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WALK 1

South from Silverdale: Jack Scout, Jenny Brown’s Point and Heald Brow

Start/Finish	Silverdale, end of Shore Road (SD 458749)
Distance	3½ miles (5.6km)
Total Ascent	75m (246ft)
Time	2–2½hrs
Refreshments	Silverdale Hotel on Shore Road, Royal Hotel in village centre; cafés in Silverdale and at Kayes Nursery Gardens and Wolfhouse Gallery
Toilets	Silverdale near Gaskell Hall
Parking	Public car park on shore

The route offers varied, mostly easy walking with stunning views across the bay. There is a stretch of lane walking at the start, since erosion of the salt-marsh has removed the easy walking along the base of the cliffs. A short section past Brown’s Houses may be impassable for a time at the highest tides. The ascent of Heald Brow includes some rough and rocky sections.

Start from the car park (honesty box) at the end of Shore Road. Park carefully as the highest tides can cover the car park. Walk back towards the village along Shore Road, and 40m before the Silverdale Hotel turn right along a gravel drive between a house and a garage. A footpath leads on to emerge at Lindeth Road. Turn right and walk past Kayes Nursery Gardens to a junction at Wolfhouse Gallery. Keep straight on the narrower lane at Gibraltar Farm past Lindeth Tower and soon there is access on the right to Jack Scout, a National Trust area of heathland. Descend to see the restored limekiln. See how the top of the kiln was lined with sandstone to prevent the kiln itself burning away.

Limekiln at Jack Scout

Continue on the path opposite the kiln, over a slight rise and curving left. Soon you reach the edge of Cow’s Mouth; keep along the cliff top on a fenced path with beautiful views over the bay. Don’t miss the Giant’s Seat, a few metres up grass on the left, a large slab of limestone with a walled back, in a commanding position.

THE GIANT’S SEAT

The prospect is so good that the seat is irresistible. It is an excellent spot to watch the tide racing in, far more reassuring than from the foot of the cliffs! In winter you will see huge flocks of dunlin and knott which congregate in tight groups and feed on the sand. You may also see shelduck, although without binoculars it is difficult to see the distinctive tan flash on their breast. Views across the bay are wide – from the clustered tiered houses of Grange on the right, past the low wooded hump of Humphrey Head to the distant chimneys of Barrow. On the left are the squat towers of Heysham Power Station. Dominating everything is the expanse of glistening water channels and sands of the bay.

The Giant’s Seat

To continue the walk from the Giant’s Seat regain the path by the fence and pass a stile on the right where the Low Tide Adventure Scramble comes in (see below). At a little dip another stile can be crossed to the shore if you enjoy scrambling across the rocks or the sticky walking of the sands. An easier route lies along the path across a bushy dip and up to a right fork through a gate. Continue to another gate and exit onto the lane. There is a viewpoint seat a few yards to the right, where the remains of the old breakwater can be seen. Keep along the lane to Jenny Brown’s Point.

The ruined stone jetty of Jenny Brown’s Point was built to facilitate the construction of the copper smelt mill. It is difficult to imagine ships tying up against it, but at the time, in the late 18th century, the channel must have been deep enough. From the same point there is a ruined stone embankment which runs a considerable distance into the bay. This is a relic of an over-ambitious land reclamation scheme of 1873. It was intended to reclaim the marshes between Jenny Brown’s Point and Hest Bank, but the company ran out of funds and the scheme was abandoned. The embankment lay buried beneath the sand until 1977, when changes in the channel revealed it. Now it has been breached by the channel and is being destroyed.

Jenny Brown was a nanny who was drowned whilst saving her charges from the rising tide.

The road is a popular access point for motorists but with very limited parking space and even more awkward turning space. Behind is a long quarry, where stone was obtained for the breakwater. Round the corner, go onto the rocky shore, just before Brown’s Houses and reach the prominent chimney.

This chimney was built around 1800 and it was believed to a remnant of a copper smelting works active from 1780–1820. Other theories to the chimney’s origins include a mine ventilation shaft, a relic of a water-pumping scheme or a beacon to guide ships bringing ore for the Leighton Beck furnace. Copper was mined on the hill close by in Elizabethan times and until much later across the marsh at Crag Foot on the flanks of Warton Crag. The chimney at Crag Foot was part of a pumping station which drained the flat land around Leighton Moss.

Continue along the turf, cross a stile and reach a signpost at an embankment, the relic of the Crag Foot scheme. Here you leave the coast and take a path left, signed Heald Brow. The path is well marked and climbs, occasionally over bare rock, to a wicket gate. Continue through trees to the pastures on top of Heald Brow. Go over a stile and continue at the side of a wall, pass a gap in another wall and cross a little triangular wood above a barn. Through a gate join a narrow walled track and turn right to reach the road. Wolfhouse Gallery, a craft centre, art gallery and café, lies a few minutes down the road to the left.

Cross the road slightly right and descend a path signed Woodwell, which runs below the long line of overgrown crags. A square pool is reached, called Woodwell, whose waters are fuelled by a well at the foot of the crags. Woodwell was once an important watering spot for drovers’ cattle, and is now a popular picnic spot. There is an adjacent car park and from it, by a seat, a path runs into Bottoms Wood. In Spring the floor of the wood is carpeted first with wood anemones, followed by garlic-scented ramsons. Pass through a gap in a wall and turn right along a path to the first houses of Silverdale village. Having passed a cottage, keep right on a path between the houses and the woods. Go through a walled snicket and pass a private lane to reach the main road. Turn left along this and down Shore Road back to the car park.