While I've been completing the coverage of our trip to the north-west in June 2015 I came across this picture from a previous visit, and as I hadn't used it thought I would re-edit it.
When the tide goes out in Morecambe Bay it can recede for several miles, leaving any boats stranded on the foreshore, such these inshore fishing boats at Morecambe. In the far distance are the hills and fells of the Lake District.
Tags: Lancashire Morecambe Morecambe Bay coast seaside fishing boats Explored
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When we stayed in north Lancashire back in June 2015 we were within a mile or so of the tiny village of Borwick, a couple of miles north of Carnforth. Here the road crosses the Lancaster Canal, which was constructed in 1797. This particular section of the canal is very quiet because it is only navigable for another few hundred yards as far as Tewitfield.
The Lancaster Canal was originally planned to run from Westhoughton, near Wigan in Lancashire to Kendal in what is now Cumbria. The section around the crossing of the River Ribble was never completed, and much of the southern end leased to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, of which it is now generally considered part.
Of the canal north of Preston, only the section from Preston to Tewitfield is currently open to navigation. The canal north of Tewitfield has been severed in three places by the construction of the M6 motorway, and by the A590 road near Kendal. The southern part, from Johnson's Hillock to Wigan Top Lock, remains navigable as part of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The planned continuation to Westhoughton was never built.
Tags: Lancashire Borwick Lancaster Canal canals countryside
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Many thousands of tons of rock armour have been installed along the coast at Morecambe to protect it from the inevitable Irish Sea gales. Part of the multimillion pound sea defences, which were mainly constructed in the 1990s, include the rock groyne above. One of the benefits is that this man-made barrier also provides a sheltered anchorage for small fishing boats and other inshore craft. This is looking north across Morecambe Bay towards the mountains of the Lake District.
Tags: Lancashire Morecambe Morecambe Bay sea coast groynes coastal defences fishing boats small boats sandy beaches
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Hornby Castle is a Lancashire country house that was developed from a medieval castle. The Grade I-listed building overlooks the village of Hornby in the Lune Valley in the north of the county.
The castle originally dates from the 13th century but virtually nothing of this is now left. The polygonal tower dates from the 16th century, and was probably built for Sir Edward Stanley, 1st Baron Monteagle. His great-grandson, the fourth Baron Monteagle, became famous as the peer who was forewarned about the Gunpowder Plot in 1605.
During the English Civil War the castle was captured and subsequently occupied in 1648 by the Duke of Hamilton and his Scottish army. The castle then had numerous owners, ending up with Pudsey Dawson, High Sheriff of Lancashire for 1845.
Dawson commissioned the Lancaster architects Sharpe and Paley to rebuild much of the structure and this was carried out between 1847 and 1850. The architects retained the older parts, including the polygonal tower, but rebuilt the front of the castle, adding wings and a portico, and replacing the round tower with a square one. Further additions and alterations were made later in the 19th century.
Tags: Lancashire Hornby Hornby Castle Grade I-listed buildings country houses Victorian architecture 16th century towers
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Hornby Castle, which dates back to the 13th century, but is now in effect a Victorian country house, overlooks the River Wenning and the village of Hornby in the north of Lancashire.
Tags: Lancashire Hornby Hornby Castle River Wenning rivers
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