Taking a route less travelled, this post takes a look at Walney Island off Cumbria’s Lake District Peninsular, a lesser-known but undeniably charming destination complete with quaint cottages, expansive beaches, historic ruins and ample wildlife:
Located off north west England’s Cumbrian coast, Walney Island is a less busy alternative to the Lake District National Park, which is a mere twenty minute drive away. Over five square miles in size, the island is one of the largest in the Irish Sea and includes the hamlets and villages of North Scale, Vickerstown, South End and Biggar. Two nature reserves sit at either end of the island, while the coast-to-coast beaches make the island popular in the summer months.
Dating back to the late neolithic era, Walney Island was believed to have been most notably first inhabited by Norse colonies before the arrival of Catholic monks in the Middle Ages. It was the Abbot of the nearby Furness Abbey who had a castle constructed on a small island off the coast of Walney’s southern tip; Piel Castle, a 14th-century Grade I-listed building, which can be walked to from Walney Island at low tide.
Though the Island’s population significantly increased upon the arrival of the Industrial Revolution (housing workers from the mainland in the island’s more urban Vickerstown), the vast majority of the island is still pastoral, with acres of farms and horse paddocks joining the nature reserves in the south and north of the island.
It was sometime after Wordsworth wrote about the island in his 1810 book Guide to the Lakes that the island acquired its first bridge. Constructed in 1908, and reopened as Jubilee Bridge in 1935 by The Queen Mother, the road and pedestrian bridge is the only entry and exit point to the island, sometimes cutting off the people of Walney from the mainland in bad weather.
If you’re looking for quaint cottages, winding lanes and pretty gastropubs, North Scale is the ideal village, located at the northern tip of the island – the last village before the Walney Island Airfield, North Walney Nature Reserve (home to one fifth of England’s natterjack toads), and several acres of horse paddocks. On the south end of the island lies the historic hamlet of Biggar, riding schools, holiday parks, Walney lighthouse and the South Walney Nature Reserve – site of Special Scientific Interest within a 130 hectare wildlife reserve, home to seals and over 300 species of bird. The reserve features picnic areas, public toilets and bird hides for wildlife spotting. Alternatively you can spy on the colony of grey seals from the comfort of your own home on their online web cam here.
Off the coast of South Walney sits Piel Castle, an island castle built in the 14th century which, at particularly low tide, can be reached on foot from Walney, alternatively there is a ferry from the mainland. Piel Island has an enchanting aura like something out of a fairy tale, particularly when the medieval castle is caught in a low mist and is a simple and affordable day out with plenty to explore on the island, surrounded on all sides by beaches. Find out more about the island and the castle on English Heritage’s website here.
View more Pretty Places across England by browsing the ‘Pretty Places‘ tag, posts include other North West villages such as Whalley in Lancashire, Styal in Cheshire or Buxton in Derbyshire, or view other towns further afield such as Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, Lincoln in Lincolnshire or Shrewsbury in Shropshire.
images: scene therapy and creative commons