appears to be able to grow in this landscape, but the birds are quite happy since their food is derived from the sea.
We see scores of sandwich tern and a few common tern winging back and forth from the sea to their nests on the island in the lagoon, fish held tightly in their beaks. Thus conservationists have tip the balance in favour of the birds, at the expense of any red pelted friend who might fancy taking an egg (No, I’m not referring to Betty in this instance).
Seeing a bird-hide overlooking the lagoon, what self-respecting conservationist wouldn’t take the opportunity of having a gander. Inside we find a helpful birder who advises us that we are looking-over masses of eider duck, tufted duck, sandwich tern, common tern, black-headed gull, lapwing and canada geese.
Bird-watching invariably involves sitting patiently with binoculars, neither of which I happen to possess, so 5 minutes later we are back on our bikes. A sign informs us that natterjack toads abound in the Duddon Estuary, where the “rasping croak” of the males is irresistable to the ladies. I must try that myself sometime.
Close inspection of the trackway that we are cycling along reveals large lumps of iron. I’m not sure if they are bits of high grade iron ore or discarded lumps from a furnace, but I am reminded of the tin and copper mines of Cornwall where spoil heaps are being reworked for valuable metals as rising world prices make the activity viable. Perhaps Hodbarrow will one day be reworked for ‘any old iron’.
The lagoon at Hodbarrow Nature Reserve – masses of clinker from the iron-works gives a ‘moonscape’, but the birds don’t mind
Dumped clinker (or slag) is a waste product from the iron-making process
An interpretative sign photo shows molten slag being emptied as spoil at Hodbarrow
The RSPB island created in the lagoon at Hodbarrow
A half-metre long lump of discarded iron ore in the lagoon wall
Beyond the lagoon wall the clinker gives way to sand dune habitat where I spot several rubber mats and sheets of corrugated iron. I know from having managed my own nature reserve, that these are a vital tool placed here by a biological surveyor, to attract reptiles and newts looking for a warm place to hide. Without an effective means of recording and measuring these populations, it is impossible to know whether or not your conservation measures are being effective.
To the west of Hodbarrow Nature Reserve is the village of Haverigg – perfectly placed for us to pause and have our lunch. Sitting by a road junction we are able to indulge in people-watching and guess what they are up to. One old lady stands across the road from us with a bag. Is she waiting for a bus, or perhaps her son to pick her up? As we work our way through lunch we discuss her predicament. Fifteen minutes later a taxi pulls-up and she climbs into the back.
We are fascinated to observe the lady taxi-driver chuck her empty packet of fags under her car before driving-off. Somehow it is ok to ‘hide’ your guilt under the car, rather than brazenly drop litter in the street. Once she drives-off the fag packet remains in the road, regardless of the method by which it got there. Behavioural norms of the past (dropping litter) have been replaced by new ones it seems. The ‘don’t drop litter’ message obviously had some effect on her, but not quite what Maggie Thatcher’s 1988 Tidy Britain Campaign had in mind!
Inevitably we run-out of lunch items (though not necessarily interesting people to watch), so we make our way past the little harbour and along the sea front.
Haverigg village centre – an ideal place to watch the world go about its business
Haverigg Harbour – probably looking much as it did 200 years ago
The sea front is encouraging since new England Coast Path signs have been erected. Somehow I misinterpret them and we set off cycling along the beach, which turns to salt marsh, before becoming a near impassable pebble-beach. We press-on, pushing our bikes and becoming slowly disconsolate. 20 metre high sand dunes tower over us and beyond them we can see giant wind turbines thrashing the air. We need to get beyond these before we can take a footpath inland. Eventually I decide to have a pee in the dunes and discover that the England Coast Path actually runs through them. We could have saved ourselves the grunting, but at least we can now get off the beach.
The England Coast Path apparently follows the high tide mark at Haverigg
The transition to salt marsh challenges Betty to stay on her bike
When the salt marsh changes to pebbles, then it’s all about pushing
A return to beach sand gives a few minutes respite…
…before we’re back to pushing across pebbles again
Yet another wind farm providing ‘free’ energy for the UK
Free energy however does have a construction and maintenance cost
Eventually we discover the England Coast Path on top of the dunes
Haverigg to Silecroft
The footpath follows a reasonably cycle-able track to Kirksanton, where we elect to join the A5093past Silecroft. Not only is the road patronised by every kind of speeding vehicle you can imagine, it starts to climb some 40 metres. Oh, if only we had brought our e-bikes!
