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WALK 2

North from Silverdale: White Creek, Heathwaite and Arnside Tower

Start/Finish	Silverdale, end of Shore road (SD 458749)
Distance	5¾ miles (9.25km)
Total Ascent	110m (360ft)
Time	3½–4½hrs
Refreshments	Silverdale Hotel on Shore Road, Royal Hotel in village centre; Cafes in Silverdale and at the entrance to Holgates Caravan Park
Toilets	Silverdale near Gaskell Hall
Parking	Public car park on shore
Note	This walk must be started at low tide as all of the first section is impassable at high tide and inadvisable when the tide is coming in, although there are numerous escape points. The sea sweeps in with great speed to the foot of the cliffs. Check the tide tables. Great care needs to be taken especially at the times of the highest spring and autumn tides. Walking is rough, with a mixture of stones, bedrock scrambling and sandy beach. Although it may be tempting to go well out onto the sands, bear in mind that quicksands can occur even close to the shore. The cliff top path is narrow and exposed. From White Creek the walking is easy. The High Tide Route (see below) involves more lane walking and is less interesting.

Silverdale was a popular bathing resort in the 1840s but declined as the salt-marsh grew and the estuary foreshore became muddier. The Kent channel swings to and fro and by 1900 the Silverdale salt-marsh of the time had been removed by erosion, as has happened again over the last 30 years. The marsh was at its widest in the mid-1970s when a walk around the base of the cliffs was on turf not unlike a bowling green. The route can be linked with Walk 10 to provide a longer circuit.

Silverdale Cove

Start from the car park (honesty box) at the end of Shore Road. Park carefully as the highest tides can cover the car park.

Within the car park is a spring, Bard Well, which was covered when the car park was first built, but after water forced a way through the rubble it was edged with stones.

Walk north below low limestone cliffs.

THE SILVERDALE CLIFFS

On the right just as The Cove is reached, lies the deep red gash of Red Rake. This was once tunnelled by miners in search of copper and haematite. The entrance has since collapsed, but the site is interesting to geologists. Erosion of the turf has exposed some metal posts of uncertain origin.

On the opposite side of the Cove is a black circular hole in the cliffs, a conspicuous landmark which invites a scramble into its interior. It is a phreatic cave, originally worn by underground water pressure when the water level was higher, and has possibly been enlarged by human activity.

The most interesting of the Silverdale caves lies about 100m further north along the cliffs. Its entrance is a low porch, just about head high and in wet weather it is guarded by a shallow pool. Inside the roof is higher and the cave can be explored with a torch. A tall, narrow rift leads on, past a small rock scramble to end in a small chamber.

Continue along the foot of the cliffs past a jutting headland where the channel reaches the rocks and reach a bay where an escape can be made to the nearby road to the high-tide alternative route (see below). The vegetated cliffs are a veritable vertical rockery.

A variety of plants sprouts from the pink and grey shattered limestone, including wild strawberries, stonecrop, coltsfoot, thrift and celandine – and a few wallflowers, probably escapees from nearby gardens.

At low tide the rocky headland which follows is easily passed close to the channel. Another small headland leads into a broad stretch of sand, where the cliff is topped by the green holiday homes at Far Arnside. A small headland necessitates a rough scramble to pass into a wide sandy bay, still below the extensive holiday park. At the end of a shingle beach, where the woodland comes down to the shore, there is a path into trees to gain the cliff-top path to meet the alternative high-tide route.

The gangway up the cliff has a tricky step

If you like the scramble along the shore, continue along the shore as there are frequent opportunities to join the cliff-top path. Reach a shallow bay with wave strewn shingle. Grange-over-Sands is seen beyond the next headland. There is an exciting scramble along a rising rock gangway up the cliffs. This narrows and has an exposed step near its top. Turn left along the cliff-top path. If this is too daunting, continue round the headland to reach a small inlet with an obvious path through a gap in a wall to join the cliff-top path and turn left.

The path keeps close to the cliff edge and is narrow and exposed in places, although its situation makes it perhaps the most scenic coastal path in the north-west as it twists above rocky coves on a narrow grassy ribbon on the edge of the dense woods. As the path turns a corner at Park Point ignore a gangway path down to the sands, and keep on the cliff top with fine views across the bay to the south Lakeland fells.

At the cove of White Creek ignore a path left at a wall. Keep straight on in the woods, with the wall on your left, passing the junction of another path coming in on the right. Turn right at a T-junction a few metres further (left leads to a gate and White Creek Caravan Site). Keep straight on where the forest track swings left into private woods, up the long hill amongst the trees of Arnside Park. This is not a right-of-way, but is a very well used path. The landowner requests that dogs are kept under strict control. At last the path levels and a gate is reached into the National Trust area of Heathwaite.

The clearing on the right, with widespread views over Morecambe Bay, is Cowslip Field. This is an area from which rabbits have been excluded and the resulting wildflower meadow is a delight to see. The area is noted for its abundant butterflies, notably the rare Duke of Burgundy fritillary.

Our onward path continues in the woods on the left side, near the entry point of Cowslip Field, descending slightly to a gate then steeply up to the lovely, more open top of Heathwaite. Keep straight on over the summit and descend through trees to a major path junction. Turn left, and through the gate ahead turn right on Saul’s Drive bridleway, signed Arnside Tower, gradually descending around the steep base of Arnside Knott.

On the left are the steep shattered screes of the shilla slopes formed by glacial action and weathering. (Shilla is a local word for scree.) The lower slopes show evidence of quarrying. The slopes are of particular interest to geologists and are easily damaged. A lot of stabilising work has been done and people are requested to keep off the delicate slopes.

The path descends to the road; cross over and continue on the farm lane towards the prominent ruin of Arnside Tower.

ARNSIDE TOWER

Arnside Tower is the largest of the pele towers in the area and was built in the 15th century as a defence against marauding Scots, although an earlier tower was built on the same site in 1375. Its position on a low saddle between Arnside Knott and Middlebarrow makes it a distinctive landmark, and in times of danger signals could be seen from other nearby towers and across the bay. The ruin is in a dangerous condition and should not be entered. During a violent storm in 1884 a corner of the tower collapsed.

Keep to the right of the farmhouse, through a gate and up a grassy slope to pass the stark ruin. Do not go through the stile beyond the tower, but take the gate immediately before the stile on the right, signed Holgates Caravan Site Cove Road, which opens on to a green lane pleasantly bordered by a hedgerow rich in flowers.