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[Beatrix Gerke]

Morecambe Bay is an estuary in north-west England, just to the south of the Lake District National Park. It is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the United Kingdom, covering a total area of 120 sq mi (310 km2). In 1974, the second largest gas field in the UK was discovered 25 mi (40 km) west of Blackpool, with original reserves of over 7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) (200 billion cubic metres). At its peak, 15% of Britain's gas supply came from the bay but production is now in decline. Morecambe Bay is also an important wildlife site, with abundant birdlife and varied marine habitats.

The rivers Leven, Kent, Keer, Lune and Wyre drain into the Bay, with their various estuaries making a number of peninsulas within the bay. Much of the land around the bay is reclaimed, forming salt marshes used in agriculture. The bay is known for its wildlife populations, being a Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area and a Site of Special Scientific Interest,[2] and there is a bird observatory at Walney Island. Some of the surrounding land is also a protected area, forming the Morecambe Bay Pavements, home to rare butterflies such as the high brown fritillary. The bay has rich cockle beds, which have been fished by locals for generations.

There are seven main islands in the bay, all to the west; Walney, Barrow, Sheep, Piel, Chapel, Foulney and Roa. Walney is substantially larger than the others, with its southern tip marking the north-western corner of the Bay. Sheep, Piel, Chapel and Foulney Islands are tidal and can be walked to at low tide with appropriate care. Local guidance should be sought if walking to Chapel or Piel islands as fast tides and quicksand can be extremely dangerous. Roa Island is linked to the mainland by a causeway, while Barrow Island has been connected to the mainland as part of the docks system at Barrow-in-Furness.[3]

The extensive sandflats are the remains of a vast sandur or outwash plain established by meltwaters as the last ice age waned. Sea-level was still some 3m below present day levels at the start of the Holocene some 11,000 years ago.[4][5]

The Greek geographer and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (died c170 AD) referred in his writings to Morikambe eischusis as a location on Britain's west coast, lying between the Ribble and the Solway. The sixteenth-century scholar William Camden identified the locality as being near Silloth, hence the similar name of that bay but the eighteenth century antiquarian John Horsley who translated Ptolemy into English in 1732 favoured it being the bay on the then Lancashire/Cumberland border. In 1771 historian John Whitaker took up this latter suggestion[6] and the name appeared on maps subsequently. The first recorded to do so being one associated with Father Thomas West's Antiquities of Furness of 1774. Camden believed the name originated with two words meaning crooked sea whilst West offered up white/beautiful haven though current thought is that it refers to a curve of the sea.[7]

There have been royally appointed local guides (holding the post of King's Guide to the Sands) for crossing the bay for centuries. This difficulty of crossing the bay added to the isolation of the land to its north which, due to the presence of the mountains of the Lake District, could only be reached by crossing these sands or by ferry, until the Furness Railway was built in 1857. This skirts the edge of the bay, crossing the various estuaries. The London-Glasgow railway also briefly runs alongside the bay - the only place where the West Coast Main Line actually runs alongside the coast.

Around 320,000 people live along the coastline of Morecambe Bay,[10] with the largest town being Barrow-in-Furness to the west. Morecambe was once a popular seaside holiday destination, whilst Barrow still relies on the seas for a large percentage of its economy in ship and submarine construction.

The bay has Britain's second-largest natural gas field,[11] in the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone with a seal of Mercia Mudstone[12] and a Carboniferous source.[11] The South Morecambe Field, covering an area of 32 sq mi (83 km2), was discovered in 1974 and the first gas came ashore in 1985.[13] The North Morecambe Field, found in 1976, 8 mi (13 km) to the north, is 11 sq mi (28 km2) and started production in 1994.[13] Both are operated by Centrica Energy.[13] They are 25 mi (40 km) west of Blackpool in 30 metres of water;[13] the top of the gas reservoir is at a depth of just 900 m (3,000 ft), necessitating slant drilling for the first time in European waters.[12] The combined gas reserves on discovery were estimated at 179 billion cubic metres (6.45 trillion cubic feet (tcf)).[13] A further 0.65tcf is recognised in the satellite fields of Bains, Calder (Rivers), Dalton, Millom East and Millom West, and a number of smaller fields have been identified.[13]