Baldmire to Gutterby
Eventually we have had enough of the traffic and hills, and turn-off down a lane, which in turn becomes a rough track to the hamlet of Gutterby. Somehow we find our way to the coast at Bog Hole, where I discover I have yet another puncture. Pumping up the tyre appears to have the desired effect and 10 minutes later we are bumping our way along the top of the cliffs, allegedly following a public right of way.
A right of way doesn’t necessarily have to be a ‘possible’ of way, especially by bike. Legally I can’t complain I suppose, since footpaths are thus designated for those travelling on foot. Bridleways have a different designation however, with bikes treated as de jure horses on them.
The cliffs here are obviously receding rapidly, compared to the sand dune coast just 3 miles further south east.
Gutterby to Bootle Station
Half pushing – half bump-cycling, we eventually make it to some sort of hard surfaced track at Annaside Farm, before the track finally becomes a metalled road through Kiskin and eventually to Bootle where we turn left to Bootle Station at Hycemoor.
The A5093 at Sledbank – hills and traffic. The wind farm at Haverigg is to the right
Puncture repaired bike at Bog Hole with Black Combe mountain beyond
The rapidly eroding cliffs at Bog Hole near Gutterby
Bootle Station to Newbiggin
Unbridled joy overcomes us as we whisk down the tarmac road to the beach at Stubb Place south of Eskmeals Range. It is getting a bit overcast now and we fear it may turn to rain. One of those lovely information signs that abound on the British coast fills in a small gap in my knowledge of English history. Apparently there was a battle waged here in 1838 between the locals and Liverpool seamen intent on taking all the cobbles from the beach. The local men had had enough of it, since they realised that their coast was eroding because of this activity. It transpires the locals beat the invaders back with ‘a good sprig of oak’. This could be one of the earliest examples of eco-warriors applying direct action to protect the British coastline. We could learn much from them.
Several cyclists pass us from the opposite direction and I am convinced they must have crossed the Esk estuary. My optimism about getting to Ravenglass increases as we cycle past Eskmeals Range.
Eskmeals Range has been an artillery testing site since World War One. The area to the north of this is managed by the Cumbria Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve. Much of the site is cloaked in acidic heathland vegetation, including heather and gorse. This is unsurprising since there have been sand dunes here for 5,000 years. Some 300 plant species are present, illustrating the value of MOD land to nature conservation in the UK.
A mile or two up the road and we are disappointed to discover that the apparent bridleway across the Esk estuary is no more than a legal entity. You can ride your horse (or bike) along it, but if the tide is in (or even if it isn’t) you are “a better man than me Gungadin”. The tide is in, with the alternative crossing point further upstream likely to be no better, so we decide to cycle back to Bootle Station and catch the train back home to Ulverston. Checking my mobile for train times we discover that we will have to kill 2 hours at the station waiting for the next train, since the next train has been cancelled.
Retracing your steps is always a pretty unrewarding activity, especially if you are faced with a 2 hour wait on arrival. However, we discover a ray of light at the end of this tunnel. On arrival at Bootle station the train to Ravenglass is just about to arrive. Betty suggests we jump on it to Ravenglass as this will likely be a much more interesting place to be stranded for 2 hours. We might even be able to buy dinner in the pub there.
As the train arrives, we have to stick our hands out to request that it stops for us – something I don’t think I’ve ever had to do before. At Ravenglass we discover that the next train has in fact not been cancelled, so we take it all the way to Barrow-in-Furness, feeling very smug about the whole thing. It is not until we get to Barrow-in-Furness that we discover it is here that our connection to Ulverston has been cancelled.
Two hours later we finally get off the train at Ulverston only for me to discover that I once again have a flat tyre. It must have been a slow puncture since now it refuses to re-inflate. Fortunately the car is only a half mile push away.
It has been a long day, with some pretty challenging sections completed, but at least we made it to Ravenglass, where we will start tomorrow for our leg to St Bees. However, we decide that the train is not sufficiently reliable and will take the car after all for the next leg.
Looking South from Stubb Place towards Annaside
Eskmeal Ranges – an artillery firing range which surprisingly provides protection for over 300 plant species (wild plant theft here could have severe consequences!)
The bridleway across the Esk estuary is in name only – especially at high tide!
Ravenglass and the estuary of the River Mite – thankfully this can be crossed by taking the footway alongside the railway viaduct