7.31 miles 3h 43min ascent 135m
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito in the room.
Eric Morecambe
If Day One of the Comedy Way was the ‘main course’, and Day Two the “dessert”, the third day was “coffee and biscuits”, a winding-down, an easier outing. We walked along canal tow-paths, pavements and a beachfront promenade with only the gentlest gradients. All in all, a good way to complete our walk around Morecambe Bay.
It was a walk of four parts: the main street of Carnforth; the Lancaster Canal; Mount Pleasant; and then Morecambe’s promenade.
We took the train to Carnforth Station/Milford Junction and then headed up Market Street. Most of the buildings were built using a yellowish stone and I was using most of my brain’s processing power wondering what it was. The walk so far had been in limestone country. [The answer: millstone grit (sandstone)]. I should have taken a photo for illustration. My only photo was the War memorial and that doesn’t show any of the stone buildings.
It was only a brief stroll up to the Lancaster Canal where we swapped the road traffic for a quiet towpath .
The canal dates back to the early years of the industrial revolution, built between 1792 and 182o to carry coal north from the Lancashire coalfields, and limestone south from Cumbria. Its local nickname was the Black and White Canal. It commercial success declined with the development of the railways though it continued to carry cargo until 1947. Trade has now been replaced with pleasure craft but the construction of the M6 in the 1960s cut off the canal’s northern section. The only things we saw moving on the water were mallards, moorhens and swans. I read that a horse would pull a fully laden boat at three and a half miles per hour and keep that pace up all day. That was quicker than us but we were dawdling to look at flowers and photograph ducklings.
It would have been possible to stay on the tow-path all the way to Hest Bank but the Comedy Way leaves the canal at Bridge 127 for a climb over Mount Pleasant which gave us a brief change of scenery and some nice views across Morecambe Bay.
The farm at Mount Pleasant has some grand looking buildings. The walled garden has a corner belvedere and I mistook the stone barn for a chapel at first. It looks very impressive and has ecclesiastical windows.
The footpath became a farm track at Mount Pleasant farm and morphed into a very minor road near the entrance to Hawkshead Hall (which we couldn’t see). We followed this road all the way into Bolton-le-Sands. The only traffic was a single car that passed us far too close and going too fast. I tend to stop the car and let pedestrians walk past if there is no verge and even then I’d slow down.
The guidebook said we would enter Bolton-le-Sands at a primary school. And we did, hearing the characteristic children-in-playground sound long before we could see the school. The church was one of the few not flying a flag on this walk.
Then we were back to the towpath which took us past some very grand looking houses in Hest Bank. A canal longboat named “Bug-a-Rit” made me chuckle.
There were several life size skeltons, and some Star Wars characters beside the water. A woman walking her dog told us that the displays are changed for special occasions like halloween.
Our canal walk was coming to an end. The guidebook told us to leave the tow path at a picnic area after Bridge 117. The picnic benches were quite a way past bridge 117 and we had begun to think we had missed it, re-checking the map and getting out the guidebook. But it was obvious when we reached it. A footpath took us into a housing estate and down to Marine Drive. Despite the quaint name this was a busy major road (the A5105) and I was pleased to find a pelican crossing (are they still called that?).
Well. For your edification: zebra crossings have black and white stripes on the road and belisha beacons; pelican crossings have a button to press and red/green man signals; puffin crossings are pelican crossings but with sensors that detect when a pedestrian has finished crossing the road; while toucan crossings are for pedestrians and cyclists. Yes we crossed at a pelican crossing.
The begging of Morecambe Promenade is marked by a Welcome to Morecambe sign and a mosaic-tile covered monument, by a local artist, Shane Johnstone. It was erected in 2005 to commemorate the 24 cockle-pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay the year before. Its official name is Love, The Most Beautiful Of Absolute Disasters, though it is commonly called Venus and Cupid. The small grassy area it sits on was once a gun emplacement.
We promenaded into the centre of town, channelling our inner Victorian holiday maker, twirling our imaginary parasols. The town’s golden age was in the first half of the twentieth century and like many seaside towns it saw decline with the advent of cheap overseas holidays. In the latter half of the twentieth century it was described as “the coastal town they forgot to close down” and was the inspiration for the book “Crap Towns” by Sam Jordison.
But the town is making efforts to smarten itself up. The sea front and promenade have been smartened up and obviously the views never lost their beauty. There is now a large relief to help people identify the hills visible across the bay. It is quite an impressive installation but a challenge to photograph being so large.
It seemed to take a long time to reach the Eric Morecambe statue, the official end of the Comedy Way. So much so that I began to wonder if it had been moved. Audrey had some idea that it wasn’t on the actual promenade. I had been pretty certain it was but began to doubt myself. But not far beyond the promenade clock we spotted Eric Morecambe’s head.
His statue has been there for over 25 years and depicts the comedian in his famous “bring me sunshine” pose. Several of his catchphrases are engraved on the paving along with a list of all the celebrities who had appeared on his shows.
With the Comedy Way completed we sat below Eric Morecambe’s statue to eat our sandwiches. Then it was off to the train station for our ride back to Grange. Morecambe seems to be celebrating seagulls – we passed several statues depicting the birds. Noisy nuisance or natural winder? You decide.
The Comedy Way: the guidebook distance is 30.5 miles, our GPS distance was 33.1 miles (we actually walked 33.8 with the distance to and from railway stations at the beginning and end).