The gas is landed at three terminals at Westfield Point in Barrow-in-Furness, collectively referred to as the Rampside Gas Terminal.[13] The South Morecambe Central Processing Complex is connected via a 36-inch pipeline to the South Morecambe terminal.[13] North Morecambe gas has a different composition so the unmanned Drilling and Production Platform is linked by a separate 36" wet sealine to the North Morecambe Terminal, where it is stripped of water, CO2 and nitrogen.[13] The Rivers Terminal has a dedicated pipeline for sour gas from the Calder field, which must be stripped of hydrogen sulphide before processing by the North Morecambe Terminal.[13] The hydrogen sulphide is converted to sulphuric acid which is sold for industrial use. In 1991 a 229 MW CCGT power plant was opened near the terminals, on the site of the former coal-fired Roosecote Power Station. There is a support base at Heysham Port and personnel are typically moved by helicopter from Blackpool International Airport.[13] Five rig workers and the two pilots of a Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin were lost when it crashed in sight of the platform on 27 December 2006.[14]

In 2004, a proposal was made to build a bridge across the bay flanked by wind turbines and using tidal power.[18][19][20] Proposals from Northern Tidal Power Gateways in 2019 outlined a tidal barrage with a road running along on top.[21][22]

Of all the footpaths and byways that criss-cross our ancient landscape probably the most enigmatic are those that cannot be mapped because of their very impermanence. Such routes can only be defined by their start and end points rather than the space that lies in between. These conduits of human movement are impermanent in the sense that their course is forever obliged to change with the whims of nature. What is fixed is the historical notion of the route rather than the precise territory that has been traversed. Like shipping routes that must studiously avoid rocks but which have a freer rein in safe channels, footways across tidal estuaries are fluid and everchanging. One celebrated historic route is that which crosses Morecambe Bay on the south Cumbrian coast.

Men and women have been crossing Morecambe Bay for centuries, millennia even, but the passage has always been fraught with the danger of quicksand and fast-moving incoming tides. The tragedy that befell a group Chinese cockle diggers stranded here a decade ago is still fresh in the national psyche. Caught by the perfidious tide, abandoned by unscrupulous gangmasters, the poor migrants that perished here were caught out by both nature and the greed and indifference of their exploiters.

The weather forecast for our crossing from Arnside to Kents Bank was anything but auspicious, with predictions of heavy rain and the threat of the summer storms that had already tormented the south of England making an unwelcome appearance. Come the day though, there seemed to be nothing worse than light drizzle and low cloud.

Something of the order of one hundred people had assembled at the jetty at Arnside for the 11am start across the bay. Cedric appeared on cue to blow his whistle and lead a colourfully (yet sensibly) clad crocodile of hikers, geocachers, dog-walkers and other outdoorsy types along the high street and past a caravan site before venturing out across the estuary. Leaving dry land behind, the group soon becomes an ambulant community, a walking-talking organism worming its way west across the sands. Crossing is exhilarating rather than a solemn trudge and the next three hours pass quickly as we walk briskly over rippled sand and wade through knee-high through channels of the River Kent, its fresh water surprisingly warm.

Morecambe and Knott End coastguards were called to the scene, along with the Morecambe RNLI crew. As a result of the accident the RNLI have warned members of the public "to always be vigilant on the sands".

In 1996 a young man cheated death by minutes after spending a night trapped in the quicksand. The gentleman was neck deep in water when he was pulled from the sands. After the accident the gentleman explained how he realised he would have to sit and wait for the tide to come and wipe him out.

The dangers of Morecambe Bay cannot be under estimated, between Walney Island and Fleetwood at the mouth of the Bay, and the coastline behind, is an area of 195 square miles. At extreme low tides the 120 square miles are exposed as a sandy desert.

It is important to note that the sinking sands move with the tide and weather and therefore if people wish to walk along the route it would be sensible to book a guide. There are trained people who know the tide and the areas to cross to make the trip safe. Any internet search engine will recommend highly skilled people to assist you.

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